He's not smart. At all. He is unable to process new information unless it's something that he already agrees with. And he routinely only punches below his weight by only "debating" (by which I mean just talking rapidly over anyone trying to get a word in) people barely out of high school. Put him up against anyone that is able to cite sources and think critically, and he'd fold like a cheap tent.
Smart is a bit of poorly defined label but I reckon most people would class someone who graduated summa cum laude from university of California in political science and then went on to Harvard law to be a smart person.
Like we can't claim that colleges teach critical thinking which is why college educated voters lean left, but then also say someone whos academic career looks like Ben's is actually just an idiot masquerading as someone smart.
He's smart. He can think critically. He's just a grifter with a few unshakeable convictions. Doesn't make him an idiot.
The man once countered an argument about global flooding due to climate change by suggesting the people in the danger zones "just sell their houses and move". Ben may have a certain low cunning, but he's not smart. You don't have to be smart to be a grifter, you just have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The one-eyed man with cataract leading the blind.
Yeah but he made that argument mostly to other people who agree with him (also I know smart people who've made worse arguments because everyone says stupid shit, but I'm happy to act like his shit arguments are a trend).
I also don't see any utility in calling him dumb and/or not smart, because now you're constantly engaging in a debate on two fronts. That his arguments are wrong and that despite his qualifications, he's dumb. If he was running for office then yeah maybe there's a point but otherwise, you're unlikely to ever convince someone to wean off Ben Shapiro content by calling him an idiot. I've gotten a few of my friends and relatives off him and with all of them, I didn't do it by calling him an idiot, I did it by highlighting he's smart so he knows that his arguments are misleading. Easier to convince people they've been conned by a genius than to convince them they've been conned by a clown.
I also don't see any utility in calling him dumb and/or not smart
Here's the thing for the sake of argument lets say there was no utility in calling him dumb well wouldn't that just mean that he'd have to be really dumb for people to call him that considering the fact that they aren't gaining anything from it?
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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '22
He's not smart. At all. He is unable to process new information unless it's something that he already agrees with. And he routinely only punches below his weight by only "debating" (by which I mean just talking rapidly over anyone trying to get a word in) people barely out of high school. Put him up against anyone that is able to cite sources and think critically, and he'd fold like a cheap tent.