Addled? Dimbulb? Misguided? A few sandwiches short of a picnic?

August 8, 2022 8:12 AM

I want to write some essays in which I treat of people who support grossly unfit political candidates, are anti-vax, climate crisis deniers etc., because, though they may otherwise be reasonably intelligent and capable people, they lack the capacity for abstract rational thought it takes to develop a genuine grasp of issues that don't (yet) directly affect them. This will require a well-stocked non-ableist vocabulary. I turn to you, MeFites, for apt ways to describe such people. Be they civil or insulting, formal or colloquial, all expressions are welcome as long as they are non-ableist.
posted by orange swan to Grab Bag (26 answers total)

I've always heard the term "low-information voter" although this is not entirely without negative connotations.
posted by panama joe at 8:17 AM on August 8, 2022

I'd describe such people as having a blinkered or narrow focus as opposed to not having the ability to grasp issues which don't pertain to them.

Because I'd wager that depending on the issue, they may be able to (someone who doesn't "get" the challenges faced by veterans who worked in burn pits, for instance, may definitely "get" the challenges faced by the quarterback of their favorite football team).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:17 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

The philosopher Hannah Arendt would say that they don't think.

They are self-absorbed but also incapable of self-reflection.
posted by muddgirl at 8:39 AM on August 8, 2022

When I'm feeling charitable I try to distinguish between the willfully ignorant, the uninformed, and the witless.
posted by phunniemee at 8:42 AM on August 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

A lack of empathy, or an inability to put themselves in other people's shoes.

Or maybe it's just that they're selfish.

I also think of Upton Sinclair's famous quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." But for these people, replace "salary" with non-material support instead: pleasure at seeing one's supposed enemies crushed, or ability to live one's lifestyle sans guilt at any negative externalities it imposes upon others.
posted by miltthetank at 8:44 AM on August 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

“Forty watt bulb” is what you want.
posted by BostonTerrier at 8:46 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

We like "What an absolute drawer" -- meaning, it's *not* that he's "not the sharpest knife in the drawer," he's too dumb for that. He's as empty as an empty drawer.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:49 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

It seems to me that ableism is built into the structure of the argument as you've presented it here. It's not a matter of avoiding specific bad words. Either you actually believe there are empirically observable cognitive differences between, say, Trump and Biden supporters, in which case branding these cognitive differences as inherently negative is ipso facto ableist, or you don't actually believe that, in which case the whole argument is in bad faith.

A more empirically justifiable and intellectually responsible line of argument would be to identify people you have political disagreements with as having different values, priorities, and ideals from you and making their decisions on that basis. Their values may be odious on any number of levels but they don't result from fundamental defects in cognitive function. This idea would be supported by the fact that, for instance, political differences change over time, political identities are historically constructed by different coalitions of social forces, and that there are patterns of deep-rooted political disagreement in many societies that viewed from the outside do not clearly map onto any kind of stupid/smart divide. Given that these things are the case, you would have to explain the apparent uniqueness (in your view) of Trump supporters. Like, what, a literal version of the brainworms concept?

You might also consider the fact that if you do frame these differences as resulting from empirically observable cognitive defects, this bodes poorly for any attempt to change people's minds and hence the trajectory of US society. Is the solution empathy pills, reeducation camps, selective breeding, or what?

[Edit: Sorry, didn't see you were in Canada--feel free to swap "Trump" for "Doug Ford" or whoever]
posted by derrinyet at 8:50 AM on August 8, 2022 [45 favorites]

lack the capacity for abstract rational thought it takes to develop a genuine grasp of issues that don't (yet) directly affect them

I think the issue is that you're trying to create a category that doesn't exist. However, there is a Canadian English slang word that's pretty close and that is hoser.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:59 AM on August 8, 2022 [6 favorites]

Piling on with derrinyet: the value that working to remove ableist language from my own use is giving me is in helping me to separate my stereotypes from social identity and other preconceived notions, to try to better understand real differences in how we acquire and understand knowledge.

And this is not easy work. Every time something like the Alzheimer's amyloid plaque scandal breaks I end up doing a little more self-examination about how I accept information from one community while rolling my eyes at my Mom's friendship with Sherri Tenpenny and acceptance of the writings of Judy Mikovitz or Andrew Wakefield. And it doesn't help me change her perceptions.

