had a similar thought the other day, but I couldn't put it into words. It crossed my mind that the word "idiot" in Ancient Greek meant to describe someone who

had a similar thought the other day, but I couldn't put it into words. It crossed my mind that the word "idiot" in Ancient Greek meant to describe someone who was not involved in public affairs in a derogatory way. It must have evolved into the current meaning not by sheer coincidence: well, idiots, as in its current sense, used not to take part in public affairs. My hunch is that, after WWI, not having a strong opinion when it came to politics was too much a giveaway of someone being poor or uneducated — traits usually associated with the stereotypical 20th-century idiot, especially in prosperous societies. Then, people simply started to fake it. A blind spot of this coping mechanism that has been carried on to this day is that, although there is no reason to assume that true idiots have no access to education and capital in the current days, people still assume that this is the case. So, politicians and the elites cannot be considered dumb anymore; they must have ulterior motives. If their intelligence is ever called into question, it is always in the dubious sense that Umberto Eco warned us about in his essay "Ur-Fascism." It only scratches the surface of my thoughts, but, well, I think I understand what the author means.