> When we take things personally or respond emotionally, it is because we have reached the limit of our ability to reason about them abstractly.
> Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts.
But this is not purely a matter of raw, inherent intellectual potential. Academics are notorious for having a history of rationalizing power or depravity of all kinds. The tyrannies of communism, for example, were the product of intellectuals who exploited the vices of the "proletariat" as a cudgel against their opponents. Ultimately, these intellectuals were fools because they either actually believed the absurdity of communism or they exploited a communism they didn't actually believe to gain power for themselves and through especially wicked deeds, and all evil is, after all, foolish and opposed to reason. I object to the notion that the more intellectual potential you have, the less evil you are just because you have a greater potential for intelligence. You can choose to be unwise for emotional and vicious reasons, thus thwarting the exercise of reason when it leads you some place you cannot handle.
> Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts.
But this is not purely a matter of raw, inherent intellectual potential. Academics are notorious for having a history of rationalizing power or depravity of all kinds. The tyrannies of communism, for example, were the product of intellectuals who exploited the vices of the "proletariat" as a cudgel against their opponents. Ultimately, these intellectuals were fools because they either actually believed the absurdity of communism or they exploited a communism they didn't actually believe to gain power for themselves and through especially wicked deeds, and all evil is, after all, foolish and opposed to reason. I object to the notion that the more intellectual potential you have, the less evil you are just because you have a greater potential for intelligence. You can choose to be unwise for emotional and vicious reasons, thus thwarting the exercise of reason when it leads you some place you cannot handle.