The Far Right: Triumph of Idiocy
There is a correlation between the decline of intelligence and the rise of ultra-populism in rich countries.
My brain operates at a slower speed than it did in the 20th century, and this is not necessarily related to old age. During that pre-digital prehistory, I stored much more information. My memory held 20 phone numbers; now I only know my own. I used to keep routes in my head for getting from point A to point B or decipher paper maps to get to unfamiliar places. Now I use Google Maps to go out and buy bread.
And it is like that with everything. Historical dates or birthdays, addresses, mathematical calculations, quotes from books, my weekly schedule. Or, for my work, synonyms. I used to wrack my brain for them; now I go to ChatGPT. I used to do translations from Spanish to English or vice versa myself. That is no longer necessary. I still read books, but fewer. TV series require less mental effort.
In short, I am more idiotic than I used to be. (“Idiotic” means, according to the Real Academia Espanola, “foolish or slow-witted.”) The consolation is that I am not alone. All of us, or almost all of us, are more idiotic than we used to be. The data proves it. I read the other day in the Financial Times that, globally, the average person's ability to reason and solve problems has been in decline since 2010. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the club for rich countries, says that literacy and numeracy are either stagnating or declining in most supposedly developed countries.
Where are we headed? Back to the caves, or up into the trees? We will see. But where the direction is clear is in the realm of politics. It does not take any special deductive skills to see that. There is a mathematical correlation between the decline of intelligence and the rise, precisely here in the rich countries, of ultra-populism. There is a new law of science: The more idiotic you are, the more you will vote for the extreme right. (Don’t worry: Argentina, being a special, unique country, is a special, unique case.) But here in the north, it is as true as the sun rising in the east that the people who have the least use for their brains, ergo the most easily manipulated, are the ones who vote the most for Donald Trump in the United States, for Brexit in England, for Vox in Spain.
Here, another 21st century phenomenon comes into play, another reason why we are more idiotic: social media. Debate has been democratized to absurd extremes. Everyone believes that their opinion is equally valid. “The experts” are the enemy. They know too much. It is becoming increasingly difficult to have a debate based on shared facts. People live on the same planet, but inhabit different mental universes. It is the age of digital atomization, encouraged by anonymity on social media and anonymity in the “comments” section of digital versions of newspapers. Cowards become brave. They have a license to insult with impunity.
Who benefits most politically from this unfortunate convergence of circumstances? Perhaps one day it will be the radical left, but for now it is the far right. Let us look at the common denominator of Trump supporters, Brexiteers, and Vox supporters: immigration. They all fear it. It generates emotion, not reasoning, a virtue that, as we can see, is falling into disuse. I read in the Spanish press this week that “the labor market has exceeded 22 million employed people for the first time.” But Vox tells us that immigrants are taking our jobs. Of course, this argument is, above all, an attempt to dignify the fear of the outsider, the foreigner. It is an attempt, not very successful, to conceal what lies beneath, which is racism.
Being American and anti-immigrant (Trump's mother was Scottish; his grandfather, German) is ironic. So is being Spanish and anti-immigrant. It is another sign of ignorance, in this case, historical ignorance, since until not so long ago Spain deported people to Germany, Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico. I have an aunt who fled Barcelona for Mexico in early 1939 when she was 6 months old, together with (fortunately) her two parents, both communists; a double reason, I suppose, for Vox to oppose her plan now, 86 years later, to return to live, and surely to die, in the country where she was born.
The irrational fear that feeds Vox (and Trump, too) is expressed in the emotion that defines our era, and which Vox (and Trump, too) inflames: rage. The sector of society that Vox attracts considers immigrants to be legitimate objects of hatred. From hatred to violence, as the Nazi playbook teaches us, is one small step.
It would be comical, if it were not so sad, that anti-immigrant sentiment is spreading in Spain to tourists. I cannot walk down the street in Barcelona without seeing graffiti on a wall that says, “Fuck off tourists!” Recently, I even saw one that said, “Fuck off expats!” referring to those who come here to work for a few years. What is the source of so much anger? Immigrants and outsiders in general, I suspect, are the pretext. There must be something more underlying it, because in countries like Spain, and in the United States and Europe in general, things are not so bad, and, in the real world, immigrants contribute more to society than they take away. An Argentine coming to live in Spain is a loss for Argentina and a gain for Spain. Such anger is unjustified.
Could it be based on the not entirely mistaken perception that machines are stealing our humanity? That we feel we are becoming idiots at a rapid pace, accelerated even more by artificial intelligence? Is it, in short, a kind of existential despair?
There is some of that, or a lot of it, I suspect. And right now, in the political world, it is the rabid, intellectually empty, extreme right wing that is gaining followers. Yes, we are more idiotic than before, but some are more idiotic than others.