But it does help me see how I can better tune my messages for the people I want to reach, and not spend a lot of time addressing those who I'm not gonna turn anyway.
posted by straw at 9:06 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Maybe the single best advice I've ever gotten was in a graduate-level political science course on rational choice theory. My professor, a rational choice true believer, told us that people never act irrationally. If someone appears to be acting irrationally, the problem is that you don't understand the motivations underlying their decisions. I don't think the problem with, say, anti-vaxxers is that they're somehow cognitively inferior (which is inherently a pretty ableist notion). The issue is that vaccination conflicts with other beliefs that are more salient to them. So maybe "differently-motivated" is what you're after.

Since people make utility-maximizing choices on imperfect information, there are scenarios where good-faith mistakes of fact occur, but I don't think that's what you're talking about here.

It seems like you're wondering why some people are motivated the way they are; after all, it seems like a lot of the most vocal Trump supporters' primary motivation was simply "owning the libs". But that's a hard question to answer, and regardless, it doesn't mean that they lack the capacity for rational thought. Quite the opposite: they have the capacity for reason, and they just use it differently than you'd like them to. You can't make blanket statements like "all people should value what I value instead of what they value" without invalidating someone's unique life experiences and making yourself out to be kind of a fascist.

So yeah, I would suggest framing it more as "what experiences have these people had that make them value certain things differently than me?" And maybe, with framing like that, you actually might be able to reach some of the people you're writing about instead of just scoring points with your friends for dunking on them.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:27 AM on August 8, 2022 [24 favorites]

My suggestion would be to go with describing some aspect of the process and or state of liking an odious politician.

Hoodwinked?

Becoming a feudal vassal? (This is a clumsy attempt to describe 'blind' allegiance without the ableist conflation of blindness with stupidity or 'tribalist' without making indigenous peoples an avatar of savage stupidity.)

The Ask for non-ableist insults/descriptions about a person's lack of thinking might be nearly impossible if understood as an inherent aspect of that person.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:31 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

"Victims of propaganda" is how I think of this category.

I disagree strongly with your premise. I don't believe people lack the capacity for rational decision; I believe they're largely basing their decisions on a steady diet of lies and misinformation, so come to irrational conclusions.

Closely related ingredients are faith-based decision making ("I believe ____ because god says so"), charisma- or celebrity-driven decision making (obvs), and team loyalty (cf those polls where conservatives turn out to support progressive ideas if they believe them to have originated from their own political "team")
posted by ook at 9:38 AM on August 8, 2022 [8 favorites]

When I haven't gotten enough sleep, I make decisions more poorly than when I'm rested. This is not a difference in my biases, nor is it a difference in education, messages received, or desired outcomes. It is strictly because my cognitive functioning is not the same.

I have also become a much better problem solver by learning patterns of problem solving from stories, history, geometry rules, YouTube videos of how people solve similar problems, and, above all, living through the experience of having a problem seem simple that is revealed to have more complexities. If you assert that my ability to solve problems was the same before and after these events, then you are asserting that education in problem solving is a waste of time. I don't believe that -- I believe that education in problem solving is valuable, and those who have had that education are, as a result, better able to solve problems.

(I've focused on problem solving here, but important things like imagining how people can be motivated without pain/violence/cruelty, imagining the advantages of trusting others, and operating with a robust "theory of mind" can also be increased through physical health and learning).


So, there are two factors that move me into being best able to deal with the world: biological (fatigue, nutrition, and maybe the hardware I was born with), and experiential (education and life experience).



If some people have advantages in these areas over others, how can we refer to that idea without being offensive?
posted by amtho at 10:05 AM on August 8, 2022

Some phrases I've heard in the past:

"[Person] has all their marbles, but they are really small marbles."

"The smoke doesn't hit the top of the chimney"

"Their mouth is running, but they didn't engage the clutch"
posted by blob at 10:05 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William James
posted by SPrintF at 10:14 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

My mentor Nancy Chodorow made a real impression on me at the end of my seminar on Socialist Feminism when one of the students in the class made a remark so sexist it left us all gaping at the young undergraduate in disbelief; it was as if she had not absorbed any of the concepts we had been reading and discussing all quarter. There was a moment of stunned silence, then Professor Chodorow patiently took every point and aspect of the student's statement and used it to debunk her ideas without being condescending and summarize many of the points covered during the quarter.

