Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Washington Post has another one of those polls where they ask a group of people their opinion on a subject that very few of them likely know anything about.
About half of the public thinks the Supreme Court is generally balanced in its decisions, but a growing number of Americans say the court has become "too conservative" in the two years since President Bush began nominating justices, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.Nearly a third of the public -- 31 percent -- thinks the court is too far to the right, a noticeable jump since the question was last asked in July 2005.
Now I'd like to see a poll of those same people to find out if they have any knowledge base at all that would allow them to form such an opinion. I'd be willing to bet that far less than half, probably less than 10%, can even name the 9 Supreme Court justices, much less offer anything like a coherent analysis of their judicial views. I bet less than 10% could name a single court ruling from the past two years, much less offer a coherent analysis of the ruling and what it meant.
Yes, of course such polls matter in political terms. They tell us which side is winning the battle of rhetoric and framing, so it matters in terms of who gets elected. But that is a measure of something entirely unrelated to what is true; it is a measure only of which set of overly simplistic talking points has been ingested and repeated by the most ignorant people for whom such talking points act as a replacement for actual thinking. In short, it is another aspect of the problem of virulent ignorance.
In my speech at YearlyKos I'm going to address the problem of virulent ignorance, which is distinguishable from the sort of mundane ignorance that we all have about a great many subjects. Mundane ignorance is a mere lack of knowledge; we are all ignorant of far more subjects than we are knowledgeable of. Ask me about how to fix a car or about the history of choral music in Eastern Europe and I'm as clueless as can be.
But because I know that I'm ignorant about those subjects, if someone were to ask my opinions about them I would say, "I'm the wrong person to ask, I don't know anything about it." Ask me whether one European soccer team plays better defense than another and I'm not even going to attempt an answer; I simply don't know anything about it and wouldn't be able to distinguish good defense from bad defense even if I spent the next 72 hours watching soccer games. That's mundane ignorance.
Virulent ignorance, on the other hand, is when someone thinks they know something about a subject when they don't. Virulent ignorance is when someone has absorbed a set of platitudes or claims that they presume to be true without any real ability to evaluate whether they are or not. This type of ignorance is the brass ring of politics, the thing that all political movements strive to inculcate in as many people as possible.
A politician or a political movement is most successful when they are able to replace the mundane ignorance of a large group of people with a set of pre-formed conclusions that they can offer as opinions without bothering to go through any rational process to reach those conclusions. This gives their followers a set of responses that they presume to be true and gives them the illusion of knowledge. It's what makes people offer opinions to poll takers on subjects that they know virtually nothing about.
Comments
I like the idea of virulent ignorance. It fits well with that of 'common sense' - the idea that no matter how ignorant someone is about a subject, the application of good old fashioned common sense puts them on an equal or higher footing than the experts.
Posted by: Tycho the Dog | August 2, 2007 10:07 AM
I find it ironic that 31% thinks the court has become too conservative. I'm guessing that 31% doesn't remember the ruling in Kelo, in which the more liberal justices affected the outcome.
Posted by: Chris Berez | August 2, 2007 10:41 AM
Posted by: Alan B. | August 2, 2007 10:47 AM
I might add that there seems to be a "Belligerent Ignorance" out there, as well. This is where the virulently ignorant is given a soapbox to espouse the ignorant views and bogus information, and uses the same to ridicule and discredit any contrary position i.e. reality, or data that challenges their beliefs.
Posted by: celcus | August 2, 2007 11:05 AM
I'm not going to dispute your basic premise but I think I agree with Alan B that this particular case may not be a good example of virulent ignorance.
Its hard to tell in a poll how much certainty the respondents' thought was required to choose one option or the other. But knowing that there have been two new justices (even if you can't remember their names) recently appointed by a conservative president and pliant congress, and noticing the latest two high profile cases, the ban on "partial-birth abortions" and restricting the use of race in addressing racial imbalances in schools, might be sufficient information to make a not-altogether-irrational judgment of the tenor of the Court, relative to where you personally want it to be, as long as the opinion is held provisionally.
The sort of clues we use to make tenative judgments need not be (and usually are not) as formal as we (hopefully) use in more serious pursuits.
Posted by: John Pieret | August 2, 2007 1:10 PM
You analysis of ignorance has the ring of truth to it, but I think you're being slightly unfair the the poll participants. It's not like they flagged down the pollsters and forced thier opinions on them.
