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PHILOSOPHY TIME: WHY'S THE WORLD SO DAMN STUPID? [1]

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Date: 2023-10-23  

…And before any wisecrackers say, “Because you’re contagious”; I beat you to it!

Have you ever felt like a Ren in a world of malevolent Simpy’s? I have. All the time in fact. Every single damnedible day. Anytime I hear some fully grown stillborn advocate for getting rid of everything physical in favor of giving the entirety of our lives over to the ever so consistently reliable Internet or some homosaurian ask, “How can vegans make a big deal out of decapitating pigs, but still support cutting the heads off lettuce?”, I think to myself, “Christ, these inbred ass-wits are the majority!” It was a sad day when I came to realize that I was one of the smartest people on earth, and that the only thing that got me there was being just smart enough to realize that I’m a moron.

The more dehydrated one’s brain, the more respect and attention one’s views are afforded and the more you’re encouraged, one might even say pressured, into falling in line with them. Usually by applying the classic appeal to conformity. Anytime I -- or anyone else for that matter, but I’ll stick with using me as an example for simplicity’s sake -- engage in the social-fopa of expressing an independent point of view about some moronic aspect of society you're never supposed to question, I’m immediately told that normal people don’t share those views, as if this somehow is supposed to sway me. “Normal people, you say?” is what I think they imagine me saying, “Why, it’s been my lifelong dream to be a brain-dead conformist ant, completely devoid of any critical thinking ability whatsoever. I’ll fit myself into the mold immediately!”

*Before we continue, here’s a quick list of the noble pursuits that normal people have supported throughout history: Which trials, genocide, Jim Crow, internment camps, the meat/dairy industry, the harsh and corrupt penal system and ‘that’s-what-she-said’ jokes. This is not to say that I never tried to become normal, but glue fumes always give me a headache.

Note: I have no idea why the last part is in bold and I can’t change it.

And I’m not just talking about Republicans either (yes, DK readers; you really are that predictable); democrats can be just as dense in their own jolly ways and sometimes, though they wouldn’t want to admit it, in basically the same ways. In fact, growing up in a Democrat family and inhabiting mostly liberal areas, I have found that telling the truth will often get you accused of sounding like a Republican as Democrats have no concept of irony. At this point, I’ve come to think that Republican is to Democrats what woke is to Republicans; a simpleton’s way of crying uncle.

With all that said, is humanity inherently stupid? Only months ago my answer would have been an unequivocal “yes”, but my views have recently softened and brought it down to a more equivocal “probably”, but I’m now willing to admit that there may be more to it than that.

Every human culture thrives on loyal idiocy to some extent. It is, after all, significantly harder for those in power to maintain social control when people go around thinking all the time. This is why we are raised to never question conventional “wisdom”, see stupidity as a venture and deny observable reality as often as possible. Some say that the Trump administration placed us in a “post-truth era”, but this is still more bullshit; for there to be a post-truth era, there would first have to have been a truth-era.

I’ve heard it said that some of Jeffery Dahmer’s victims would bolt for the door once they understood what they were at his house for, only to be halted with a self-assured “Stop!”, whereupon they would turn back and accept the fate they had so nearly escaped. A perfect example of how we’re raised to be mindlessly compliant to any emanation of authority. For a less grotesque example, one late October, I recommended a movie with the classy title of ‘El Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter‘ (we were on the topic of campy movies). He said it sounded appealing and asked where it could be streamed. I had no answer to the question as I had rented it from VideoStation (1982-2017, R.I.P) and therefore had no reason to look for it online. He immediately lost interest and stated that he would instead be streaming a Steven King mini-series that, in the same breath, he told me he hated (it was ‘11/22/63’ if I remember right). I asked why he would forgo watching something he thought sounded more entertaining in favor of something he already knew he disliked, and what it basically boiled down to was that he knew where the show he hated could be found on the Internet (the one true god), whereas with the El Santo movie, while it sounding significantly better to his ears, would probably have to have been watched on DVD; a blasphemous affront to humanity’s digital overlord and master. Granted, he didn’t word it quite so colorfully; that’s what I’m here for.

The sad part is that he was not (and presumably still isn’t) a stupid man; just too well conditioned to follow the majority. This is when it dawned on me that stupidity doesn't always come pre-written into the human genome. Often it’s relentlessly programmed into us from such an early age that it feels like an inherent part of our being, thus people are repelled by the very idea of thinking critically or for themselves as it feels like a betrayal to one’s own humanity and even if they know better, they still feel as if that’s the case, and emotion is guaranteed to trump logic in just about every instance. Then there is also the fear of being ostracized from the braindead society in which we were raised, which forces many to willingly forfeit their cognitive integrity for the sake of “fitting in”, something we have also been brainwashed into thinking of as our primary ambition.

Now, I myself have no problem with telling mainstream society to go fuck itself. I would even say that when it comes to any societal structure built on willful idiocy, the label of pariah is to be worn as a badge of honor. Then again, I ain’t normal.

You want to follow me on Twitter, don’t you? (Yes you do. Don’t lie) Well, now you can! Boy, aren’t you one lucky little biped? https://twitter.com/MatthewDalldorf Here, on Twitter I post new tweets whenever I feel like tweeting.

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