Ben Carson continues to try to be relevant to everyone. In between his lies about his West Point “scholarship” and his theory about the real use for the pyramids (grain silos not mausoleums!), he released this $150,000 rap-based ad buy to appeal to the African-American vote:
And that flute breakdown? Man….listen.
Team Blackness also discussed more Ben Carson tomfoolery and the gymnastic feats of Simone Biles.
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Eric U.
ableist
Jon Rockoford
I had a revelation: There is no way Ben Carson was a competent surgeon, let alone a brilliant one. None. Zero. Zilch.
Call it cognitive dissonance on my part, but I cannot see someone as muddled-brained and averse to evidence performing any task that requires more than simple mechanical skills. Surgeons are not just about cutting and stitching. They need to make decisions after looking at data as to how to proceed. This guy is making shit up all the time. I wouldn’t trust him operating on a zit.
I have no explanation as to how or why he’s received so many accolades. Someone with press credentials is bound to track down his former colleagues and we’ll find out something was terribly wrong all along and everyone knew but never went public. People cover other people’s trespasses all the time (hint: Cosby) for all sorts of personal and professional reasons.
Gvg
@Jon Rockoford: I don’t think there is any way he wasn’t a competent surgeon at that time. The kinds of surgeries he was known for are not routine and his colleagues at j Hopkins are also good enough to notice and say if he wasn’t. What I do think is that something happened, something physical. Others have speculated it may be related to his relatively early retirement. We may find out. I really don’t think Carson realize how much vetting us presidential candidates get. It’s not just the media who can be lazy, nor the opponents. I think a population of over 300 million tends to produce enough bored or interested people who can find everything using the Internet. And then tell everyone!
rikyrah
He’s trolling us, Elon.
Straight up trolling us.
A guy
It’s apparent elon James white hates successful black people. Lol!
lowercase steve
@Gvg:
What do you mean something physical? Like he suffered a stroke or early onset dementia?
Honestly I don’t have any trouble believing someone can be an amazingly skilled in one area and simultaneously utterly incompetent and ridiculous outside of their area of expertise. I mean look at some of the stupid crap Richard Dawkins says about politics and sexism and so forth (I know Carson is on a whole different level here, but still). Now consider also that surgeons are technicians as opposed to academics/abstract thinkers and his failure to automatically translate his apparent talent in one field into others doesn’t seem so shocking.
Eric U.
yeah, nobody that knows a couple of surgeons would be surprised by Carson’s behavior. I suspect some of his delusions have gotten worse in retirement, but I’m pretty sure he was politically reprehensible while he was still a top surgeon.
Docg
The good doctor is very ill, very drugged or both.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jon Rockoford:
People who work in medicine have told me that being a surgeon is analogous to being an engineer. You’re not really doing a lot of diagnosis or sleuthing, you’re fixing mechanical issues.
Considering how many engineers are libertarians or conservatives who nonetheless manage to build things that don’t fall down, I find it perfectly plausible that Carson could be a gifted surgeon who’s unable to make logical connections when it comes to more abstract or emotion-driven issues.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, I think one’s political views have a lot to do with one’s capacity for self-reflection and self-doubt. Liberals are going to question their premises and beliefs; conservatives will never question what they were told or taught. If you’re going to be mucking around with people’s brains when one false move could kill or irreparably damage them for life, just about any amount of self-doubt could paralyze you and put those patients’ lives at risk.
So I see no conflict at all between Carson’s past brilliant career as a neurosurgeon and his current inability to question or doubt himself. The same qualities that made him a great brain surgeon are the exact same ones that are tripping him up now.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. My brother is an ophthalmologist, does very complex, detailed eye surgery every week, but he also spends three or four days seeing patients and doing diagnostic stuff. My father was a surgeon but also board-certified in internal medicine and proctology. Also did a lot of diagnostic work. Anecdata.
Where you may be more accurate is for the hyper-specialists, like “Well, if your kid has this specific brain tumor, you want to see Ben Carson at Johns Hopkins!” And Carson—or someone like him—being the go-to guy for that procedure, ends up doing them a lot of the time and ends up losing touch with the diagnostic side (which, presumably, was handled by the referring physician).
None of which is to say that Ben Carson is not some sort of idiot-savant.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steeplejack:
Upon reflection, I think it’s more along the lines of my second post — Dr. Carson can’t be self-reflective and doubt his beliefs because it could interfere with his ability to confidently cut into people’s brains, but the very thing that made him a successful surgeon makes it very difficult to be a successful politician.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Okay, I can buy that. The other thing—and I see this a little bit even with my brother, and he is a very nice guy—is that doctors are at the top of a food chain where everybody has to defer to them all day long about everything. And sometimes it’s hard to leave that at the office and not bring it home. And hard to remember that mastery of one field does not automatically confer mastery of other fields, even ones that seem less “technical.”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steeplejack:
A joke from a nurse that I posted in another thread:
Q: How do you say “fuck you” in Tagalog?
A: “Yes, doctor, right away.”