Sincere Ignorance And Conscientious Stupidity

“To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”(Alcott)

“There is nothing more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity” When Martin Luther King Jr. said this it was in the context of explaining the rationalization of the enslavement, mistreatment, and vilification of African Americans by the white community. African American slaves were thought to be an inferior species and thus deserving of their fate. Written in our Constitution is the formula for representation of the states where every man gets a single vote and the slaves were considered three fifths of a person and not considered to have rights (women – none at all).

We now recognize the pure folly of that way of thinking. Those who did think that way were sincere (in their ignorance) and were thought to be conscientious (in their stupidity).

It was the world as they thought it was - and should be. Other instances? People were persecuted because they said the Earth was round (when everyone knew it was flat). Saying that the Earth was not the center of the universe went against teachings of the Church – then arguably the most powerful institution in the world at that time – this too put one’s life at risk. Those representing the old-school way of thinking were sincere and conscientious (in their ignorance and stupidity).

I have no doubt that the Tea Party Republicans were “sincere” and “conscientious” when they came upon their political positions in the debt debate. It was with sincerity that led their ilk to say that defaulting on the debt would not be a bad thing; or that all we would have to do is just pay the interest. Tea Party thinkers must have been “conscientious” when they decided to use raising the debt ceiling to hold hostage the government and the nation. They used something that since the 1960’s has been raised over sixty times without much fanfare (and how many times under Bush the lesser?) to create a situation of brinkmanship that caught the world’s attention.

It was sincerity and conscientiousness in government fiscal policy that got us to this point (the only real product of bipartisanship). But that doesn’t excuse the kind of flat-earth thinking responsible for drastically affecting the markets negatively, but is also responsible for America’s credit rating to be downgraded. And they are not finished. To borrow a phrase from their camp, they’re going to “reload” or say, double-down on this kind of thinking – well in advance of this super committee that is supposed to hammer out more deficit reduction strategies.

What has been suspiciously absent from the conversation are the economists. Both sides say the same thing – excessive debt is bad. Gee thanks. And even though it isn’t considered good long term policy, economists know that when consumer spending takes a nose-dive, something has to take it’s place; the government.

That’s right. The very thing Tea Partiers flame on about. When we should be spending on infrastructure and building our way out of this recession, Tea Party screamers drag us in the opposite direction. I end as I began….“To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”