Nancy took a sort of gaff and used it to teach and benefit the whole class. Maybe the student who asked the question still didn't get it, but it certainly made a lasting impression on the rest of the class. So this is a good approach with conspiracy theorists. Take what they said and spin it out to answer or support your argument.

Sean Carroll, who is a professor of physics, is also great at this when discussing the existence of deities versus science. He spins out the theory, points out its flaws without being condescending. He has a number of nice lectures on "Naturalism" available on his website, Preposterous Universe.

One personal approach I take with my relatives who are Evangelical Christians and often rant about what God wants is to say to them: "You're getting yourself and God confused." Meaning, you are imposing your own desires and intents on your deity, putting yourself in the place of authority; you can't know what "god" desires or intends. It gives them something to think about in an empathic way.
posted by effluvia at 10:23 AM on August 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

"Having the delusion of adequate thought."
posted by foxtongue at 10:56 AM on August 8, 2022

“People who disagree with me”
posted by Ideefixe at 11:45 AM on August 8, 2022 [6 favorites]

"Different priorities," "different political priorities," "different moral priorities," "different ethical priorities," and such are probably the most diplomatic ways to put it.

This has the additional benefit of being quite true in many cases. I know plenty of people who believe in looking after the poor, donate plenty of their own time and money towards that, but just believe that it is not government's job to do that. Similarly, some people really do believe the government should avoid meddling in the economy in certain ways. Perhaps that will lead to some problems with economy or even them personally. Nevertheless, the government shouldn't meddle in those things, let the chips fall where they may.

Yet another category, particularly where it comes to climate change, environmental regulation, business regulation, and so on is: There are powerful, well funded industries who oppose these things through organized, well funded, long-running, and very well thought out public relations campaigns.

The whole purpose of these campaigns is to churn out reasonable rationals for upholding the "pro-business" side of these arguments.

Similarly can be said about people who spend a lot of time listening to media on one side of political issues. All day long they are spinning a (mostly!) internally self-consistent tale about why XYZ position makes the most sense and those nutters on the other side don't make any sense at all.

So you have people who have swallowed these arguments hook, line, and sinker. But! This isn't very surprising, as the arguments are designed to seem rational and appeal to the interests and "logic" of the average citizen. And to be presented to people by spokespeople who have their trust.

I don't know a single term for this, but something like "people who have accepted industry's arguments on this issue," "people who have bought into the X-wing media's priorities," or something of that sort.

Finally, political, social, and religious beliefs have a huge social aspect. If every single person in your social circle (or church, whatever) is a huge Trumper, or climate change denier, or free marketeer, or whatever, it is very, very hard to be anything different. You have to really, really relish being the rebel - and also, somehow have the economic and other types of independence needed to be the odd person out of jobs, business deals, social connections, and everything else - to be that person.

Since there is a large ecosystem around these beliefs, if a person starts to question them and does a bit of research, they'll find 10 dozen different books, web sites, media outlets, and all the rest that back them up and reinforce the opinions they're already most likely to support because most of their friends and relatives do.

So you have the position that most of your friends and social circle support, and then the bit of actual research you've done yourself, you find plenty to support that and anything you find that disagrees, just kind of doesn't make sense. Like it doesn't quite fit in your your normal in-group values and priorities.

Again I don't know a word or short phrase that sums this up, but group-think, socially-driven beliefs, in-group beliefs, and similar capture some of it.

Finally, it's worth remembering that all of these effects come into play for everyone, not just our political opponents.

I know "both-sides-ism" and all that. But if you can portray a human characteristic that affects us all, but maybe affects people on the right & left of the political spectrum a little differently, that is one way to get more towards even handedness instead of "those people over there are dumb."

Whatever those people over there are, I can tell you - they're not dumb. Not any dumber, on average anyway, than the people over here.

That's not to say there can't be differences. Just for example, in the U.S. both sides can be affected by media and such, but right has Fox News and a whole media ecosystem to the right of that. The Left doesn't really have anything quite the equivalent. So right-wing opinion tends to be much more aligned via these concentrated media outlets, whereas left-wing opinion is more driven by twenty dozen diverse media sources that don't fundamentally agree on nearly as much.

