Attention Deficit Disorder

One standard ploy of politicians is to flatter the American people by referring to their inate wisdom--this despite the fact that, time and again, the American people have been and continue to be fooled by nonsense and obfuscation, lies and fantasies. Nowadays, we have fools coming out of the walls in America, people who really have no idea what they're saying or doing--and they're running in primaries and winning. And if they get into power, they would be unable to do anything in a crisis--beyond bombing someone somewhere. That is my nightmare image: there's a crisis, and they're frozen into a Bambi pose because they simply have no idea what to do. Yet we also have the corporate politicians who remain in power by placating the rich, whose reflex action is to protect great wealth. Is this any way to run a society?

On a more local note, we have fools who run educational institutions into the ground. I read an article saying that at one fancy liberal arts college, 70 percent of its employees were non-teaching. It would be interesting to know what the percentage is at my school. This occurred incrementally--year after year--without much or any comment, so that now it seems "normal." We can't remember how it used to be--in American politics, we seem to be able to go back a few months, no more. Is it an attention deficit disorder or just some kind of historical amnesia? Is it inherent in human beings, an evolutionry necessity? Or do we have rituals that ask us to remember the wrong or pointless things? Is that the function of religion?