You Can't Fix Stupid

I just turned a year older recently. I won't underscore the actual age, but I will say that I've reached that sad point in an individual's life in which the act of documenting birthdays becomes less an exercise in counting up and more an act of counting down. The "Best" of my years may not necessarily be behind me, but it is now becoming painfully possible that the majority of them are definitely accounted for.

Dare to Be Stupid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This isn't meant to gripe about aging, even though that is still rather high on my list of pet peeves. But age tends to bring with it some modicum of wisdom or insight, and I've been debating with one that I have difficulty coming to terms with. I've always been of the mind that you can't change a person's firmly held beliefs, as belief usually defies logic, and stands firmly on the unshakable foundation of moral or ideological stubbornness. A person doesn't believe in something because they think it is true. They believe in something because they need it to be true, and need will win out almost every time. But again, I've always believed that, and have never had trouble with that realization. Lately, however, I find myself vexed by a continuation of this thought:

You can't make stupid people smarter.

Let me clarify. You can educate the uneducated. You can inform the uninformed. And you can most certainly convince the unconvinced, if their lack of belief can be traced to a sincere deficit or error in logic. But there are a large number of people in the world today who are beyond the point of no return intellectually, where no thought processes or information will no longer take hold. Now, I'm not going to claim that this is news to me, but where I find myself at odds with myself is the line where I'm willing to allow that beliefs stop and stupidity starts.

Yes, political and religious differences tend to be a common source of this concern, but the line didn't start shifting until I realized that stupid people are more prone to regard their own ignorance as belief, hence blurring the lines even further. The phrases "That's your opinion," and "I'm entitled to my opinion," for example, seem to pop up more and more often in defense of otherwise idiotic or indefensible stances taken. Whereas this reply usually makes the most sense when used after all logical debate still results in an intellectual stalemate, it now tends to be thrown out haphazardly whenever an argument is countered by a fact not readily refutable. There is no consideration, there is no weighing of points and counterpoints, there is simply "This is what I think!" No more ground will be given, regardless of the argument presented.

Maybe it's a good thing that people are becoming more and more willing to stand up for what they believe in. Then again, if their belief is earned by nothing more than convenience, then what is the true value of the belief being fought over? What good is defending a political or religious belief when the motivation of the conviction has more to do with your comfort level than it does philosophical analysis. Americans continue to praise belief and morality, causes and ideologies, while at the same time rejecting education or higher learning as just an intellectually elitist way to obscure the truth rather than reveal it. We've embraced the life of the mind, but rejected the notion of developing or nurturing its usage.

I'm not going to give into typical middle-aged paranoia and claim that the number of these people is on the rise. But there is a large number of them out there, enough so that they not only manage to have an effect on popular culture and social norms, but in public and civil policy as well. And this, as they say, is where we're screwed. Polarization between portions of the country along religious and political lines becomes more and more commonplace as information sources cater more and more to these clashing factions, producing selective information meant to pacify and coddle, and not inform or improve.

I hate reducing some of the world's problems to such a simplistic viewpoint, but everyday I interact with people and observe the world around me, I see less willingness to turn to reason or logic, and more importantly, even less demonstrated ability. And if reading this leads you to believe that I am just stroking my ego by including myself in the rational minority my world-view has assembled against a see of slack-jawed imbeciles, and this is just another case of an elitist jerk looking down of those he disagrees with, well... feel free to dismiss this as my opinion.

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Intellectual Elitism, or Just Plain Smarter Than You?

Cover of Smart People

This country took a strange path over the past couple of decades, a road leading towards an inherent distrust in what many like to refer to as "Intellectual Elitism." Slowly, gradually, an ever-increasing number of Americans have become more and more wary of those who claim advance knowledge in specific fields of study. In short, more and more people are afraid of smart people.

Why could this possibly be? We could blame the politicians who sell this fear, or the news media that helps support it, or even the entertainment industry for turning ignorance into a noble character trait. But what it really comes down to is that many Americans fear smart people simply because they are, themselves, rather stupid.

