Monday, October 25, 2010 at 3:23am
I
want to entertain a frightening idea. What if we’re really not that
stupid?
I
should say, the following digression is prompted after watching
Christine O’Donnell talk about sex and morality. In general,
whenever there is a tea bagger or token idiot on a panel, there are
three or four reasonable people sitting next to them. This at least
puts on the idea that there are a majority of people who let facts
and rational discourse govern their interaction, and woe to those who
forget, there’s still bat shit crazy people out there. I have an
initial problem with even giving that stupid a stage and allowing it
to look like an equal position.
Nothing
positive comes from resolving to negotiate with stupid. A different
opinion is not the same thing as stupid. I can factually state that
it is stupid to deny the effectiveness of condoms and pretend there
are just endless waves of depravity and ill will if you fuck outside
of marriage. Why have we decided it is a good idea to respect ideas
that stupid? Why is something like the right for gays to serve in the
military even an issue? How much time has to be wasted and how many
civil and practical rights need to be reestablished?
Alas,
maybe this speaks to a deeper stupidity. A stupidity of smart people
in how they speak and what they allow their time to be engaged with.
Bill Maher, for example, might have his celebrity influence, actual
data, and education, but still be plagued by the stupid idea that
Christine O’Donnell deserves to cross his lips for anything beyond
meager entertainment. Perhaps there is real damage done to the nature
of the discourse by genuinely entertaining harmful and ridiculous
ideas. To be sure, this doesn’t mean the people will go away or
that the problems they have will somehow fix themselves, but it does
save the time and keep the dignity in what I’ll refer to as
“the smart discourse.”
How
do we engage with children? When they don’t want to eat or sleep,
they are ignorant, sometimes willfully stupid in how they behave. We
don’t resolve ourselves to letting them do as they please, at least
not those most would call responsible parents. Why do we treat
“adults” with any less care for their well-being and what they
need to grow to understand?
A
point was raised about our current political atmosphere and why there
is such a low youth vote and a ridiculously dirty group of people
vying for seats. What smart person who respects their time and wants
to get anything done joins this political atmosphere? Who can really
respect their time and their position on, oh, believing in global
warming and safe sex education, and be made to “compete” with an
abstinence only “god made the world and will destroy it”
position?
I
really think we’ll let “ourselves” destroy ourselves before we
really decide to jump in and fix anything. You’ll have people like
Obama that say one thing and half-ass do some of those things, and
you’ll have true believers in the process or their ability to
change things, but how are we expected to trust or believe in the
examples they set? Why do genuinely productive and educated people
want to perpetuate a system that operates like that? I don’t think
they do. I at least don’t. The problem of course is that being a
part of this global community, their stupidity very literally affects
me no matter how disengaged I’d like to be from it. When it falls,
to some extent, I do.
What
kills me is that stupid has attributes. We can point to something,
give a list of reasons, causes and effects, and within a context
explain why it would be stupid, damaging, or at the very least
unhelpful. Need an example of how to stupidly answer questions,
Bushisms. Need to embarrass yourself in an interview, model Palin. In
a “discussion” the person who talks in generalities, drones
endlessly the same, frequently beaten point over and over, and
references the magic bible as their source of credibility is probably
the stupid one. The people who can deny evolution, stem cell
research, and global warming do not care about you. They don’t want
the world to be a better place, they want "their world" to
be the better place. Their views, while rightfully held, do not
belong at the big kids table.
I
think smart people tend to avoid out of necessity. You can’t remain
sane occupying your time with shit that literally makes no sense or
you can prove to be harmful. How can you justify pulling out of being
an active educated member of society to engage with stupidity?
Where’s the balance? What’s it worth selling to people who
actively make themselves unwilling and unable to understand you?
At
this point I’m just asking a ton of questions I don’t really want
to explore right now. I guess I’d simply like to make the appeal to
the four out of five people presumed smart until proven otherwise to
ask themselves better questions and actually translate their answers
into better discourse and effective time management. The stupid won’t
go away and does affect you. How can we push the façade that we’re
being diplomatic out of respect, while truly understanding how
important it is to keep the stupid from exploding? What kind of
examples can we set for the people so lost and disenfranchised, yet
earnestly hoping and working towards a sustainable future?