My brain operates at a slower speed than it did in the 20th century, and this is not necessarily related to old age. During that pre-digital prehistory, I stored much more information. My memory held 20 phone numbers; now I only know my own. I used to keep routes in my head for getting from point A to point B or decipher paper maps to get to unfamiliar places. Now I use Google Maps to go out and buy bread.
And it is like that with everything. Historical dates or birthdays, addresses, mathematical calculations, quotes from books, my weekly schedule. Or, for my work, synonyms. I used to wrack my brain for them; now I go to ChatGPT. I used to do translations from Spanish to English or vice versa myself. That is no longer necessary. I still read books, but fewer. TV series require less mental effort.
In short, I am more idiotic than I used to be. (“Idiotic” means, according to the Real Academia Espanola, “foolish or slow-witted.”) The consolation is that I am not alone. All of us, or almost all of us, are more idiotic than we used to be. The data proves it. I read the other day in the Financial Times that, globally, the average person's ability to reason and solve problems has been in decline since 2010. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the club for rich countries, says that literacy and numeracy are either stagnating or declining in most supposedly developed countries.
Where are we headed? Back to the caves, or up into the trees? We will see. But where the direction is clear is in the realm of politics. It does not take any special deductive skills to see that. There is a mathematical correlation between the decline of intelligence and the rise, precisely here in the rich countries, of ultra-populism. There is a new law of science: The more idiotic you are, the more you will vote for the extreme right. (Don’t worry: Argentina, being a special, unique country, is a special, unique case.) But here in the north, it is as true as the sun rising in the east that the people who have the least use for their brains, ergo the most easily manipulated, are the ones who vote the most for Donald Trump in the United States, for Brexit in England, for Vox in Spain.
Here, another 21st century phenomenon comes into play, another reason why we are more idiotic: social media. Debate has been democratized to absurd extremes. Everyone believes that their opinion is equally valid. “The experts” are the enemy. They know too much. It is becoming increasingly difficult to have a debate based on shared facts. People live on the same planet, but inhabit different mental universes. It is the age of digital atomization, encouraged by anonymity on social media and anonymity in the “comments” section of digital versions of newspapers. Cowards become brave. They have a license to insult with impunity.
Who benefits most politically from this unfortunate convergence of circumstances? Perhaps one day it will be the radical left, but for now it is the far right. Let us look at the common denominator of Trump supporters, Brexiteers, and Vox supporters: immigration. They all fear it. It generates emotion, not reasoning, a virtue that, as we can see, is falling into disuse. I read in the Spanish press this week that “the labor market has exceeded 22 million employed people for the first time.” But Vox tells us that immigrants are taking our jobs. Of course, this argument is, above all, an attempt to dignify the fear of the outsider, the foreigner. It is an attempt, not very successful, to conceal what lies beneath, which is racism.
Being American and anti-immigrant (Trump's mother was Scottish; his grandfather, German) is ironic. So is being Spanish and anti-immigrant. It is another sign of ignorance, in this case, historical ignorance, since until not so long ago Spain deported people to Germany, Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico. I have an aunt who fled Barcelona for Mexico in early 1939 when she was 6 months old, together with (fortunately) her two parents, both communists; a double reason, I suppose, for Vox to oppose her plan now, 86 years later, to return to live, and surely to die, in the country where she was born.
The irrational fear that feeds Vox (and Trump, too) is expressed in the emotion that defines our era, and which Vox (and Trump, too) inflames: rage. The sector of society that Vox attracts considers immigrants to be legitimate objects of hatred. From hatred to violence, as the Nazi playbook teaches us, is one small step.
It would be comical, if it were not so sad, that anti-immigrant sentiment is spreading in Spain to tourists. I cannot walk down the street in Barcelona without seeing graffiti on a wall that says, “Fuck off tourists!” Recently, I even saw one that said, “Fuck off expats!” referring to those who come here to work for a few years. What is the source of so much anger? Immigrants and outsiders in general, I suspect, are the pretext. There must be something more underlying it, because in countries like Spain, and in the United States and Europe in general, things are not so bad, and, in the real world, immigrants contribute more to society than they take away. An Argentine coming to live in Spain is a loss for Argentina and a gain for Spain. Such anger is unjustified.
Could it be based on the not entirely mistaken perception that machines are stealing our humanity? That we feel we are becoming idiots at a rapid pace, accelerated even more by artificial intelligence? Is it, in short, a kind of existential despair?
There is some of that, or a lot of it, I suspect. And right now, in the political world, it is the rabid, intellectually empty, extreme right wing that is gaining followers. Yes, we are more idiotic than before, but some are more idiotic than others.
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