Diagnosis of America: Stupidity

by B.J. on 9/03/2003 10:46:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

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Look at this blog as the compilation of all the "political blogs" of the past.

If a doctor gave America a check-up, he'd tell us to go see a car mechanic to fix what we have. Maybe, they'd use one of those welding tools to wake us up. Causes of sickness: blinded by speed, drugged by indulgement, and paralyzed by fear.

Mike Moore probably already said this, but I want to say it too in my boring unfashionable way.

Stupidity is the failure to realize truth. The failure to realize what is/was happening/happened.

America is a society of speed, fear/mystery, and indulgement. Not so good for truth.


The "truth" is synonymous with "negative" in America because the news, which is presumed to be "truth", is overly negative. The news here focuses on the eye-catching "truth" such as high speed car chases, robberies, murders easily but fails to focus on truth that would seemingly take time to resolve. At any rate, America's news media has taught us to be skeptical. Skeptical of the slick used car salesman. Skeptical of corporations. Skeptical of the black man. Skeptical of freekin' everything and "everything's" direct causes. If news content happens to be positive, Americans will dismiss it as idealistic liberalism and impractical.

But let me remind you that no one save for most of the liberal crowd dares be skeptical of "everything's" indirect, general causes. No one outside of the liberal crowd wants to figure out why things in the political arena happen in the larger context because it's simply too complicated and seemingly fails to relate to them. We're too busy attending to ourselves." We're a society that stigmatizes and punishes the economically disadvantaged because they don't live up to standards set by high-class white males like going to college. And a system attacking an individual namely middle-class can sap the most liberal of people and turn them into non-thinking conservatives because it's the easy way out, the route that we like to tell more unfortunate people not to take, but the route that we ourselves would take at the drop of a 50 cent.

This inability and unwillingness to figure out root, general causes to "everything's" happenings encompasses the three craftily titled sicknesses of America: America is happy (indulgement) being skeptical (fear/mystery) of things on the surface (speed). We like to question direct causes rather than what else lies beneath because its much quicker and easier to blame direct causes. We like to pinpoint problems to something convenient. And when you look for something specific, you begin to expect stuff to happen. Therein lies the stupidity. But to be fair, stupidity is bound to happen in as varied and vast a society as America.

What Bowling For Columbine tried to say was that the majority of Americans are a bunch of paranoid, arrogant ignorants. We are nuts, we are trippin', we are stupid regardless of where we lay the blame for such occurrences as the Columbine shootings.

And here's how we got to being so stupid. We are trippin' because we don't know people and we don't know their tendencies. We've lost touch with people being people save for friends and family. We can't see the truth about people. As a result, we lump people into categories and stereotypes by finding statistics about any issue, twisting, tweaking, and bending as necessary, and let the propogation of stupid shit, such as the common characterization that people on welfare (category) are inherently lazy, begin.

And the stuff that helps us lose connection with people: speed, indulgement, and fear.

Speed: We think on impulse. We demand answers and results as soon as possible on whatever we think is relative to us. And that's how the blame game begins. It's bound to happen in a society of millisecond computer processing, 30-minute Friends episodes in which problems are presented and resolved, and cars faster than lightning on steroids.

Indulgement (in ignorance): There's two parts to this explanation. First, we figure we'd be happy not knowing rather than knowing what happens. For example, news = boring, Friends, the tv show = fun. And secondly, we lose and enjoy ourselves in something rather than observing the something. One more example is that we'd enjoy ourselves by watching Friends rather than think about its effect on society such as what stereotypes it propogates.

Fear: We are being consumed with protecting ourselves to the point where we even enjoy it. So much so, that we amplify and concoct problems. We've been distracting ourselves with trying to root out "evil" ever since World War II ended. From President Bush's war on Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction (which have not been found), to increasing amounts of gun ownership despite reduced crime. People in suburbs think that some random urbanite would rob their and only their house when most crimes generally occur with people they know.

"The truth is kept secret, it's kept under a rug, and if you'll never know truth, then you'll never know love, where's the love ya'll ?" - Black Eyed Peas

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