People realize that politicis is about perceptions. To a large extent, so are political polls. I don't think it's fair to assume that the participants imagined they were offering scholarly opinions. I imagine they felt they were being asked about thier perceptions.
Posted by: McWyrm | August 2, 2007 2:19 PM
heh. "virulent ignorance" sounds a lot like Colbert's definition of "truthiness"
Posted by: skyotter | August 2, 2007 2:54 PM
Wee bit of a tory argument there. For democracy, it's appropriate to expect one not to have an opinion regarding auto repair problems and choral music, but not in regards to governance. An opinion can be informed or not, but by what measure? To what degree of grey is it not an ignorant opinion? Is a statement because it is 'so-and-so's opinion, ignorant or informed, or contrary to being a well informed citizenry.
Are you taking about all the respondants or just the 31% who feel the court is more conservative issue, the 47% who think not or the remnant 22%. The fact that these values have changed suggests that a good portion of the respondants have opinions consistent with how one could interpret the pattern of recent rulings as being toward the conservative end of the spectrum. The fact that they are in accord suggest some level of being informed.
FWIW--Kelo decision is not by the Roberts court.
Mike
Posted by: mgr | August 2, 2007 3:06 PM
Ignorance is abundant in America.
My question is why do you waste your time going to these stupid events. I used to be involved in politics. I would advise you not to waste your time on it. Whether you are on the left or the right, does not matter, both sides have huge amounts of dumbshits.
You are young.
One day you will understand all is the vanity of vanities.
Posted by: Jason | August 2, 2007 3:48 PM
Opinions are like... well, whatever: everyone has one. And when you're doing a public opinion poll, any opinion is as valuable as any other. But when you actually want to do something, to affect people's lives, wouldn't you prefer an informed opinion? I sure would. But if we waited for polls of "informed" citizens, the sampling sizes would be way too small to give any sort of useful data.
I find solace in the fact that, no matter how badly an elected official can screw up (and we've had some doozies in the past: the current crop aren't the only screw-ups), the country seems able to continue on. I guess that means even the uninformed opinions, in the long run, aren't horrifyingly dangerous.
Posted by: Ian Randal Strock | August 2, 2007 4:13 PM
I agree with your virulent ignorance point in general. However, I think it is crucial to introduce another distinction.
The political, social, governmental arenas--hell, everything in modern life--are so complicated, that there is no possible way for any individual citizen to develop a truly informed opinion about everything that is relevant to her life. Nevertheless, opinions must be formed, positions taken, and decisions made.
Accordingly, it can be perfectly rational to accept one's inability to form an independent opinion about some complex issue--i.e., to embrace one's ignorance--and to rely on someone else's opinion. Even though you know that you have no ability to independently arrive at the opinion you are relying on, you still need a rational basis for reliance.
Under the best of circumstances, one has good reason to trust the particular opinion one relies on--such as the proven value of other opinions generated by that source. Under the worst of circumstances, one has only bad reasons to trust a particular opinion--such as monopolization of the means of communication of opinions by the source.
I guess what I am saying in a long-winded way is that one can be (1) unable to analyze an issue and form an opinion de novo, (2) nonetheless need to adopt an opinion, (3) choose an opinion to adopt on some basis other than analysis of the issue, and (4) still be behaving perfectly rationally.
So, in relation to your analysis of the poll, I maintain that it is possible for a citizen to have no idea who is on the Supreme Court, not really understand exactly what its role is in our democratic republic, and yet still be perfectly rational in holding a particular opinion about whether the court leans too far in one direction or the other relative to the opinion-holder's political inclinations.
Posted by: PhysioProf | August 2, 2007 7:43 PM
I don't seem to have any problem coming up with opinions...
Posted by: kehrsam | August 2, 2007 8:45 PM
There's ignorance majeure, too, as exemplified by the following argument: "The climate is too complicated for me to understand, therefore it's too complicated for anyone to understand, so your claim to be able to demonstrate anthropogenic global warming must be a lie." Or my stupidity trumps your intelligence, a chronic inability to trust anyone.
Posted by: Vagueofgodalming | August 3, 2007 7:54 AM
I've heard virulent ignorance referred to as "Male Answer Syndrome", the tendency of males to pontificate on subjects they have no knowledge of.
