I'm generally quite an easy going person, I'd like to think I'm open minded, accepting and all that other good stuff, but the older I get the more I'm realizing there's one thing I have trouble overlooking, and that is stupidity. It's ok to be a bit dim, you can't help how your brain is built, and it's impossible to know everything, in some contexts I'm utterly stupid myself, but if I don't know something or if I'm confused I generally keep my mouth shut.
My latest outburst is after reading comments on an article, surely I can understand why people are upset, but I cannot understand why they reason the way they do, taking two unrelated events and blaming one on the other. How does that even work? It reminds me of when they raised the price of a product and a customer said "The bastards can raise the price of the newspaper, but they're not raising the pensions are they?". I tried really hard to not laugh at her. How can a private profit driving company possibly have anything to do with pensions? I wish this was only a one time event, but it seems to be a common thing.
In a university class, in 2010, with no sense of sarcasm and irony someone asked if the way the swedish counties hand out money to their different departments had any relation to how much money bank directors make. This time I did roll my eyes, not so that the asker could see, of course. But it makes me wonder, is the public this uneducated? Or are they that used to blaming something they can't quite picture?
Why is it so hard to learn simple reasoning? I'm fully aware that I risk coming off as a stuck up bitch in this, and there's a possibility you're right, but must stupid people speak? Do they understand how stupid they seem? And first and foremost how can we expect a good world if they're that stupid - can they make informed decisions when it comes to things such as voting? I'm getting honestly concerned, rather than listening to the sales pitches of the political parties I do my own research, not only about their values but about the numbers they present, the events they discuss to deem their arguments validated or not. This makes me the stupid one in it, I assumed everyone did this to form an opinion.
Actually none of this even has to do with intelligence, it has to do with education and learning. I hope that everyone's able to learn, at least up to a certain level, it's when you need to apply that knowledge that the difference really shows. Ask yourself, are you able to theorize and work with ideals, rather than swimming in the shallow pool? Do you ask yourself "why?" more often than you say "they say that"? Without understanding the why we can't understand anything at all. So what I need to figure out are the following. Why does stupidity bother me? Why isn't the bigger perspective seen as interesting? And why must stupid people speak in my presence?
My latest outburst is after reading comments on an article, surely I can understand why people are upset, but I cannot understand why they reason the way they do, taking two unrelated events and blaming one on the other. How does that even work? It reminds me of when they raised the price of a product and a customer said "The bastards can raise the price of the newspaper, but they're not raising the pensions are they?". I tried really hard to not laugh at her. How can a private profit driving company possibly have anything to do with pensions? I wish this was only a one time event, but it seems to be a common thing.
In a university class, in 2010, with no sense of sarcasm and irony someone asked if the way the swedish counties hand out money to their different departments had any relation to how much money bank directors make. This time I did roll my eyes, not so that the asker could see, of course. But it makes me wonder, is the public this uneducated? Or are they that used to blaming something they can't quite picture?
Why is it so hard to learn simple reasoning? I'm fully aware that I risk coming off as a stuck up bitch in this, and there's a possibility you're right, but must stupid people speak? Do they understand how stupid they seem? And first and foremost how can we expect a good world if they're that stupid - can they make informed decisions when it comes to things such as voting? I'm getting honestly concerned, rather than listening to the sales pitches of the political parties I do my own research, not only about their values but about the numbers they present, the events they discuss to deem their arguments validated or not. This makes me the stupid one in it, I assumed everyone did this to form an opinion.
Actually none of this even has to do with intelligence, it has to do with education and learning. I hope that everyone's able to learn, at least up to a certain level, it's when you need to apply that knowledge that the difference really shows. Ask yourself, are you able to theorize and work with ideals, rather than swimming in the shallow pool? Do you ask yourself "why?" more often than you say "they say that"? Without understanding the why we can't understand anything at all. So what I need to figure out are the following. Why does stupidity bother me? Why isn't the bigger perspective seen as interesting? And why must stupid people speak in my presence?
2 comments:
if people were less stupid the pensions wouldn't go up because of the war, i say bring back hanging
its a plague, Molly. It seems to infect more people every day. Knowledge increases sadness, well yes, because you realize that the world is in fact influenced more by the stupid then the genius. i guess majority does actually rule...
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