Result is massively different on the two sides, but not as simple as "Our side smart/other side dumb."
posted by flug at 12:59 PM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

"Different values" is way of capturing much of what I said above.
posted by flug at 1:06 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

If you are wanting to paint them in a specific light, use words that mean what you are trying to say without trying to find a way to dance around it: anti-science, anti-immigration, anti-vaccination. Name it to shame it. It isn't useful to use language to be "fair" to candidates who are deliberately trying to undermine the health and safety of others, as well as the longevity of the planet - that's how these groups are getting such exposure in media and spreading their nonsense in the first place, but not being strong enough in the use of language to rebukes their misplaced and ill-gotten beliefs.

You can also call them single-issue candidates to underline how their platforms lack the type of breadth necessary to be fit for public office.

Wingnut also works.
posted by urbanlenny at 2:13 PM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

Let's start with the premise that all reasoning is motivated. Now, there are variety of possible motives, like seeking out and carefully considering relevant evidence and use that to try and find the best conclusion. That's one possible definition of rationalism, but you also might have the resources to test your reasoning against hypothesizes, again and again. While this is a very analytical approach, people's motives can change, and so their reasoning is not generally a fixed process.

There is a whole tradition of studying people who are 'otherwise smart' but support dumb politics, like the whole cognitive dissonance tradition, which is perhaps best exemplified in the book "What's the matter with Kansas?" And there are several competing theories about why people seek out information that is biased to support their priors. Or why people choose to ignore information that undermines their arguments.

I think everybody attempts to maintain the “illusion of objectivity”, and that we all underestimate our priors. Once we have decided an opinion, we generally all become more skeptical of contra points, and are less convinced by strong or credible evidence. This is what Kruglanski calls the motivated closing of the mind. People who have a strong need for in group consensus, or exhibit closed minded personality will demonstrate a stronger motivation for closure.

So you might describe these folks as having frozen their decision making, which is something we all do, just to avoid having to constantly re-decide. It's just some people have a very high threshold before they thaw out and re-consider a political decision.
posted by zenon at 3:27 PM on August 8, 2022

It's a big question for the fields of political science, sociology and psychology, so each domain has a variety of approaches, the one I've put above is from political science by way of social psychologist Arie W. Kruglanski who wrote a whole book called The Motivated Mind. He also has interesting things to say about radicalization.
posted by zenon at 3:30 PM on August 8, 2022

People who are not critical thinkers; people who have no critical-thinking skills; people who are working off bad information; people who are ill informed; the non-outraged (derived from the saying "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention").
posted by scratch at 3:52 PM on August 8, 2022

You know, I actually don't think there is anything wrong or ableist about saying, straight up, people who vote Trump are cognitively impaired: if that is true, if you have the research to back it up, if you've done your due diligence on confounding factors and demographic variables, and most importantly, if you're making this statement as a starting point for your curiosity, from the pov of an ally to cognitively impaired people rather than as a conclusive condemnation of your political opponents, there is nothing wrong with it.

I would be very interested to read essays that examine things like:

- is there ableism in mainstream media - the way it glamorizes cleverness and shames, mocks, pities, and condescends to 'stupid' people - which causes people with below average cognitive abilities to feel rejected, othered, and angry with the values that are generally promoted in mainstream media (which tend to be liberal on the surface)?

- why exactly people with below average cognitive abilities find it easier to engage with right wing politics: could it be cable news & talk radio propaganda? is it that liberal politician's speeches use bigger words? (and why is that?) what can be done by liberal political organizations at all levels to engage more with people who have lower cognitive abilities?

- the cognitive impairment to Trump voter pipeline. How does it work? Who is recruiting people with lesser cognitive abilities to Trump? What are the mechanisms used? What are the steps along the way to radicalize a cognitively less able person into Trumpism? Where are the leaks in this pipe and how can we make more holes, more leaks?

But that's not what you're writing. It's very obvious that you ARE using the statement "stupid people vote Trump" (or fig-leaf versions of it) as a condemnation of your political opponents, not as a starting point for your curiosity from the POV of an ally to cognitively impaired people. In other words you ARE ableist and you're just here to look for words that cover your ass while you make your ableist arguments.

If you were writing the essays that I suggested above, you would never worry about coming across as ableist for a single second, because the content of your essay would be super obviously non-ableist. But the fact that you're here saying, "I'm not trying to be ableist, but..." gives your game away. You're ableist and you know it.

So my advice to you is that you should not write these essays. If you insist on writing them, then my advice is that you should own your prejudice and be open, honest, and blatant about it rather than lie and obfuscate and pretend you're not ableist while being ableist.
posted by MiraK at 10:54 AM on August 9, 2022