Being Real Smart

The most memorable social insights that I come across are usually letters to the editor or comments on a blog posting. The best bits in the London Times and the New York Times, for example, are most often in the letters to the editor.

Mike Lofgren wrote an op-ed in Truth-Out today, entitled Gates Agonistes, in which he speaks about understanding bright guy and former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.

Lofgren is probably correct, in my opinion, in what he says but what struck me most was in a comment on the op-ed in which the following words appear: 

Frankly, in America, today, being real smart usually makes you just that much more dangerous.

Dante was onto that in La Commedia by putting bright guys in the 9th, deepest circle of hell. Many readers of Dante have wrongly asserted that it is the neutrals, those who just stand there and lurk, those who don't participate, who are in the deepest hell.

But Dante put the “neutrals” in the very first circle, at the top. He said that our greatest strength, our greatest tool, is the mind, so it is obvious that a really bright guy is capable of doing a lot more harm  than someone who just stands on the sidelines and does nothing.

Doré: Ugolino Gnaws on the Head of Archbishop Ruggieri, 9th Circle

One of my academic colleagues accused me of “...promoting ignorance by vilifying the best and the brightest.”  But that's not it at all. I have no brief for ignorance. It's just that the brightest in a society based on selfishness do the most harm.