Wednesday, May 11, 2016 8:43 PM
Some are illiterate, some are ignorant, some are just willfully wrong-headed based on family tradition or religious zaniness. The stupid are among us, both candidates and voters. In everyday life we have to deal with the stupid—they cause the majority of traffic jams, on the road or on line at the market—anywhere that rules are required to keep things running smoothly, the stupid are there to jam up the works.
We look up to the monumentally stupid because their grandiose idiocy causes flood-victims to languish, lead-poisoning in the water, underpaid workers—even wars that have no end, because their foundations are stupidity—and once they’ve started the violence, their stupid brethren refuse to let anything be dropped and forgotten. Great (but stupid) things are done by greatly stupid people—there are even stupidity hoops you have to jump through to be accepted amongst these morons. Fraternal hazing, unpaid internships, playing along with the head stupid in charge—there are many steps before someone reaches the point where they will be trusted with the reins of stupidity in leadership.
Or you can simply be raised ‘entitled’—that’s got the stupid baked right in, and the confidence to use your stupid to its fullest potential. God, it makes me sick just writing about these stains. Never mind.
What a crock of shit life can be. And it could be so different—god, people suck! You know, people being nice, being generous, open-minded, people caring and helping—that shit isn’t supposed to be the rare nugget in a sea of shit—it’s supposed to be most of society, with just a few poor, broken souls causing some trouble now and then. But we get the opposite—every leader, every rich person, every boss—a total shitbag that deserves an eternity in hell—and 90% of people just walking around—just as bad. Ask’em why—they’ll tell you that you’ve got to “look out for number one”—fucking idiots—as if they would exist if people hadn’t shown them kindness along the way. It’s like misogyny—show me a misogynist who wasn’t raised by a caring mother—then (when you can’t) explain that bullshit to me—I’d love to understand this assholery. People are so fucking stupid.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not dissing the mentally-challenged—those are some of the finest people you’ll ever meet. No—stupid is something altogether different—stupid is being unwilling to pay attention, to absent oneself from responsibility, to make one’s own interests a priority over being a part of society. You can always hear stupid people saying things like, “You’ve got your opinion, I’ve got mine.” Opinions are private things, preferences, if you will—you don’t make the rules, or set public policy, or treat people differently—because of your opinion—you do it because you’ve given the matter some thought and considered the needs of everyone involved. Having an opinion about public policy is no different from the classic ‘because I said so’—acceptable in the extremes of parenting, perhaps, but never when dealing with your fellow grown-ups.
It’s stupid that we have rich people and starving people—and it’s not just stupid for the rich one and the starving one—it’s stupid of all of us to allow that kind of chicanery to be ‘the ways things are’. And don’t tell me it’s always been that way—the longer it’s been that way, the stupider it is to allow it to continue. Ditto war. Ditto bigotry. I could go on, but I’m tired of listing the many ways of stupidity—I’m a goddamned connoisseur of stupid—we have so many flavors.
Sure, there are scientists in laboratories all over the place, making up extremely intelligent new shit—that’s great. But when are we going to stop confining intelligence to the laboratory? When are we going to apply humanity’s vaunted intelligence to our fucking lives? Our Constitution is over two hundred years old and it’s been more than fifty years since the Civil Rights Act—when are we going to do some more good work like that? I know it’s tiring to think about stuff, but how long is this ‘break’ supposed to last?
Stupid.