There’s been much moaning recently — some of it on this very site — about how stupid Americans are, this supposed stupidity being much in evidence after the Boston bombs went off, and the usual loons started tweeting their usual shit: Kill the Arabs, etc. etc.
Stupidity in others is an attractive explanation, particularly if you think you’re rather a clever fellow yourself. Of course this very fact renders it suspect as an hypothesis.
I don’t like this explanation. I don’t think we’re stupid. I think we’re kind of evil, really. And I think we’re evil mostly because we’re citizens of the Top Country, which is to say, soldiers in the garrison of the Death Star.
It’s not an intrinsic evil; we weren’t born evil, or at least not in this particular way. Nor is it a consciously, freely-chosen evil: I am determined to prove a villain, as old Dick Crookback observes somewhere. No, it’s a path-of-least-resistance evil; and really, nobody can be blamed for taking that path.
An evil you can’t blame people for? Isn’t that ‘kind of an oxymoron’, as I was once asked by some pretentious film-school bore, sporting what Rabelais calls a ‘great buggerly beard’, after I had produced what I thought was a rather Wildean paradox.
Well yes, asshole, in a word, it is. Kind of. Which just goes to show that at least one is not entirely on the wrong track. Once everything starts to fall out nicely from first principles, you can be sure you’ve gone off the rails.
We’re a bad bunch, we Amurricans, in many ways. Most of all, we’ve been compromised by our buy-in to the imperial idea.
The kill-em-all crowd are a small, particularly crazed minority; most of us would want to stop short of that — maybe it would suffice just to decimate them all. The Lesser Evil!
But I think we all have that brain-bug in our heads. It’s almost an everyday incident to meet some personable, kind, even heroic American individual — somebody who’s supporting a Down syndrome kid and a mom with Alzheimer’s, and who still somehow finds a way to walk the world with a smile on his face and a ready capacity for companionable mirth.
But when the conversation turns, in spite of all your efforts, to the towelheads — then the evil comes out. It’s not usually ‘kill ’em all’ — not quite — but the killer impulse is distinctly present.
There’s a coarse old joke, which I’ve always thought explains a lot:
Q: Why does a dog lick his own balls?
A: Because a dog can lick his own balls.
There are no doubt stupid people in our midst. And I mean relentlessly, stubbornly stupid. But even a cursory review of recent American history will tell you, it’s the “smart” people we need to worry about.
Well, I wouldn’t exactly consider the crowd who keep doing the same shit and expecting different results to be “smart”, brand-name university degrees notwithstanding.
Kinda reminds me of right after Obummer was “elected”, listening to my wife and all her gushy Liberal friends talking about how “smart” he was. I’d had a good, hard, steamy look at the guy, what he stood for, and what he was about way before he ran for President, and I decided then that Smart Is The New Stupid.
I gather this post is directed towards me and some comments I’ve made. But I say why chose? Couldn’t it be both stupidity and malice?
But perhaps my choice of the word “stupid” was a mistake. It’s more like willful ignorance. We’re Americans, we’re the best, we’re the exceptional country that is different and better than any other nation that ever existed, God is on our side, we’re the shining city on the hill and we don’t need to know nuthin’ ’bout nuthin’. Everyone on the planet should follow our shining example and be like us then they’ll be happy too and if they refuse? Well, there’s always the malice you speak of.
When I was studying Buddhism many years ago one of my instructors made the comment that willful ignorance is one of the worst of all sins. I tend to agree and I tend to think many of my fellow Americans commit that sin with gusto. As well as holding in their hearts a good deal of the malice you mention.
It wasn’t really meant as a reply to your comments, though they probably provoked my latest round of rumination on the topic. But I’ve been discontented with the stupidity trope for a long time.
I’ve already encountered a few people who wanted to, in the words of one, “Find out what country they’re from and bomb the shit out of the whole place….What else are we supposed to do?”
And, somewhat relatedly, after Major Hassan shot up Fort Hood, I had a chat with the father of a very good friend — the dad a judge no less; or appropriately; — whose idea for “responding” to Hassan was, “Everytime something liken this happens, we should bomb a city in Iraq.”
Stupidity? Bravado overcompensating for fear? Imperial entitlement? Evil? Or just guys shooting off their mouths because it feels good? Perhaps all of the above.
