From Daniel Blatt's blog post comment stream:

If you’re an idiot, and you’re trying to help some other idiot get into a position of power to drag down civilization with your collective idiocy, the smarter among your countrymen are going to have some harsh words for you. I’m smarter than most conservatives, this is beyond any doubt. I’m also a better person – you guys have given up any claim to that argument with your morally decrepit positions on torture and wars. If that sounds condescending, it’s because it is. And you should probably spend more of your time teaching yourself things and thinking, rather than complain about the mean people that make fun off you for not being very smart.

People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future. The entire scope of human history has been a march of liberalism, and this jingoistic, laissez-faire, God-fearing path you fools are prescribing is only knocking us off the right track.

Comment by Levi — February 8, 2010 @ 11:22 pm - February 8, 2010

This piece of analysis evoked an involuntary chuckle from me. Liberals aren't even bothering to deny that they are condescending A-holes anymore--their out and proud!

I wonder if Levi has ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

"...people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. "Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

Or more succinctly:

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt --Bertrand Russell

This is a bit of oversimplification as it pertains to liberal condescension, since the overweaning sense of intellectual superior is often a mask for profound insecurity. The social outcasts in high school--the unattractive, athletically deficient, interpersonally awkward, and girlfriendless, almost always react to their discomfiture with a little psychological jiu jitsu. Rather than endure a sense of inferiority, they simply change the standards for social excellence to whatever flatters them personally.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this, except that a lot of people can't actually manage to convince themselves to believe the new order of things they've created. Their white hot animosity belies a persistent sense of inferiority, as if deep down, they know that its all a lie--it really is better to be good-looking, athletic and fluent in the social graces. While we're being totally honest, that stuff will get you a lot farther than burning intelligence.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.