Thursday, February 8, 2018

The Arrogance of Knowledge

Susan, my wife,  pointed out that one of the basic assumptions of the more reasonable Trump followers is that it's arrogant to know things. Science is arrogant and evidence-based. Rational thought is a form of elitism, an unAmerican, coastal, prideful activity fostered by radical professors in colleges and universities. Coastal people believe in cultural conventions, mere inventions like facts, logic and evidence. That's not true in Heartland America, the real White America, where people just do what feels right.

If we would stop reasoning, we could admit that we don't know how global warming will turn out. Maybe God wants us to be warm. Is that so bad? There's no way to know, so why try to plan for a future that remains unpredictable? 

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