When Did We Get So Stupid?

              Stupid is a constant I have accepted living around. Like tinnitus or a chronic neck problem, I try to ignore it as best I can but sometimes it gets so bad I just need to give it voice. This is one of those times.

              I am tired of stupid being the norm, of the sort of willful ignorance, the suspension of logic, the ignoring of concrete data, the suspension of common sense that has led to something as comical as Donald Trump running for the presidency of the United States of America becoming reality.

              When did rational thinking become something decried and suspected, when did intelligence become a weapon, especially when coupled with learning? When did talking really loud and using blanketing untruths become the best way to conduct oneself?

              When did we become so stupid?

              I was quite moved by a commencement speech I recently saw President Obama give. In it, a president whose greatest failings have always been intelligence and compassion when leading a country and world growing short on either expressed his alarm at this growing acceptance of not knowing, embracing ignorance, firing blind, glorifying the stupid.

              Misinformation? Try no information. People want to maintain—no, celebrate—their right to stick their fingers in their ears, eyes pressed tight, heads buried deeply in the sand, while also spouting drivel based on gut feelings or interpretation of Facebook memes, and making decisions that can affect families, constituencies, nations, the world.

              Science and medicine are doubted. Street-vendor solutions see people killing their children because they mistrust advancements in modern medicine but willingly run to the natural healings of carnival hawkers. Climate and pollution concerns are divided by a partisan wall and denying fact, denying evidence as completely biased allows one to ignore anything one does not already agree with. Evidence is valued for its alignment with our own preconceptions, rather than knowledge being adjusted to reflect evidence.              

              Why? Why be so willfully dumb? Why is the most powerful man on the planet needing to remind us of our cultural and societal obligations for fear of being replaced by the political equivalent of a three-year-old having a tantrum? That is, Obama fears that his successor could be a maniacal buffoon who people—willfully stupid people—are embracing because he “tells it like it is.” Meaning he says whatever strikes him as appropriate and incendiary at the moment, and because he doesn’t trouble himself with silly things like research and facts he is applauded. He is celebrated for being stupid.

              I cannot tolerate it. I’m not the smartest man most people know, not an intellect when people first think of one. But I am starting to feel like an elitist because I consider issues before shooting my mouth off about them. This leaves me a step behind because one thing stupid is, it’s fast. Just check Facebook and Twitter.

              In a time we have access to the entire collection of human knowledge, I feel like the few of us who will not willingly be stupid, the wave of ignorance threatens to overwhelm us. The worry is, the solution appears to be to avoid all of this dumb rather than sift through it logically. Ignorance as the solution to over-stimulation by idiocy.

              But I can’t quit. That’s be stupid.