BLOOMBERG: DUMB FARMERS

            By now you've certainly seen the video clips of Michael Bloomberg's 2016 Oxford University presentation about the kind of mental capacity needed in different economies:  agricultural, industrial, informational.

             While I appreciate the historical understanding of these different epochs and would not disagree at these era designations, to think that each required a different cognitive ability is absurd.  Bloomberg said any dummy can learn to farm.  He said you just dig a hole, put a seed in the ground, cover it with dirt, water it, and boom, there's corn.  He said farmers don't need critical thinking skills to analyze and follow complex systems.  In short, he said it takes less gray matter to farm.

             While many folks are outraged at this disrespect toward farmers--and I agree--I prefer to go deeper in this outrageous elitist condescension.  In general, Bloomberg's hypothesis assumes that these economic ages required more and more smarts.  In other words, that to do what we've done in modern times requires more brain power than what we did in, say, 1500.  Or in 100 BC.

             Bloomberg's mistake is that he thinks were are smarter today than we were 3,000 years ago.  He thinks human acuity is actually higher today than yesterday.  That is fundamentally incorrect.

             Have you been to Machu Pichu?  How about the ancient achievements in engineering and construction, from Stonehenge to the Pyramids?  The Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the floating agriculture of Mexico City prior to Spanish invasion?  Bloomberg's smug elitist mentality is straight western hubris.  It's the same stuff that made George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson's mentor, call native Americans "barbarians."

             One of my most interesting experiences was visiting today's costumed impersonator George Wythe in Williamsburg a few years ago.  He had a scheduled public audience and while everyone else just popped in and said hi, I stayed for the entire 2 hours and engaged him in deep conversation.  I think he enjoyed it as much as I did.  When someone else entered the room, I'd back off and let the momentary interruption happen, then we'd go right back to it.  Not every day does a modern get to engage Thomas Jefferson's mentor in conversation.

             Our discussion ranged far, from taxes to government and we ended up on the Indian (Native American) question, where we spent the bulk of our time.  He dismissively called them "barbarians" and I quickly countered that they had a language to describe every human emotion, they had these cool canoes to travel rivers, engaged in cross-tribal treaties and had governing councils, and had an amazing system of conducting policy discussions. 

             Of course, Wythe countered that they don't wear wigs, or build cobblestone streets or ride in carriages, that these denote "civilization."  You can see how the discussion flowed.  At the time of George Wythe, the Americans had not really violated too many treaties so that wasn't the issue; I was arguing that they had merit as a civilization, to be viewed as a culture, and he viewed them as simply barbaric savages, completely uncivilized.  I argued that they knew how to heal things with herbs unknown to the Europeans.  Indeed, does it take more mental acuity to write down history or to recite it from memory?

             Finally, as the 2-hour time slot came to a close, Wythe looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said:  "Well, I may be wrong, but savages and uncivilized barbarians is just how I see them."  Thus ended the conversation.

             Michael Bloomberg exhibits exactly the same mentality.  Had the Natives not befriended and helped Lewis and Clark, they never would have made it back alive.  The truth is that all people have something to contribute.  The Europeans brought steel and different medicine; the Natives brought amazing curatives and a knowledge of simple survival.  Why do these encounters need to end in wrestling matches of superiority?

             If I had a message for Michael Bloomberg, it would be that one level of understanding is not superior to another; they are simply different.  We've always needed good thinking; we've always had good thinking  in every age.  While the accumulation of knowledge may be increasing, the individual capacity of the human mind to create and analyze is certainly no better today than it was 5,000 years ago.  Just try taking a high school test from 1890 and see how smart you are.  Most of the folks acing those tests were farmers, Michael.  You don't just owe farmers an apology; you owe all of humanity an apology. 

             Would you ever vote for a person who thinks farmers are dumb?