I guess the difference is, when people collectively shoot of their mouths in Italy or the Sudan, it’s not like they think any of these options are possible. It’s also not possible that their government will DO any of these things. Or perhaps they don’t even think them in the first place because they haven’t been marinating in imperial entitlement.
One last thing. In my personal experience, the average schmo outside of the US seems to be more informed than some of the most informed people I meet within These United States. Certainly more informed than me, and I consider myself fairly informed. I suspect this is the case because they HAVE to be informed — they’re the ones that have to live with our government’s imperial hubris, violence, and stupidity.
“One last thing. In my personal experience, the average schmo outside of the US seems to be more informed than some of the most informed people I meet within These United States. Certainly more informed than me, and I consider myself fairly informed. I suspect this is the case because they HAVE to be informed — they’re the ones that have to live with our government’s imperial hubris, violence, and stupidity.”
That has been my experience also and I think you’ve got it right.
“… the average schmo outside of the US seems to be more informed than some of the most informed people I meet within These United States.” I feel like people usually have Europeans–and possibility Brit-stralians–in mind when they say this. My own experience is while this is true for trivial facts–finding Myanmar on a map, say, Europeans make up for it (on average) in other ways–the UKians do, I lived there. Whatever.
But as far as enlightenment where it counts–you got to go to the colonies. People there know exactly what we’ve done and are doing to them–the recent massacre in Honduras*, e.g.–even if liberal and conservative and wingnut alike live in happy ignorance. Ignorance springing not from stupidity but, quite intentionally, from a very rational (in a certain sense) desire not to know.
* I met two women recently who work for the State Department there. Holly shit was it a miracle I kept my moth shut–it’s amazing one can be there, in the middle of it, and still believe the lies. I mean I guess I get how the psychology works….Actually, it occurs to me that this is the psychology that does the real damage. True psychopaths aren’t sufficiently prolific to do more than localized damage on their own. It’s the ability to be a decent person and an accessory (via some institution) to the worst enormity. That’s something special Civilization has spawned.
Good point, Smiff, but, still… that doesn’t necessarily mean that Americans, by and large, are dumb as a goddamn’ bag of hammers. Do you realize how many Americans believe that global warming is a hoax? That humans never landed on the Moon? That vaccines cause autism? That mobile phones cause brain tumors? That Obama is the Antichrist? That Obama is a progressive?
Malicious, for sure… but still muthafuckin’ rock stupid.
Good point, Smiff, but, still… that doesn’t necessarily mean that Americans, by and large, aren’t still dumb as a goddamn’ bag of hammers. Do you realize how many Americans believe that global warming is a hoax? That humans never landed on the Moon? That vaccines cause autism? That mobile phones cause brain tumors? That Obama is the Antichrist? That Obama is a progressive?
Malicious, for sure… but still muthafuckin’ rock stupid.
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PS: If there were an “edit” or “delete” function, I’d delete the first version of this post as I made a massive error which changed the basic meaning of the first sentence. Serves me right for not obsessively proofreading. Sorry, man…
“Malicious, for sure… but still muthafuckin’ rock stupid.”
LOL. I’m a bit drunk as I post here so I won’t pretend to not be stupid myself, but let me give this one a +1
You have to be very clever and alert in order to be as solidly stupid as many people manage to be. To see a possible contrary argument coming over the hill and recognize it long before you can see the whites of its eyes — well, it’s a kind of genius. To refuse to engage in actual logical discussion of a topic and treat such a prospect as an attack in itself, is a demonic misuse of our human capacities of understanding.
PS “demonic” to my mind doesn’t mean flames and stink and shrieking critters with pitchforks. See “Perelandra.”
It has been known for centuries that malice is a root cause of stupidity. Read Isaiah:
“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”Isaiah 29:13-14.
“As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect,” Ambassador Petr Gandalovič said in a statement on the Czech embassy’s website on Friday.
The suspects in the twin bombing attack on April 15, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, were said by US officials to be members of a family originally from Chechnya in the volatile north Caucasus region of Russia where federal forces have been battling Islamist insurgents for years.
“The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities – the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation,” Gandalovič pointed out.
The two countries are about 2,730 kilometers (1,700 miles) apart.
from: http://en.ria.ru/world/20130421/180754029.html
Stupid and vicious: not mutually exclusive.
I blame the teachers unions.
just kiddin’.