It is Always Better to be “Right” than Smart

Taking confirmation bias to a whole new level.

Comic art by Dave Oliphant

You hear those simplistic arguments for “shaking things up,” and other shallow bromides from the Smartest Guys in the Room out among the electorate. Many of them vote Republican, of course, as they boldly assert that all politicians are the same. No one wants to look like a schmuck, so it is always better to be “right” than smart. Curiosity is weakness, certainty is faith.

Alan Greenspan built a career advocating for a deregulated national economy on the presumption that it is in corporations’ own best interest to self-regulate. “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders,” he said. But at least he acknowledged a mistake. Oops.

Before that, our captains of statecraft were certain about weapons of mass destruction and the socio-political reconstruction in Iraq. “Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ John Cleese recently virtually performed his one-man-show “Why There Is No Hope” due to the pandemic. If we didn’t bother forking over the $20 to…