Often when I tell people my opinion that President Gag is bright and clever but not at all an intellectual, they are aghast.
No, not because I call the Leader of the Free World something less than a cerebral titan. They’re huffy because I credit him with being something more than a moron or an idiot (see entry below).
The looks on their faces seem to say, “How dare you give that bastard credit for anything?!”
Just goes to show how we humans think. Your enemy must never be given even the most innocuous kudos. Hell, in my book, calling a guy bright and clever can (and, in this case, does) border on an insult. Six-year-old children can be bright and clever but you wouldn’t trust them to conduct epidemiological research, would you?
Bright & Clever
●
So, yeah, L’il Duce is bright and clever. In fact, this little snippet from P. Gag’s own tome, The Art of the Deal, is a far more illuminating take than any of the bazillions of psychological profiles of himself and his fans being proferred these days.
The key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and greatest and most spectacular.
P. Gag may not give a holy horseshit about the average Jane & Joe but he sure as hell knows how tens of millions of them think.
▼
From Lexicon To Insult
The words moron and idiot, as well as a few other current slurs, BTW, actually were official terms that head-shrinkers used to employ in patients’ psychiatric charts. That’s how quickly and radically our language changes. Here’s what the words meant in professional jargon back in the early mists of psychiatric practice:
Idiot: Henry H. Goddard‘s mental classification system, the industry standard for much of the last century, rated idiots as having the brain power of toddlers, specifically 0 to 3 years old. Their IQ’s generally fell below 30.
Imbecile: (IQ 26-50) The poor soul diagnosed as such was considered to be “intellectually disabled” and often lacking the ability to make civilized moral decisions. An imbecile had the mental capacity of a 3 to 7-year-old. The term was eventually replaced by “mentally retarded,” itself now shunned in polite society.
Moron: (IQ 51-70) Possessing the intellect of a 8-12-year-old on the Binet Scale.
Apparently, acc’d’g to the leading lights of the cranium racket a hundred years ago, if an adult had the smarts of a 13-year-old, he or she would be considered A-OK. That, recent events have demonstrated, might be an indication little has changed in a century.
The words dolt, dullard, and cretin also were bandied about by early 20th Century skull jockeys in their professional reports.
I wonder, could a modern-day Dostoevsky get away with calling his book The Idiot?
●
This all makes me wonder which terms we use regularly in today’s world will be seen as shocking and taboo in, say, the year 2050.
A prediction for that not-so-far-off year: the word fuck will be as eyebrow-raising as the term darn is today.
▲