We are experiencing a fascinating media kerfuffle in Ukraine right now. A famous Russian liberal and anti-Putin journalist Yulia Latynina had an on-air debate with the famous Jewish Ukrainian journalist Portnikov, and guess who got drubbed within an inch of their life in that dialogue?
Now, Latynina is very anti-Putin and lives in exile. She’s as anti-regime as a Russian can be. But her anti-Putinism – just like Navalny’s, just like every Russian anti-Putinist’s – is limited to the belief that as soon as the people of Russia understand how much money Putin has stolen, they’ll immediately overthrow the regime.
For 20 years, Russian anti-Putinists have been doing their darndest to demonstrate that Putin steals. One would have to be deaf, blind, and in a coma to not get the message. But the more Putin steals and the more obscene is the luxury in which he lives, the more he is loved in Russia. The “he steals” narrative, however, refuses to die, reminding me of the Dems’ unhealthy attachment to the “Bush lied” slogan that lost them the 2004 election. Yes, I’m that old, I still remember all that.
Beyond this “Putin steals” message, Latynina eagerly mouths every imperialistic Russian slogan. “Russians and Ukrainians are brothers, this is a civil war, Ukraine never had its own culture, etc.” The funny side of this situation is that her own imperialism got her into a sea of trouble. She decided to engage in a public dialogue with a Ukrainian journalist whose knowledge of history is sublime. She expected Portnikov to play the role of a subservient, uneducated country bumpkin that she expects every Ukrainian to be. As a result, he unleashed on her a torrent of information while she clapped her eyes and bleated “yes, but” incoherently.
“Turn on YouTube!” I texted my husband during the show. “Portnikov is committing unnatural sexual acts against Latynina.”
Aside from the specifics of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it was highly enjoyable to see smug ignorance getting crushed by knowledge and competence. The saddest thing about stupid people is that they don’t know they are stupid. It’s the high-IQ folks who have the intelligence to be aware of their intellectual limitations and would never enter a debate with a specialist on a subject of which they know nothing.
Clarissa's Blog 
I don’t think high IQ is enough for understanding of your own limitations. That requires humility. It’s quite common for smart people who are very accomplished in a particular area to talk with confidence about areas they don’t know much about and be wrong.
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“quite common for smart people who are very accomplished in a particular area to talk with confidence about areas they don’t know much about and be wrong”
And in other news the sun rises in the east and sets in the west….
That said, she’s talking about a cultural blindspot held by almost all russians – even brillliant ones who claim to be against putain and the war. They are still incapable of grasping the basic fact that Ukrainians don’t see the two countries as one and what they want from russia more than anything else is just to be left alone.
Vlad Vexler certainly very smart and certainly against the war and against putain still framed the initial stages of the war as similar to Boris Johnson deciding to bomb Manchester… (and absolutely rejected my suggestion that Dublin might be a better analogy – he was clearly thinking of Ukraine as part of russia and rejected the very idea that it was a separate country).
Many such examples….
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Also, this was not a discussion with an acquaintance at a party. This was an unscripted live event with hundreds of thousands of people in audience. You need to be very certain of your command of the material to agree to something like this.
And gosh, the extraordinary tactlessness of trying to lecture a person who’s daily risking death at the hands of your countrymen about how he should feel regarding the war and his identity.
“We don’t want to be your brothers or cousins or anything else,” Portnikov said. “We want you to go away and leave us be. Just go away.” And that’s the kernel of the entire problem. We want them to go away and they are refusing.
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“It’s the high-IQ folks who have the intelligence to be aware of their intellectual limitations and would never enter a debate with a specialist on a subject of which they know nothing.”
That’s not entirely it, and if it were only that simple.
There are plenty of people not worth debating, not worth even talking to about how their beliefs are like a Disney World map to the territory that is Florida.
Winning these matters of truth is not about unconditionally correcting wrongness.
It’s about using your energy wisely by addressing the things worth speaking to while continuing to let the confused stay confused.
The truly high IQ people refine this into an art where they help people move into a Solyaris built on their flawed visions so that they are effectively neutralised by their confusion.
It’s why jargon exists as a crude but effective domain-specific filter.
But it’s also usable as a means of hiding how the specialty of the specialist is not all that special.
Stupidity has to have somewhere to live, but why do you have to let it live rent-free near the things and people that are highly valued?
Besides, intellectual slums are fun to visit if you are into Misery Tourism. 🙂
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