Steve Sailer notes that recently deceased feminist icon Betty Friedan was a bit of a megalomaniac, kind of like another 60’s icon, Susan Sontag. Sailer makes this point:

much of what we are taught as the high intellectual history of the human race is based more on the magnetism and impenetrable self-assurance of thinkers than on minor issues like whether they were right or not. Freud is a perfect example, a charlatan who befuddled two generations via his implacable self-esteem

Rebecca Goldstein’s new book on Godel, Incompleteness, notes that Wittgenstein (pic right) fits neatly in this mold. Many great philosophers of his day worshipped him, even though (because?) he treated them like crap. First you have Bertrand Russel, who stated about Wittgenstein:

I couldn’t understand his objection—in fact he was very inarticulate—bit I feel in my bones that he must be right, and that he has seen something I have missed.

Wittgenstein treated Russell like an inferior, and Russell was awed by this.

And he was not the only one. You have the entire Vienna Circle in some kind of strange abusive relationship, with Wittgenstein playing the boorish male and the illustrious Vienna Circle members as scared yet adoring females. Note that the Vienna Circle promoted logical positivism, the theory that statements are meaningful if and only if it empirically verifiable. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was filled with propositions arranged logically like a math treatise. Some of these assertions are compatible with logical positivism, like that most philosophical problems are merely nonsensical, as opposed to false. But mostly he makes assertions that are vague and contradictory, without clarification or argument, reveling in paradox. Given the Vienna Circle’s love for precision and consistency, you would think they would not respect such a thinker. Au contraire!

According to Goldstein’s book, Wittgenstein found conversations with many of them so fruitless that on the occasions he agreed to meet with some of them, he often just turned himself to the wall and read aloud poetry diametrically opposed to that of the Vienna Circle (imagine the scene, then think, would you worship this guy?). Friederich Waismann would give weekly updates on the breaking news of Wittgenstein’s views, beginning with the obsequious disclaimer: “I shall relate to you the latest developments in Wittgenstein’s thinking but Wittgenstein rejects all responsibility for my formulations. Please note that." Once at Cambridge, Wittgenstein ignored the adoring Waismann. When the Vienna Circle’s leader, Mortitz Schlick, first visited Wittgenstein his wife noted that “he returned in an ecstatic state, saying little, and I felt I should not ask questions.” Olga Taussky-Todd, a mathematician and sometimes Vienna memeber stated that “Wittgenstein was the idol of this group. I can testify to his. An argument could be settled by citing his Tractatus”.

The list of blowhards who bedazzle otherwise skeptical, intelligent people is large: Freud, Friedan, Sontag, Wittgenstein…L. Ron Hubbard, Malcom X, Marx…etc. All these people were clever, opinionated, intemperate, arrogant, and also defensive and insecure. They wrote and said many things, including many clever, profound things, but mainly they said a lot of absurd and obtuse things. The net result, for each of them, was negative; taken as a whole, their Weltanschauungs are not helpful to an individual or society.

In my daily life I meet such people in the form of arrogant ex-brokers who made a few million in the 90’s. They know many rich and famous people, and vacation in exciting places. Each will tell you why they should be running Goldman’s FX desk, or why they should be editor of the NYTimes, or why they should be managing $1 billion….and if you listen to them for an hour, they will make a couple of neat observations. But people are a package, and generally these blowhards have signal-to-noise ratios that start at 1 and asymptote to 0.