In class, we discussed how gaining knowledge in certain
areas is not necessarily beneficial when the cost of gaining the knowledge
outweighs the benefits of having it. At
first, the marginal benefit of gaining some knowledge about a certain subject is
usually greater than the marginal cost. For
that reason, people generally have a small amount of knowledge in a lot of
areas. However, as you start learning
more and more about a particular subject it becomes more and more costly. Therefore, it is rational to be ignorant
about certain things, if the cost is too high and our time is more valuable
elsewhere.
In this article, ObamaWas Too Busy Being President, Didn't Have Time to Practice for Debate, Scott Whitlock uses the idea of rational ignorance
to explain Obama’s poor performance in the first presidential debate. He argues that being the president takes up
an enormous amount of time, and that "The
President had to be the President, and had to be a candidate, and so he didn't
have nearly as much prep time." Whitlock implies
that in order for Obama to have adequately prepared for the debate, it would
have come at too high of a cost for his presidential duties.
Obviously, being president takes up an enormous amount of
time and Obama’s time in the month of September was more valuable spent elsewhere, than
studying for a debate. For example,
instead of practicing for the debate the afternoon of the Libya attacks, Obama
was too preoccupied attending important presidential duties like his campaign
fundraiser in Las Vegas. In addition,
instead of studying up on why he should be president for another four years, he
believed his time was more valuable spent with David Letterman and Joy Behar. Obama chose to be rationally ignorant in his
counter-attacks to Romney’s policies, because he would have had to give up hanging
out with Jay-Z and Beyonce. Lastly,
instead of preparing a better defense for his policies, he was way too
busy commentating on football referee issues.
As you can see, Obama’s poor performance in the first
presidential debate was just due to the fact that he was too busy with his
presidential duties to have time to prepare.
After all, the duties he needed to perform before the debate were so incredibly important, that it would have been completely irrational for him to
give up a night on The View to prepare for it.
1 comment:
Other evidence that the President rationally opted to prepare less adequately than Romney for the debate lies in his own efforts leading up to the now-infamous showdown to downplay his debating acumen. Speaking at the Las Vegas fundraiser mentioned above on September 30--days before his near consensus defeat--Obama touted Romney as a "good debater" and denied that he was focused on the "zingers" which observers typically expect from such high-stakes political sparring sessions. The President's counter-intuitive ploy to minimalize expectations for the most pivotal campaign of the year implicate the Obama campaign rationally concluded that the marginal benefit of stringently preparing for the debate amounted to less than the marginal cost, since they reckoned that Romney would earn the victory anyway. A more polished effort from Obama, this reasoning suggests, would have failed to prevent a Romney win and imposed an inefficient cost burden on the busy President. That the plan has backfired on the Obama campaign simply demonstrates his advisors' underestimation of the cost associated with such a resounding defeat.
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