Posted by: John S | August 3, 2007 9:16 AM
Wow. This thread is a treasure trove.
Posted by: McWyrm | August 3, 2007 9:43 AM
Heh heh. "Ignorance majeur." I love it!
It goes like this:
1. I don't get it, and I am smart and hip, therefore no one gets it. Further, because it is essentially "ungettable," anyone who claims to get it is a liar or a fool.
2. Liars and fools are either evil, misguided, or just plain dumb, so you don't want people like that around you, or in charge of anything, so people who claim to get it (whatever it is at issue) should never, ever be trusted or placed in charge of anything.
Fantastic! It explains modern politics, the workplace, schools, conflict in far-flung places, and bridge collapses.
Wow. Talk about a prescription for perpetual ignorance!
Posted by: threetorches | August 3, 2007 11:00 AM
I think you also need a name for the particular form of intellectual dishonesty in which poll takers don't include a "No Opinion" option in a question like that. Who's really at fault here? There are three choices: the people who answered the question; the people who asked the question; and the people who read polls like this but don't have the statistical sophistication to realize that the results of the poll are not remotely valid.
I'd like to propose the phrase "poll pornography", to cover the case where pollsters deliberately craft polls to suggest a spectacular results without regard to whether the question being posed will produce a meaningful result.
And the phrase "poll illiteracy" to cover the case where poeple read the results of polls like this and believe them to be in any way authoritative or meaningful without understanding the precise details of the way the poll was conducted.
Poll pornography wouldn't exist if it wasn't for poll illiteracy. And people would be asked to answer poll questions like this that don't include a "No opinion" choice if it wasn't for poll pornography.
Posted by: rerd | August 3, 2007 11:09 AM
More to the point: what's the motive for this particular form of intellectual dishonesty? Who did it, and why?
Further examination of the poll questions indicate clearly why the poll produced the response that it did. The question about balance was asked in the context of two further questions about specific supreme court rulings (one on partial birth abortions, and one on the ability of local school boards to use race when making school assignments). The article doesn't indicate in which order the questions were asked. But, a pollster who was deliberately trying to produce a newsworthy result would almost certainly ask the questions about specific rulings before they asked the question about general attitude toward the supreme court, in order to maximize the number of responses that indicated disapproval.
Your point is valid. It's unlikely that a significant number of poll responders had sufficient information answer any of the three questions. The only reasonable response to such a poll is to decline to answer the questions. But, unfortunately, that doesn't really prevent the poll from going forward.
So. Back to the question of motive. The crime is being commited by the pollsters, not the people who are being tortured with questions that they can't answer. Why? The easy answer is that the motive is to manufacture news. That's probably a good answer (in the absense of further evidence). But there's a more sinister possibility: that the poll has been manufactured to manipulate public opinion.
Posted by: rerd | August 3, 2007 11:29 AM
Ed, do you think they're too conservative?
Serious question.
I don't really have an opinion because, yeah, I don't know much about it aside from what's said by the media.
Posted by: KKairos | August 3, 2007 7:08 PM
Also, what is the point of having an opinion poll of the Supreme Court? Isn't the whole idea that they aren't governed by popular sentiment?
Posted by: James | August 3, 2007 10:17 PM
Hello; Virulent ( ie, poisonous) ignorance should define those who know the truth and obfuscate it in order to achieve their goals. This includes the congresspeople who gave Bush the power to make war. Their goals were/are to remain in power at all costs. Molly Ivens spent many years pointing out Bush's lack of humanity and his subservience to his daddy's friends. Surely they were aware of this in Washington. Ben L.
Posted by: ben lopez | August 14, 2007 1:12 AM
So is virulent ignorance also viral (i.e- contagious)?
Alas, too many Americans believe that "ignorance is strength."
Being dumb becomes a goal and a value. Hollywood still makes millions churning out movies in which the dumb American hunk saves the day and gets the girl after breaking a bunch of laws, killing a lot of people, and destroying lots of property.
The not-so-subliminal message is that being dumb and aggressive will, in some magical way, make everything right and glorify you in the end.
Obviously we elected (oops, I mean installed) a President and Vice-President who believe in ignorance and aggression for two consecutive terms. Two of the three major presidential candidates seem to think that behaving that way will get them elected, too.
The question is why do so many people believe that?
Posted by: yogi-one | April 4, 2008 11:55 AM