The truth is that all of these fascists sound like morons and clowns. They’re buffoonish and stupid in how they read to anyone with an education (formal or informal). But then they gain power. And it’s not funny what they do, even though it’s the same moronic, buffoonish stupidity they’ve been saying and doing all along. Go back and read about the early Nazi party. People thought they were stupid clowns. And they were. And then they won on a technicality. And they were still stupid clowns. But with the power to do unbelievably horrible things.
So it doesn’t matter what you think of these people. It just matters what you do to them.
And the only thing to do with clownish buffoonish stupid people who want power is to make them know they are unwelcome in public wherever they are.
And they were still stupid clowns. But with the power to do unbelievably horrible things.
This is also why education is so important: It enables more people to recognize these morons for the idiots they are. Which is why one of the throughlines of any undemocratic system is to keep education away from people.
Education is not the only thing, i know some pretty well educated people, who will still buy into propaganda, it a mix of education and a more sceptical approach to information in general.
Educated people should have learned how to critically evaluate information. Not all colleges are equal though, you will get a better education at some than others. But even the general education courses at community colleges should teach you how to think critically and evaluate information. Education can’t get rid of human bias and susceptibility to propaganda that manipulates and justifies their emotions and their own prejudices though, but it should cause you to be able to self reflect and use critical reasoning.
There’s also a big difference between someone who barely passed their cc courses and wasn’t interested in actually learning (just passing), who then transfers to some local state college that accepts anyone and graduates almost everyone, who graduated because “Cs get degrees” and someone who actually put in the work to learn and retain the course material and went to a research university or a highly rated university that only accepts students who are actually putting in the work to master the material and even give their own intellectual contribution to their field of study.
So by “educated” what we mean is those who did the work in college to truly make themselves into an educated person, and who values education for its own sake, and not just a means to a certain job for example.
The only other time I’ve seen a dissonance between being highly educated from a decent school but having absolutely no ability to critically evaluate information online and in media, are men specifically in highly specialized fields like engineering, who may not have even taken or valued the kind of courses that teach that kind of abstract verbal reasoning and critical evaluation of media. This is why I think college needs an entire rehaul, with interdisciplinary being more of a focus and certain mandatory general education courses for everyone no matter your major, and no matter if you’re getting an arts or sciences degree.
MAGA people are skeptical of information lol, too skeptical of what they shouldn’t be, and too accepting of what they shouldn’t be. So it’s not that. It’s literally just knowing how to critically evaluate information that is presented to you. It’s learned in media literacy courses, English literature, research methods courses, psychology courses, statistics, etc. It should be taught in highschool though. Anyone PhD level will have these skills because it requires you to conduct your own research and therefore practice critical analysis.
The skills people are missing here are understanding how to acquire information that you can trust to be accurate, how to determine if information is accurate, how to check for potential bias in studies (for example how to check the funding source of the grant used for the study), how to read the methods section in a study, statistical analysis and how data can be misrepresented, how to check the sources of a journalism article, how to read the actual study that a flashy (but extremely misleading) headline is making a claim about, understanding the current media landscape with journalism being funded by clicks and amount of views and how that effects what is reported, what news sources are not biased, when can you trust an expert, how to combat social media algorithms that will create echo chambers and only give you information they think you’ll already agree with for clicks, how to identify when your emotions are being manipulated, biases in human psychology, etc.
These are desperately needed skills that highschools aren’t teaching. But it’s also an issue with people not paying attention in history class, schools not teaching global politics and geography, political science, etc. So many people don’t even understand what the president even does.
This is an issue with education at the lowest levels, including elementary school
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u/ahenobarbus_horse Jan 31 '25
The truth is that all of these fascists sound like morons and clowns. They’re buffoonish and stupid in how they read to anyone with an education (formal or informal). But then they gain power. And it’s not funny what they do, even though it’s the same moronic, buffoonish stupidity they’ve been saying and doing all along. Go back and read about the early Nazi party. People thought they were stupid clowns. And they were. And then they won on a technicality. And they were still stupid clowns. But with the power to do unbelievably horrible things.
So it doesn’t matter what you think of these people. It just matters what you do to them.
And the only thing to do with clownish buffoonish stupid people who want power is to make them know they are unwelcome in public wherever they are.