The Spitzer Effect
You’d have to be completely detached from the news (and late night TV) to not know that Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York, traded in his reputation, job and possibly marriage for a night with a $4000 prostitute. One can’t help but wonder how anyone could be so incredibly stupid.
How indeed?
Whenever I hear adults criticize teens for doing stupid things (as they often do), I’m always mindful of the Clinton’s and Spitzer’s of the world – proof of the “Dilbert Principle”, that we are all idiots sometimes.
Politicians seem particularly skilled at making huge mistakes, so much so that I hereby introduce a new word: Spitzerian, or to Spitzer – to do something so incredibly stupid that the entire nation is in awe over how someone so intelligent can be so dumb (synonymous with Clintonian, Foleyan and insert name of favorite scandal ridden politician here).
Psychologists come up with all kinds of fancy reasons why people do these things. But, not being a psychologist, I believe it’s just that we human being are stupid sometimes, and do things without thinking of the consequences, or assume we are somehow immune to those consequences. The truth is, we do it all the time. Mostly it’s little things: overeating, not exercising enough, cheating just a bit on our homework, procrastinating, etc.. Most of us avoid the big mistakes, if only because we can’t afford $4000 prostitutes.
I’ve seen BBYO members do some stupid things. I think the difference though is that in many cases they do stupid things because they don’t actually know the consequences (as compared to just not thinking about them).
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