Of course, this isn't the kind of thing you're supposed to say. It upsets people because they instantly assume that you are referring to them specifically, and lends support to the claims of Intellectual Elitism by the arrogant and snobbish nature of the statement. "You can't really mean that, can you? I guess you think you're smarter than most people." Actually, I do. Considering that the Average IQ of the American citizen rests between 90 and 100 (depending on who you ask), I feel very comfortable with the assumption that I am smarter than most of the people I come in contact with on a daily basis. It isn't smug elitism, just simple math. As a wise man once suggested, if you imagine how stupid the average person is, then realize that statistically half of the population is even dumber than that, you can get a real sense of how smart the majority truly is.

Does this mean I think I'm better than most people? Of course not. That's the same arrogance that allows some people to estimate their worth as an individual based on how much money they earn, or how big their house is, or how strong they are. At 6'4" I am also taller than most people, but that statement doesn't enrage people as much. Except really short people, of course.

The problem with this anti-intellectual attitude is that it has slowly made its way into the public discourse, and has taken over topics that in the past have been reserved for more intelligent consideration. With the growing amount of available media streaming into our eyes and ears, debates and discussions on serious issues of grave importance are being pondered and discussed by people with no real credentials. Some of the biggest names in talk radio, for example, spend hours discussing advanced political, economic and legal issues while having never obtained a college degree of any kind. Now, does not having a college degree make someone stupid? No, people are more than capable than obtaining knowledge on their own. However, most people prefer to get medical advice from a certified doctor with framed degrees on the wall, and not just a nice guy with a well-worn library card.

This acceptance of the untrained and unqualified as experts worth listening to has had a negative effect on the way matters of importance are considered. Take, for example, the state of political discourse in America today. Spend enough time reading the posts and messages of your average politically active individual (or, God forbid, get stuck in a conversation with one), and you will be utterly amazed at how ridiculous the most outspoken of them sound. if this is truly a nation of intelligent people, then why do most people with anything even remotely resembling a political agenda seem unable to engage in a cogent and logical argument? Follow any news site message board, and you'll be convinced that you are eavesdropping on schoolyard during recess. People spend more time defending individuals and organizations than they do ideas or philosophies, and most of the debate degenerates into labeling and name-calling.

Actually, the real reason I'm dragging politics into this is that this year's Republican Primaries stand as a perfect example of this strange reluctance to accept wisdom from the wise. The Republican Party has spent the last decade or two espousing financial success as the indicator of personal greatness, while simultaneously discrediting intelligent people scientists and college professors (who also just happen to regularly speak out against Republican policies) as "out of touch" and "too smart for their own good." The end result turns out to be a Presidential Primary composed entirely of extremely rich candidates who appear to be collectively dumber than a box of hammers.

Yeah, I know, it was hilarious when we got to poke fun at Sarah Palin for being stupid. But you could always blame her participation in the election process on John McCain's self-destructive flight of fancy, and at least she had enough common sense (barely, it seems) to drop out of public office altogether and rake in that sweet, sweet political pundit cash. But now there's nobody to blame. We're stuck with debate after debate featuring a stage full of disgustingly rich successful businessmen who repeatedly prove themselves to be less intellectually adept than a teenage Denny's waitress. The object of these debates has ceased to be deciding which candidate is best equipped to lead a nation, and is now nothing more than a sad game of seeing who can say the least amount of stupid shit in a specific time frame. What's even worse, the audiences keep upstaging the idiots in the spotlight by periodically applauding government-sanctioned murder, cheering the death of an uninsured man, booing an American soldier for

Maybe I'm being harsh, but I'm slowly resigning myself to living in a country in which a candidate for the role of Supreme Leader (more or less) declares a to have created a list of three important items that need to be addressed, fails to remember what the third item was, and doesn't immediately drop out of the race in shame. Rick Perry hasn't been the only one taking pride in ignorance, either. The historical mistakes, policy blunders and poorly phrased sentences exposing an increasing insular existence have been a daily occurrence, with each painful error brushed of or explained away by the candidates as the results of strenuous campaigning or "gotchya questions" served up by a hostile press. If these are the results of gotchya questions, the least the telejournalists could do is point and laugh when they finally trip somebody up with difficult brain teasers such as "What do you read?"

