"The 2010s, in contrast [to the 1950s], are a terrible time to not be brainy."

"Those who consider themselves bright openly mock others for being less so. Even in this age of rampant concern over microaggressions and victimization, we maintain open season on the nonsmart. People who’d swerve off a cliff rather than use a pejorative for race, religion, physical appearance, or disability are all too happy to drop the s‑bomb: Indeed, degrading others for being 'stupid' has become nearly automatic in all forms of disagreement."

From an article in The Atlantic by David H. Freedman titled "The War on Stupid People/American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth."

I was interested to see that — linked by Instapundit — because just a couple days ago I got taunted by the NYU professor, Mark Kleiman, who wrote, "Ann Althouse teaches law at the University of Wisconsin, which implies that her IQ must be above room temperature." I said:

I was surprised to see that, because, as you know, Donald Trump has been accused of mocking the disabled, and the phrase "IQ... above room temperature" is a reference to the mentally challenged, genuinely disabled people who are not properly the subject of humor. Moreover, IQ is a touchy subject in America, as a professor of public policy should know, and I thought decent people refrained from using IQ as their go-to basis of trashing other people. Ah, well, ironically, I'm supposed to join the Trump-hating crowd because of all the indecent things he's supposedly said.

Sorry for the sudden intrusion of Trump into the subject, but Trump was the subject of Kleiman's attack on me. But notice how many Trump-haters attack his supporters — and his non-haters like me — as lacking intelligence. And consider Trump's own "I love the poorly educated!" — though to be poorly educated is not to be stupid. For example, you have to be reasonably smart to get into a school like NYU, but you might be poorly educated by a professor who devotes his class to political indoctrination and not to deep study and clear thinking.

IN THE COMMENTS: MayBee said:

There is almost nothing funnier than your NY Prof complaining about room temperature IQ while also saying there's no evidence Obama exhibited bad judgement.

Perfect example of the Agree With Me = Smart mentality.

That's right. As the commenters on this earlier post noticed, Kleiman wrote — talking about our efforts to help the "rebels" in Syria and conceding that everyone knows that we were helping ISIS and al Qaeda — "Just to be clear: there’s no evidence whatsoever that Clinton and Obama had bad judgement, didn’t know what they were doing, 'or worse.'" '

AND: Why did Kleiman say "everyone knows"? To my ear, it sounds like Hillary's "What difference, at this point, does it make?" That is, it's a "shut up" delivered in the guise of impugning the questioner for dwelling on things that are no longer important instead of moving on to what supposedly matters now.