Hot take:

The single most important character in modern literature is Clevinger, the character in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, described by the protagonist Yossarian as "smart but dopey."

Why? Because people who are "smart but dopey"---very capable at narrow skills like finance or social manipulation, but painfully literal-minded, absolutely impervious to nuanced thinking---are the single biggest threat to human society in 2021.

Jeff Bezos is smart but dopey. Elon Musk is smart but dopey. Jordan Peterson is smart but dopey.

The guy I just saw get *really really angry* in a discussion of how Bugs Bunny shaped the etymology of the word "nimrod" is smart but dopey.

The president of my college fraternity, who literally could not imagine, nor be interested in, any explanation for UFO contact experiences except "they're just stupid." He was smart but dopey.

Sometimes I am smart but dopey.

It is the sin of missing the forest for the trees. It is the sin of looking at the hand of someone who's pointing at the sun and smugly observing "But that's not the sun, it's your hand."

It is how Very Smart Centrists comfort themselves. It is how people come to mistake things like "reason" and "logic" for badges you are awarded for believing the right things, to be worn *at* people, instead of a praxis that must be pursued with near-religious devotion.

"Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope. He was a very serious, very earnest and very conscientious dope."

@zebratron2084

This absolutely reminds me of a former friend I had to break ties with last year.

Insistent that his friendship with the virulent racists was very good actually, because he wasn't a racist, and he could help them. While they continued to do very racist things.

It was freedom of speech, you see. They should be allowed to say anything they wanted, he reasoned.

He was a very big dope.

@Phorm Yeah, I came dangerously close to being that kind of person. The Trump Era cured me good and hard.

@zebratron2084

I think it gave a lot of us - those willing to, at least - pause for re-examination.

There was a time in my life when I sure felt "Brazen, naked evil is an invention of literature and cinema". And the last four years sure taught me, "No. No, not really".

@Phorm I have an embarrassing story around this attitude and a playtest book for GURPS that never got published, but that's a story for another day...