'That, by the way, is my way of telling you you're smarter than me, but in a derrogatory manner so that I won't have to feel bad about it. I'll never let you know that, though.'
-Stupid people
Many people view themselves as protagonists, thus use themselves as a gauge for what it takes to be 'good'. 'Good', in this sense, is an all-encompassing term for desirable traits that one might expect to find in a protagonist, especially including morality and job-efficiency. As such, anyone who does not meet these criteria for any reason is, in their mind, an antagonist, and therefore necessarily 'bad'. This means that if stupid person A sees himself as Bugs Bunny, he would view persons B as being Elmer Fudds until such time as B proves, for example, acts in a manner more intelligent than A; then B becomes Wile E. Coyote. Either way, B is 'bad'.
What stupid people don't seem to realize is that their gauge is biased so that they themselves can do no wrong, no matter how much it hurts the rest of us. If, however, they were ever to take on an objective point of view, we wouldn't even recognize stupidity in them as their new gauge would give them a reason to actively improve themselves. The inherent dilemma with this predicament is that only their antagonists possess such a vantage to point this out to them, and we, being their antagonists, simply aren't enough of an authority on 'good' for them to take our words to heart. Afterall, who would want to be a super genius if super geniuses notoriously blow themselves up?
I, too, find stupid people to be frustrating. You'd think with our collective brains we'd be able to figure a way around them by now, but Einstein rightly predicted that fools are becoming more foolish the more we try to accomodate them. Ironically, the one tool I can think of which would fix this is eugenics, which is a tool we're too intelligent to use anyway.
Perhaps what we need are more protagonists in the media who slowly discover they're not the good guy afterall, and adjust their gauge accordingly. This is where your future directing career comes in handy.
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branchandroot
Stupid People
Date: 2008-12-25 04:47 am (UTC)'That, by the way, is my way of telling you you're smarter than me, but in a derrogatory manner so that I won't have to feel bad about it. I'll never let you know that, though.'
-Stupid people
Many people view themselves as protagonists, thus use themselves as a gauge for what it takes to be 'good'. 'Good', in this sense, is an all-encompassing term for desirable traits that one might expect to find in a protagonist, especially including morality and job-efficiency. As such, anyone who does not meet these criteria for any reason is, in their mind, an antagonist, and therefore necessarily 'bad'. This means that if stupid person A sees himself as Bugs Bunny, he would view persons B as being Elmer Fudds until such time as B proves, for example, acts in a manner more intelligent than A; then B becomes Wile E. Coyote. Either way, B is 'bad'.
What stupid people don't seem to realize is that their gauge is biased so that they themselves can do no wrong, no matter how much it hurts the rest of us. If, however, they were ever to take on an objective point of view, we wouldn't even recognize stupidity in them as their new gauge would give them a reason to actively improve themselves. The inherent dilemma with this predicament is that only their antagonists possess such a vantage to point this out to them, and we, being their antagonists, simply aren't enough of an authority on 'good' for them to take our words to heart. Afterall, who would want to be a super genius if super geniuses notoriously blow themselves up?
I, too, find stupid people to be frustrating. You'd think with our collective brains we'd be able to figure a way around them by now, but Einstein rightly predicted that fools are becoming more foolish the more we try to accomodate them. Ironically, the one tool I can think of which would fix this is eugenics, which is a tool we're too intelligent to use anyway.
Perhaps what we need are more protagonists in the media who slowly discover they're not the good guy afterall, and adjust their gauge accordingly. This is where your future directing career comes in handy.
-Quip