Where am I going with all of this? I'm not sure, really. If I had any kind of solution or overall explanation is to why Mike Judge's Idiocracy keeps looking more and more like a grim eventuality, this is where I'd lay it all out. I guess I don't have all of the answers after all. Hey, I said I was smart. I didn't say I was THAT smart.

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11/7/11 - Doublethink, Princess Cars, Parade Routes, Republican Denials

Image via WikipediaOver the weekend, I found myself involved in a casual conversation regarding the schizophrenic nature of today's culture, mainly involving the influence of entertainment and advertising media on society's ideological foundation. Afterwards, I found myself pondering the aspect of a "Schizophrenic Society," what I or other people actually mean when making such a claim.

While I can't speak for other people, I usually throw the phrase out to imply that our generally accepted belief system forces us to attempt to simultaneously believe two diametrically opposing concepts. The examples of this kind of hypocritical cultural programming are many and varied, like family sitcoms espousing the wisdom of recognizing inner beauty or superficial outward appearances while being interrupt every ten minutes by ads for beauty products featuring waifish, plastic-molded models.

However, I've been chewing on the very concept the past few days, and it occurs to me that I am guilty of the exact same things I am fond of accusing the general public of falling for. From an idealistic viewpoint, I seem to be constantly at war with myself when it comes to my overall opinion regarding the current shape of the world and people as a whole. My opinion regarding the worth of people, society, government, and religion will often swing from hopeful and positive to cynical and misanthropic, at times with the same day or hour. Contemplating this, I have come to the conclusion that this apparent hypocritical mindset, while disconcerting and cautionary, isn't completely unfounded. I am of the firm belief that both my negative and positive views regarding the world and its inhabitants are easily defended and merit equal consideration.

I guess what I'm saying is, Doublethink (to coin a term made popular by George Orwell in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four) might not be as destructive a concept as we might think. Considering the complexities of the human mind and spirit, skewed logic might be the only real way to fully comprehend the reality we have created for ourselves.

I'm still debating as to whether this is good or bad.

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And now, for your viewing pleasure, a scene from the Japanese animated film Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Adolescence of Utena, featuring a young Princess being transformed into a sports car.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled random thoughts and opinions.

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What makes local officials think that the best way to draw business into their town is to arrange an event, such as a parade or marathon, that shuts down streets, backs up traffic, and effectively isolates the town's main commercial venues from anyone wanting to swing by for some quick or casual shopping. Parents, locals active in community events, and people with too much time on their hands might be willing to park ten blocks away and run baby stroller hurdles down crowded sidewalks in order to watch a bike race or a parade comprised of pickup trucks and tractors with random kids and strangers waving from flatbeds, but someone looking to spend some weekend folding money on a nice meal or expensive home decor are probably just going turn around and drive on to the next exit. You want to draw activity to your town? Overrun the lesser-populated areas of town, and give those not interested in extravagantly underfunded displays in local pride access to the parking meters. Just a thought.

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Dahlia Lithwick has a great article over at Slate.com lamenting that the instinctual Republican reaction the the recently resurfacing accusations of sexual harassment leveled at primary hopeful Herman Cain has not been to defend him, but to instead imply, suggest, or outright stating that sexual harassment in the workplace just doesn't happen.

This has always been a major disconnect for me with the Republican party and those who religiously follow their talking points, a false logic meant to cover flaws in their idealistic posturing. Instead of acknowledging and attempting to correct or address inequalities and injustices that hurt their political agenda, they always find it much easier to dismiss claims of abuse or need.

In this convoluted, self-serving fashion, welfare recipients wear fur coats and have multiple children to increase their benefits, those collecting unemployment are just lazy freeloaders, labor unions are terrorist organizations that hold defenseless corporations hostage for inflated salaries, worker rights are just another excuse for employees to avoid doing their jobs, sexism is just a feminist myth, and racism just plain doesn't exist anymore.

I understand that not all Republicans think or talk this way. But it is the majority of the ones in power who do, and those who follow their lead, that prevent me from taking anything their party espouses idealistically as serious or trustworthy.

