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What if the world's worst person said the smartest thing ever said?

The reactions to a post that quoted Charles Manson got me to thinking about this. What do you think?

TommyMeador 7 Jan 3
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7 comments

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1

I don’t think thats to likely but having a reputation as the worst person would take away credibility from anything he said even if it was good.

0

What really troubles me is that I've seen this work in reverse. Some celebrity will say something and it is thought to be wise because of who said it. If a beloved actor says something about physics, so what? It isn't his field of expertise.

1

It seems to me that Good/Bad and Smart/Dumb are two different dimensions. Why must they be related -- if you'll allow me to conflate worst with Bad?
In our culture we tend to assume there is a correlation between Smart and Good but there's really no requirement.

There is an old saying that there are three stages of realization that people go through when they see others acting badly -- harming folks.

  1. First most people give the benefit of the doubt and assume the others don't know they are being harmful.
  2. Next they still tend to give the benefit and decide the others don't understand that they are being harmful.
  3. Finally they realise that the others are purposely being harmful for whatever reason.

More succinctly, the three stages are ignorance, stupidity and evil.

Where we see others fall on the Good/Bad and Smart/Dumb scales is a topic related to the interactions we all have with people every day.

Exactly.

1

Won't happen we always consider the source before deciding the importance of the statement, it's part of human nature to do so.

I suppose that irrationality could be considered a part of human nature. Sad.

1

Akin to asking "is Wagner's music evil?"

3

Simple. World's worst person would still be the world's most worst person, and the smartest thing ever said would still be the smartest thing ever said.

Exactly. One has no bearing on the other.

1

Well, what did Manson say that was so smart ?

I think it was; "To be totally aware is to be totally paranoid." which I don't agree with. But most of the comments were about Manson and not the quote. I did not disagree with the quote because of who said it but because I thought it was bullshit. But most of those commenting couldn't seem to get past who said it.

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