Xref: utzoo comp.misc:3438 alt.cyberpunk:798
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!labrea!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lll-tis!daitc!jkrueger
From: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Another Leary thing
Message-ID: <179@daitc.daitc.mil>
Date: 17 Sep 88 05:36:00 GMT
References: <14033@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <319@flatline.UUCP>
Reply-To: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil.UUCP (Jonathan Krueger)
Distribution: na
Organization: Defense Applied Information Technology Center, Alexandria VA
Lines: 71

In article <319@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes:
>[Leary] states, and I have little reason to challenge him, that the average
>5 year old now understands more about the world than Marco Polo did
>at his death (*)-- thanks to TV.
>(*) -- not that the child has the *maturity* of Marco Polo, but that
>he understands concepts like: the world is round, there is a country
>far away where the people speak a different language and there
>are animals called kangaroos; the Earth goes around the Sun in big
>circles; the child can read and write on a limited level; the child
>may be starting to be bilingual (especially here in Houston :-); etc.
>I doubt that the child is more *intelligent* than Marco Polo, just more
>*exposed* to the world.

Marco Polo wrote an account of his travels.  It has been available in
English translation for years.  It's hard to imagine what impediment
could have kept Leary from it.  It's even harder to imagine a shortage
of five year olds that obstructed him in his work.  So his statement
comparing the two certainly provides us an opportunity to form an
opinion of the man, and of his intellectual labors and contributions.

It's possible that Leary was unaware of Polo's account, that he didn't
bother to look for it, hasn't read it, and had little other basis from
which to make any comparison.  It's also possible that he hasn't spent
much time with five year olds lately.  Or perhaps he has modest
experience with either or both, could tell the difference between them
in good light but you wouldn't hire him to babysit the one or
proofread the other.  Finally, he may have examined the available
evidence and then drawn his conclusions against it.

From these we may infer Leary's methods and personal standards with
some accuracy.  In the first and second cases, we may merely find him
a shoddy researcher, with little intent to do the work and get the
facts.  He's intellectually lazy, and perhaps dishonest, but is that a
great crime, or uncommon?  Surely we could say the same of Marx and
Freud, both of whom considered themselves scientists and searchers
after objective truth.  In the third case, it may be simply that he's
prone to speak as an authority on matters about which he's no better
informed than his audience.  He's a practicing dilettante, and
preaches what he practices.  Again, how can we condemn him and remain
silent about the vast majority of usenet traffic?

In the last case, we are constrained to one of two inferences: either
he's incompetent or deceptive, the same motivations we used to
attribute to then-President Nixon.  Incompetence could assume two
forms: he's generally unable to consider difficult questions and make
good judgements, or he's specifically unfamiliar with what constitutes
knowledge of the world, he himself lacks it and is thus ill equipped to
measure it in others.  In either form, he can't assess and compare it,
but honestly thinks he can.  By contrast if we assume he's quite
capable of it, we may conclude he intends to make a point, by deceptive
means if convenient.  In short, he's either a fool or a liar; either
he's no judge or a dishonest one.

Surveying all the possibilities that are consistent with the facts, he
hardly emerges as a valuable source of information or insights.  It
doesn't matter whether he's aware of how his conclusions might
contradict the facts and each other, that is, whether he's a conscious
fraud.  Either way, it's hardly what might qualify him to tell us how
to think clearly and act wisely, let alone how to gain deep insight
into self and the universe.  He seems more suited to providing facile
analyses making use of facts which he hasn't checked, and which he
knows we're unlikely to check.  His conclusions might still be valid,
but it's not likely.  For instance, he seems to consider TV a rich
source of reliable knowledge that increases the viewer's understanding
of the world.

-- Jon
-- 
Jonathan Krueger  uunet!daitc!jkrueger  jkrueger@daitc.arpa  (703) 998-4777

Inspected by: No. 15