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Allen West: I Am The Modern-Day Harriet Tubman

Is it just me, or have the Republican­s fully adopted the Rush Limbaugh/A­nn Coulter promotiona­l strategy of purposely making stupid/ins­ane/contro­versial statements in order to ensure constant media coverage? There has been so much stupid/cra­zy flying out of the Right Wing this past week alone that it almost seems intentional. Between Mr. Tubman Mark II, Wild-Eyes Bachmann and Drone Over Mexico Perry, it's getting harder and harder to catch a breath between laughter,

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Why Aren't Republicans Funny?

Chistine O'Donnell's new "I'm not a witch" commercial is depressingly reminiscent of Sarah Palin running with the "Palm Notes" debacle, and underlines one of the major flaws of most republicans: they truly have no noticeable sense of humor. Palin and O'Donnell trying to act like they are good sports who are in on the joke, or firing back with staff-written jabs of their own, always fails with an audible thud. Why do most far Right Wingers have no comprehension of satire or parody, or even a basic understanding of the form and function of a joke?

Image by Bearman2007 via FlickrThis isn't an isolated incident, either. A recent poll showed that a large number of conservatives did not realize that the Colbert Report was satire; they thought he was actually championing conservative causes, albeit in a humurous way. They didn't get the joke. Could it be that buying into the Republican world view actually divorces you from reality and the human condition so much that you no longer understand what is humorous? It would explain why Dennis Miller stopped being funny once he gave up his impartial comedian status and became a dedicated toe-the-line conservative commentator.

Still don’t see the connection? Remember Fox News' short-lived attempt at a Daily Show-type comedy news series, the 1/2 Hour News Hour? Yeah, most people don’t. Yet another audible thud.

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More Than 200,000 Could Lose Unemployment Benefits This Week

If you ever needed a clear example of exactly how little politicians care about the people whose welfare they supposedly are working for, you won't do much better than this.

The first time this happened, back in February, you could pretty much level the blame at the Republicans exclusively. This time around, however, both sides are guilty of putting the chance of scoring a political win ahead of the importance of lending financial security to the growing number of Americans currently unemployed because of the governments initial failings at monitoring economic policy and procedure.

The Democrats could have easily called the Republican bluff and worked through the Easter break to get the job done, or could have accepted the temporary extension offered and fixed things on the return. Instead, they decided to double down and gamble on some more negative press for the GOP. It is rather unfortunate that the only time the Dems seem to grow a pair is when it doesn't benefit anyone.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama's Socialist Book Club

The author over at the SayAnythingBlog recently posted a major breakthrough in the case against Obama. While touring the White House as a time-waster until CPAC started, this fearless crusader against the Obama Oppression was supposedly told by a tour guide that Michelle Obama had made some recent additions to the White House Library. SOCIALIST additions! Knowing that a picture is worth a thousand words, this brave soul managed to take a picture of the damning evidence of our country's idealogical takeover before Socialist Security Guards could stop him:

Smelling a major Scoop, he rushed the photo out and implied that this, taken with the fact that a member of the Obama administration once mentioned Chairman Mao by name, was damning evidence indeed.

Apparently, the "SayAnything" name of the blog is a reference to saying anything that comes to mind without doing any kind of fact checking or research. After he rushed this photo out with his accusations of a Communist Takeover, the Washington Post (which apparently likes to fact check) felt the need to point out that the books in question have been sitting on the shelves of the White House since 1963, when they were placed there (along with over 1,700 other books) by a committee created by Jackie Kennedy.

The humbled whistle blower at the SayAnythingBlog reluctantly posted a correction (because taking the original inaccurate post down would be silly), blaming the tour guide rather than himself, and insisting that his error did not invalidate his accusation that the White House has been overrun with Marxists.

I'm assuming that it will only take him a day or two to realize that the books are actually proof of vast Left-Wing Conspiracy stretching from the Obama Presidency all the way back to Kennedy's Camelot. That timeline should look good on Glenn Beck's chalkboard.

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CBS News: Iranian Protesters Don't Care What John McCain Thinks

On ABC News, Iranian filmmaker/journalist Kouross Esmaeli commented on the Republican

Image via Wikipedia

criticisms of President Obama's handling of the Iranian Protests in the wake of the blatantly rigged Elections.

