I just read the Truthdig posting of Eugene Robinson's Washington Post column, "America Likes an Idiot, but It Needs Al Gore." Mr. Robinson may be regarded as a great asset to the Washington Post; but I think he really falls short when it comes to the insights raised by Frank Luntz in his book that I recently discussed, Words that Work. Since I have been reviewing some of the "laws" I have been discussing in my posts, I think it is important to add the take-away "laws" from that discussion:
- You are not going to persuade anyone of your position if the first thing you do is call that person stupid.
- Furthermore, you are not going to persuade that person if you call anyone that person clearly admires stupid.
Mr. Robinson's title has certainly played well with Truthdig readers, but those are not the people who need to be persuaded. Furthermore, as a result of his stomping them so energetically with his title, they are unlikely to make it to his object of persuasion, let alone take it seriously:
We need a brainiac president, a regular Mister or Miss Smarty-Pants president. We need to elect the kid you hated in high school, the teacher’s pet with perfect grades.
For my part I take Mr. Robinson seriously. I just think he is flat-out wrong. Had he spent less time and column-inches praising Mr. Gore for the books he reads and done a bit more reading for himself, he might have recognized the fallacy in the reasoning behind his punch line. I recommend that he start with Isaiah Berlin’s The Sense of Reality (not an inappropriate title) and go straight to the “Political Judgement” essay. Berlin tends to use big words and (far) longer sentences than Gore; but he makes some very challenging assertions and then leads his reader through the argumentative complexities necessary to substantiate them. However, for those who prefer to “cut to the chase,” the bottom line in this essay is that neither rich experience in book-learning nor even the skill to engage with “expert consultants” who know even more than you do provides appropriate preparation for the kind of deciding and acting that takes place in matters of government (or, for that matter, the military). The crux of the justification is that what Mr. Robinson calls “brainiacs” excel as generalists, while the day-to-day realities of a government or battlefield require dealing with the particular. Needless to say, the question of “presidential material” is an important one; but Mr. Robinson might consider exercising some of the traits he admires in addressing it!
2 comments:
Al Gore's political career is marked by his attention to the particular, so something here doesn't ring true -- like the counterfactual generalization and false dichotomy that “brainiacs” excel as generalists vs. being able to deal with the particular. Or do you think that all those Nobel Prize winners in science were dumb?
jqp raises some interesting points. The Nobel laureates in science certainly were not dumb; but, without taking the trouble to run a specific census, my guess is that most of those awards were for achievements in general theories. Indeed, all Nobel Prizes are basically "lifetime achievement" awards (as opposed to the Pulitzers, which are for very specific achievements). As a result the Nobel committees tend to take a generalist perspective.
Also, as a footnote to the intelligence of scientists, it is worth remembers that Einstein declined the invitation to serve as President of Israel; even though that post was largely ceremonial, he knew better than to get into such political waters!
Finally, if you look into the Berlin essay (or even the quotation to which I hyperlinked), you see that his example of someone with good political judgment is Bismarck. One certainly cannot accuse Bismarck of ignoring the particular. Rather, he knew how to delegate matters of the particular; so he could concentrate on the "bigger picture" of the general. I suspect that Gore used his staff (and others who worked with him in other situations) in the same manner.
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