One of the challenges of viewing the world from an uneducated perspective is aliasing. That is, people of vast intelligence often do things that look exactly like the things fools do. Fool though I be, I at least know that each simple decision has a binary output (yes or no), and complex decisions are merely syntheses of simple decisions. It therefore stands to reason that answers will flip-flop with analysis.
And yet I was disturbed at Asheville City Council’s retreat Friday as I overheard a council person and a member of staff speaking to a representative of a local advocacy group. They wanted to know whom a certain county commissioner “listens to,” and the same for another higher-up. It was as if people exalted enough to run government had not outgrown the temptation to manipulate others. Further, it indicated that there were among the exalted representatives more inclined to rely on mavens than their own excellent critical analyses.
Surely, unless the conversation was staged to see what an idiot I would make of myself by spreading the gossip, thought processes beyond my cognitive and moral grasp were at work.
