Rational Philosophy

Bill Clinton and dumb ideas, memory loss and wisdom, and enhancing mental sharpness.

“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
Plato

Brain researchers should be studying Bill Clinton; Bill is a smart man, by all accounts. Why then does he sometimes say stupid things? As Hillary battles on against the odds, Bill, speaking off the cuff outside Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville Kentucky, said that not counting the votes in Michigan and Florida would be dumb, even though the states were disenfranchised prior to their primaries, and despite the fact that Obama didn’t campaign in either state and took himself off the ballot in one.

Brain researchers have in fact been finding that, Bill Clinton’s apparent example to the contrary, older minds may well be wiser minds. Aging brains pay more attention to what may seem to be extraneous information, mulling over it and absorbing it much better than younger minds. This seems to indicate that younger minds tend to power through information happily dispensing with seemingly spurious data, sticking to the highways. Whereas older minds have learned that the journey itself can be as informative and valuable as the destination.

(I’m quite prepared to believe that Bill Clinton has as much fun with his illogical statements as he does with his logical ones. He doesn’t really expect anyone other than those blindly partisan to his wife’s cause to agree with him, but he doesn’t really care. Why he doesn’t really care is a much more interesting question, and I can only hazard guesses.)

Other scientific evidence points to the benefits of activities that improve brain function. Exercise, diet, mental stimulation, engaged and engaging social and family contacts — all can contribute to our ability to stay sharp. As the article points out, and as I’ve written about here before, the idea that the brain inevitably declines and can’t grow new cells or forge new pathways has been debunked and cast aside. A very exciting turn, and one that can give us some optimism in these times of dumbness in high places.
As Socrates said and as Plato reported, “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” This seems in keeping with the concept that as the brain gets older it is less likely to discard seemingly irrelevant information. It understands better that wisdom comes through accepting fallibility, rejecting absolute knowledge.

Socrates was also saying that we can never know anything. We can only perceive and infer. To claim absolute knowledge is to posture, to attempt to overpower someone with the assertion of knowing.

Bill Clinton cannot know what the voters in Florida and Michigan would have done if the delegates from those primaries were to be seated and the candidates campaigned accordingly. He can only posture and infer. While it’s understandably frustrating for Hillary to have perhaps missed out on a couple of wins and some delegates from those states, it is far from fair for her to convert this frustration into a claim of victory.

Related posts from around the Internet:

Alzheimer's Plaques And Tangles

 Why Brain Fitness Training Works to Combat Cognitive Decline

For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist And What We Must Do To Survive.

More Valentine’s day ice-water; on the philosophy of charm and its opposite: Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin and British men.

In recent history, Bill Clinton, as president, stood out for many as man of great personal charm. Bill Clinton in his supporting role as Hillary’s pit-bull has been less widely admired for his charm. Vladimir Putin charmed George Bush early in Bush’s presidency, and he seems to have charmed a Russian populace eager to swoon again for strong, dynamic leadership. But, as an outsider, Putin’s charm seems about as thin as the ice on the Dead Sea.

I wonder what role charm plays in life, how it works, and when it breaks down?

Charm is a form of deception in which the deceived is complicit. The charmer uses strategems to make the charmee feel special. The strategems work to falsify or exaggerate the degree to which the charmer really believes in the charmee being special. The charmee on some level recognizes that he or she is being charmed but appreciates the effort being exerted. The apparent exchange then: “I like you; thank you for liking me,” masks a more subtle exchange “I am willing to exert myself for your benefit; thank you for exerting yourself for my benefit.”

Looked at this way, we can see that charm doesn’t really work unless the person being charmed feels on some level or in some way inferior to the person doing the charming. That’s why Vladimir Putin can charm the Russian people who have felt somewhat rudderless in the post-cold war era, or George Bush who doesn’t hold a candle to Putin in terms of ruthlessness and political savvy, but not the average westerner who reads the news and sees right through Putin’s waxy smile.

The person doing the charming also has to have something to gain from exerting the effort. This can sometimes be directly related to the process of charming — getting something out of the charmee. But it can also be indirectly related. Bill Clinton, I hazzard to propose, charmed people as president in order to develop and sustain a cult of charm. He positively glowed with charm and understood that this glow would extend to far greater reaches than the person toward whom he was directing his attention at any moment in time.

Bill Clinton the dutiful husband has nothing personally to gain from being charming. He’s not running for president. One can’t imagine that he’d be happy back in the White House playing, at best, second fiddle to Hillary. Consciously, I’m sure he believes he’s supporting Hillary, but subconsciously he’s undermining her through his charmless tactics.

The British men surveyed by a manufacturer of large screen TVs probably did so anonymously. And yet, there’s still something charmless about the statistic that 50% of them would trade in six months of sex for a 50 inch screen. (I imagine you can hear the French men laughing all the way from Dover as they purchase their ferry tickets for a quick trip to woo the not-so-merry maids of England.)

Charm or lack of charm can be a characteristic of nations as well as individuals. I can say this because I’m British, but the British (with the exception of the shrinking upper class) are charmless because they feel inferior to everyone. The charmer has to feel superior to someone. The French feel superior to everyone, which makes them the people most capable of charm, but their arrogance is their achilles heel — most of the time they can’t be bothered to be charming because they feel they have nothing to gain from it.

And since I’m generalizing offensively, I’ll say that men tend to be less charming than women unless they’re trying to seduce a woman… or get her to buy them a large screen TV. 

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