Dicing Up The Problems

I woke up this morning, got a cup of coffee, and sat down to write about a Niebuhrian approach to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Then it dawned on me that I have really lost my edge, having not actively studied or taught Niebuhrian ethics in some time. So while I re-educate myself on the subject and see if the theologian of public life has anything to say about this latest flare of violence in a violent region, perhaps it is a good time to re-examine what this blog is trying to do in its sporadic existence.

Before that however, if you have not seen this clip of John Cleese explaining why stupid people do not understand that they are stupid, you really should.

 

I have been following current events and the public ways people perceive them for a long time now, and even if memory is a poor resource for measuring, the public displays of stupidity seem to be rising exponentially every year. Does this base assumption need to be established? That America is a nation with a huge number of idiots? Drooling morons even? This statement is not to bash anyone for being stupid per se, for every 101 there has to be a 99 if IQ means anything. What I have a problem with is conspicuous displays of ignorance. More on that later. What is important here is to what degree is intelligence inherent, and to what degree it is a product of our environment?

 

There certainly are exceptional people out there, I have known quite a few, but intelligence is not a single axis. Education and experience can do so much for people, but you have to be open-minded enough to learn. I used to proceed from the assumption that curiosity and the desire/drive to learn was a universal human trait. As I have aged and encountered different people however, that notion has just been shattered. If one wanted to point to the single epiphany that shaped my gloominess, it was realizing that most of my friends were utterly uninterested in learning or trying anything new. Nor were they humble enough to accept that they could be wrong and possibly need to re-examine positions or opinions.

 

After seeing twenty something factory workers become frozen in their beliefs right before my eyes I started paying attention to talk shows, letters to the editor, and eavesdropping on passersby finding the same thing. What happens to people? There is a great big world out there and between the library or the internet one can find out a lot of things. Jello Biafra once sang "your lack of curiosity is the key to our success" with No Means No on Sky Is Falling & I Want My Mommy in the ironic way he is best known for as a songwriter. Not only has the dumbing down of Americans made it so much easier for grubby authoritarians and demagogues to sneak into public office or the media, but we have started falling for some really strange things lately.

 

Conspiracy theories may have always been on the fringe of American society, it was long-rumored that George Washington longed to be crowned monarch and do away with all this republican nonsense. But conspiracy theorists have relentlessly pushed their crazy and sometimes dangerous ideas into the mainstream in recent years. While the entire right wing apparatus is guilty of breathlessly pushing lies and misinformation, conspiracy theorists are a different animal (see my recent post on Robin Williams' death). Just a few recent (and stupid) examples: "Facebook is going to start charging a subscription fee!" "Halloween is National 'Kill a Pit Bull' Day!" And my favorite "6th graders taught how to use strap-on dildo!" These are stories posted by actual people on social media recently, and all three are various levels of untrue. The first and last were originally posted on satirical websites and the second was a meme mash up of newspaper clippings and flyers.

 

If you want to anger Facebook users more than anything, start a rumor that they will have to start paying for it. The rebuke was conveniently located just below the original story in "related links." Of course, with a simple understanding of what media (even social media) is in this country you do not need to check whether National Report is just some goofy competitor to the Onion, it is. You would know that FB's users are the product for sale, to advertisers. Perhaps big Z did not intend to build this sprawling online apparatus simply to put eyeballs in front of paid advertisements, but that is what Facebook does, the same way NBC or the Washington Post functions. Any effect of improving communications or allowing relatives to stay connected or long lost friendships to be rekindled is incidental. Killing pit bulls? Seriously? This is a dog-loving nation, can you think of a more offensive idea? But people take it seriously, just as they believe in angels and the knock-out game. Okay, maybe the last one is a more offensive idea. If I was being paid to do it I could not find something more likely to drive the fox news watching grandmas and grandpas of America crazy. It is of course, an exercise in propaganda and mental trickery, but the first three entries of a Google search are from right wing nincompoops passing the story off as valid. The strap-on story was a twist, right down to the photo shopped cell phone camera pictures, but while you can't expect the tea party or ron paul types to understand Photoshop when they are busy dragging us back to the Gilded Age, whoever was really responsible had more of an agenda then simply getting a rise out of the self-righteous teabaggers and info wars conspiracy theorists.

 

My point here, and to conclude this ramble, is that in the age of technological manipulation, viral news, and extreme political polarization we all need to try just a little harder not to fall for this kind of nonsense. The purpose of this blog has been to defuse some of the fear out there. The Children of Darkness could not exist without the irrational fear and self-righteousness of the gullible, don't fall for their traps.