Q Anon, Sacha Baron Cohen, and the Evangelicals
Again, I wonder…what if an IQ of 100 still means you are stupid? A couple of astonishing incidents lately brings back that question.
Evidence 1: Q Anon
Evidence one is the Q Anon. When I first heard of this movement, my first thought was a flashback to The X-Files with its easy-on-the-eyes stars conducting investigations into the paranormal. In the background of each weekly series was the overarching theme of government conspiracies: specifically government cover-up of the existence of UFOs and alien beings that crashed somewhere in the western US, possibly New Mexico. It was a fun TV series that I loved watching every week and it presented an aura of “truth” in that there had been books at the time about Area 51, aliens and government cover-ups. Did I believe in this theory of cover-ups? No, but it was fun to read about those theories and to conjecture.
What if the Q Anon believers were originally X-File fans and have over the years become so engulfed in its storyline that they have become susceptible to Q’s online posting?
Q Anon has its own conspiracies. As I understand it, Q Anon’s conspiracies seem to center around Hillary Clinton and her supporters (read or interpret as an umbrella term for Democrats) running pedophile rings. Or maybe the conspiracy is Donald Trump acting as some kind of superhero fighting a deep state that is trying to undermine the Trump presidency. The Mueller investigation is actually a cover for Donald Trump to secretly investigate said deep state.
Do people really believe this? I sometimes get an impression that some of those “believers” are really running a con on us, to test how far we would believe that they would believe such conspiracies. In a word, it’s a joke on us. So while some of the Q Anon supporters truly believe in these conspiracies, I feel like there are others who are really running a big joke on us. Or at least it’s plausible that it’s just a joke.
But for those who believe in the Q Anon conspiracies, it’s a sad statement on their critical thinking faculties. I’m sure those believers are just average people and if you were to meet them, you would not think they are morons. So as average people with average IQ of somewhere around 100 believing in the Q Anon conspiracies, are they stupid?
By the way, one of the leaders of this movement is apparently a New York lawyer. Think about that: a lawyer. Does this lawyer really believe in this stuff or is he part of the con? Is he conning us because he thinks it’s hysterical that people are buying this stuff? And is he making money off of people’s gullibility?
Evidence 2: Sacha Baron Cohen
Evidence two is the Sacha Baron Cohen TV series “This is America”, specifically the incidents about one of Georgia’s Congressman and another about a gun supporter. Both incidents entail Sacha Baron Cohen impersonating as an Israeli counterterrorism expert providing training on what to do if caught by a terrorist. These vignettes are deeply, deeply, deeply humiliating. These individuals were encouraged to act in ways that would be construed as bigoted and they probably would not have acted in such manner if they had known that this filming would be broadcasted widely (they knew they were being filmed but not the intent behind the filming). But because they thought they were being trained by an expert in terrorism, they let down their guard and let their inner self come out. The results were cringing scenes of self-debasement that’s hard to believe.
The remarkable thing is that they believed that acting in such embarrassing and ludicrous manner would provide a defense from the terrorists. It’s ludicrous until one remembers that back during the prison torture scandal during the time of the Iraq War, one of the tools of torture was the humiliation of the Muslims through the use of nudity and threats of homosexual activity (if I remember correctly). These types of tortures could be the basis of the Congressman’s and gun supporter’s belief system that led them to act in the way they did during the Sacha Baron vignettes. So were they stupid or were they already primed to believe in Sacha Baron’s Israeli expert? The gun supporter said that the Israelis are world renowned for their terrorism expertise and so of course, he was going to look to the Israeli for self-defense training. He was respecting the authority on terrorism, just as many Americans respect authorities.
Unfortunately, both failed to apply critical thinking: both needed to ask “who is this Israeli?” before agreeing to participate and to be filmed during such a training session. Basic questioning and research might have unearthed the fraud. So again, are they stupid? They must have had at least average IQ because I don’t think one could have become a Congressman if he was mentally deficient. And yet, and yet…
(By the way, as an aside, “This is America” is deeply disturbing in its use of pranking to publicly humiliate people. It reeks as a form of cruelty, much like Trump is cruel to others through his bullying. It’s sort of kind of funny and yet it’s not funny. I don’t like the Republicans, especially since they’ve gotten kind of crazy during the Obama years, but these public humiliations don’t sit well with me. We need to understand where their craziness and cruelty is coming from and work from there. I’m not sure indulging in humiliating cruelty is the answer; don’t be like Trump.)
Evidence 3: The Evangelicals and Tongues
Evidence three is, I hate to say it, the evangelicals and talking in tongues. I wish I had never seen this video. I won’t post it because it’s embarrassing and I don’t want to perpetuate this embarrassment (although they themselves might not be embarrassed). The person who filmed these evangelicals in Daphne, Alabama made fun of them and yes, it was kind of funny. Until you realize that these people grew up with this stuff; I didn’t. So if you were exposed to this since you were a child, and all of the adults around you believed in this, then talking in tongues will seem normal. I did not grow up in this kind of environment so talking in tongues seems ridiculous. It’s not normal to me. In this video, the priest says that the Democrats will be performing witchcraft against Trump and his supporters; the congregation believes him (I think) because this kind of world is normal to them. He asks them to pray against this witchcraft and begins to talk in tongues, whooo whoooing, and they all start to weave and wave their hands in the air, swaying their bodies, and making noise. All of this is normal to them. They grew up with this.
How does one counter this? I’m not sure. It would take a very strong willed person to apply critical thinking to break the bonds of his early youth teachings. My dad grew up as a Nazarene with strict religious teachings which he appeared to reject, for reasons unknown to me. My mom grew up as a Catholic and was taught that if you look up at the church’s ceilings God would strike you dead (amongst other stuff). So of course, she looked at the ceilings and lived to tell the tale. After breaking a couple of those rules, one would tend to disbelieve. But most Americans are taught to respect and follow the authorities and like sheep we do. We don’t apply critical thinking to question the authorities or our leaders. That quiet compliance is great for big businesses, until they need us to dream up new ways of doing things or new products, then they want us to be inventive, iconoclastic, rule breakers. But until then, follow the leader.
By the way, that’s the message Trump gives: follow me, I have all of the answers. Only I can save you. And so they do, they blindly follow. Baaa, baaaa says the sheep.
These are average Americans with average intelligence. Are they stupid? Or do they need to be trained in critical thinking? Can they do critical thinking? I don’t know. They are smart enough to learn how to follow instructions but are they smart enough to go beyond following instructions and think? Is an IQ of 100 enough or does it need to be higher, much higher?
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