Kouross not only emphasized that most Iranians couldn't really care less about the opinions of Senator John McCain, a man who gleefully sang about bombing Iran during the presidential election primaries of 2008, he even went as far as to recognize that the news media as a whole has been implicitly helpful in spreading and disseminating the Republican Party's illogical and politically motivated arguments against President Obama's well calibrated statements on the Iranian uprising.




Iranian protesters as a whole, it seems, have more important things to worry about than the political aspirations of rapidly aging right-wing politicians. Go figure.

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Bernard Goldberg Inspires Mass Murder

Right-wing author Bernard Goldberg got some great press coverage today.

James Adkisson, the gunman who walked into a Unitarian Universalist Church with a shotgun and opened fire on the congregation (who were watching children perform their rendition of Annie), was sentenced to life in prison today. As part of his final statement, Adkisson released a four-page manifesto, which he had originally intended to be his suicide note if he was killed by police during his rampage.

A Vietnam-era veteran with alcohol abuse problems, Adkisson had been struggling to find gainful employment. He eventually came to blame Liberals for his problems, and when arrested claimed that his intention had been to kill as many Liberals as possible to send a message to the nation. The four-page manifesto he released to the press goes into great detail about his hatred of all things left-wing, and serves up one especially noticeable paragraph (emphasis added):

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

The book that Adkisson is referring to is Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37). In the book, Goldberg rants on how people like Tim Robbins, Norman Mailer, Howard Stern and Gloria Steinem are destroying America from the inside out (Spoiler Alert: Michael Moore is #1). He actually followed it up in 2006 with 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America, because you never want a list of such magnitude to become outdated.

After the shooting, once Adkisson proclaimed his motives and intentions, a lot of people started screaming that this was proof that the hate-speech being spewed by the hard-right was actually inciting hatred and violence in its audience. Those claims have now been somewhat validated.

Granted, this was definitely not the name that many people were hoping would pop up. Those who are disgusted by the right-wing-talking-head-propaganda machine were really holding out for something bigger; a last minute shout-out to Sean Hannity, a Rush Is My Spirit Guide bumper sticker, or even a complete collection of Anne Coulter's books, signed by Coulter with the inscription "Go get'em, Tiger!"

Hannity, O'Reilly or Limbaugh would have been major Conservative Icons worth raking across the coals for their incendiary and inciting diatribes. Goldberg, for the most part, is just a big-mouthed stooge who pisses and moans that every negative thing said about Republicans in the media or the entertainment industry is proof of a vast left-wing conspiracy to drown out the true voice of America. His latest book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media, is 184 pages of him complaining that the News Media gave Obama a free pass to the White House. For anyone who actually paid attention during the elections, this assessment is complete crap. But, hey, whatever makes you feel better.

But the point of this, the importance of Goldberg's name actually appearing in Adkisson's Manifesto, is that most of the right-wing ranting and posturing is designed to make people worse. People like Adkisson, down on their luck and easily influenced, turn to these people not because they offer hope or answers, but because they offer them someone to hate.

Adkisson was told that the Liberals are to blame for the shape of the economy. He was told that the Liberals are letting foreigners into the country to live off welfare and take the jobs away from Americans like him. He was told that the Liberals hate God and Christianity, and are trying to destroy (Christian) religion by stopping prayer in schools, letting Gays get married, and taking the Christ out of Christmas. He was told that the Liberals wanted to destroy the American way of life and turn it into a Communist/Socialist/Marxist One World Order. Oh, and Liberals hate the troops and want America to lose the war.

Adkisson believed them. He believed that the country he fought for and loved was under attack. So he loaded a shotgun, marched into a non-Christian church known to perform outreach programs for Gays, and started shooting.

Congratulations, Bernie. Your sales should go up with this news. All that fear mongering and alarm-sounding have finally paid off. One of your biggest fans took your book and turned it into a hit list. Of course, I'm not implying that you intending anyone to go out and harm others when you wrote any of your books. Then again, you and your cronies have been screaming at that top of your lungs for years that the American Way as we know it is under constant attack by the evil Liberals. What else did you expect a God-fearing Patriot to do?

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