Stupidity: A Rant

Stupidity is a Choice.  There, I’ve said it!

But, before I get into the meat (sic) of this essay, let me clarify the literal (dictionary) distinction between ignorant and stupid.  An ignorant person does not know stuff, a stupid person has a sub-par brain.  Both words are insults, stupid is much worse. Partly because stupid can’t be fixed.  At least, that is how wordsmiths think of these words.

Before writing this post, I figured that I should discover if anyone else had said something similar.  So, Googling “stupidity is a choice,” here is what I found (in author order):

• When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.  --Isaac Asimov
• Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.  --George Carlin
• Ignorance is the absence of knowledge.  Stupidity is the refusal to acquire or accept it.  --Paulo Coelho
• Two things are infinite.  The universe and human stupidity.   And I’m not so sure about the universe.  --Albert Einstein
• We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.  --Benjamin Franklin
• Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.  --MLK, Jr.
• Stupid is a condition. Ignorance is a choice.  --Wiley Miller
• Stupidity.  It’s not a choice, it’s a lifestyle.  --Elizabeth Ann Sexton
• It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of those people who pay no price for being wrong.  --Thomas Sowell
• When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.  --Mark Twain
• The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.  --Voltaire
• Stupidity is a choice but some people abuse it.  --unknown
• God must love stupid people.  He made so many of them.  --unknown

This is not an exhaustive list, but I wearied of copying and pasting.

To be clear, the words stupid, moron, idiot, etc. are all words of abuse, exposing more about the speaker – specifically his unhealthy contempt for the object of his insult – than his words' victim.

Typically, when we think of the words stupid and stupidity we think of a person with a low IQ.  But low IQs, especially seriously low IQs, are the consequence of physical damage to the not-yet-person in utero.  And are surely not the fault of the individual so cursed.  Rather, I am writing about the kind of stupidity that bases what is true and what is real on whether it feels good, whether it supports one’s own (sometimes unconscious) world view, even when one knows better.  Which may or may not be worse than brain damage.  Which may or may not be fixable.

Examples of stupid (because we know better) thoughts include: the Earth is flat, the Sun rotates around the Earth, humans are NOT related to chimpanzees, the Holocaust didn't happen, men did not walk on the Moon, Climate Change is not happening and it is not humanity’s doing, and still – more than 2½ years later, after all the crap has been debunked hundreds of times – believing that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

What got me started thinking about stupidity being a choice was a radio report about Dominion Voting suing Fox News for libel, but especially the part about Fox losing its viewers after reporting just before midnight Eastern Time on Election Eve in 2020 that Arizona had gone for Biden.  As though the Fox News viewer could find the TRUTH (that Trump had, of course, won Arizona) on a different station, as though Fox had betrayed its viewers by calling Arizona for Biden not Trump.  I understand turning off the TV in frustration over bad news, but to go looking for different news – good news – on another station is … at least borderline stupid.  No, it's NOT borderline!  The inability to accept reality when you know the truth is stupidity by choice.

Looking for alternative news that suits you – that makes you feel good, that confirms your worldview – is stupid by choice.  Facts are facts, even when they come from Fox News, or the New York Times or the Washington Post, even when they are distressing. The Dominion law suit revealed that – in order to placate its viewers – Fox began to spread lies, lies that its regular viewers wanted to hear, lies that were compatible with their worldview, that the only way for Trump to lose the election was if it were rigged.  He had said so hundreds of times and millions believed him.  Deciding what is true based on how it makes one feel may have group survival value, but in the end its cost is too high.   It creates a mindset where one is no longer able to separate fact from fiction.   And it feeds an unquenchable rage that cannot be extinguished except by forcing one’s fiction upon the nation until the nation breaks.  Am I slandering all MAGA voters?  No, but I am slandering those MAGA voters who a) believe that the 2020 election was stolen and who b) are still willing to take action to "take back their country" and "make America great again."  When was America great?  When it was lily-white.  When was America lily-white?  In some American's imaginations.

My stomach tells me when it is hungry, and I feed it; or I go hungry, and eventually I die from physical starvation.  My mind tells me when it is hungry, and I feed it; or I go hungry, and eventually I die from mental starvation.  I can feed my stomach junk food or healthful food, my body will know the difference; similarly with my mind, I can feed it facts or fiction; when I feed on facts that are wrong, my body will know the difference.  My mind’s hunger is called curiosity; when my curiosity dies, I cease being human.  But we can fix a broken curiosity in a flash, by deciding to get hungry for facts, for reality, for what we and everyone else know is true.

If you don’t like everything that reality shows you (and who does?), don’t deny reality, work to change it.  Keep in mind, some reality is not controlled by us.

The Capitol riot on January 6th was not the last assault on our democracy, it was the first.

Holy Bible, King James Version, Deuteronomy 30:19.  I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life.

Addendum: Tuesday, 04/03/2023

While this specific post was inspired by the story of Trump supporters switching channels in hopes of findIng one that showed their guy in the lead in Arizona, there are many other variations on stupidity as a choice.  Here are a few:

Stupidity is a choice when:

• given the opportunity to hear an argument from the other side, to step outside of your echo chamber, you always pass;
• you are sure you know enough, no reason to burden your brain with unnecessary knowledge;
• you don't allow anyone to argue with you ("don't bother me with facts, my mind is already made up");
• you would rather do anything than work your fevered brain (like watch TV, a sporting event or a rom-com);
• you are dedicated to never again reading a book.

But the best source I know for examples (not just categories) of stupidity being a choice are the five (or nine) volumes of The Darwin Awards, edited by Wendi Northcutt, 2000 - 2010.   I found them side-splittingly hilarious, but some won't (because many, if not most, of the award's recipients literally perish from their acts of stupid derring-do).

Addendum: Thursday, 11/09/2023

I seem to have suggested in the rant above that (many) Americans are stupid (by choice).  Here is proof!

The institution that Americans disapprove of the most is ... Congress!  Nevertheless, incumbency (an incumbent is the guy who already holds the office) is the single biggest factor in being elected to Congress!  In other words, "Congress totally sucks but I'm gonna vote for MY Congress person because he/she is an exception!"   Talk about stupid, holding opposing views on a single question in one mind.