But back to the point, I'm not sure "and yet" were the proper two words in my second sentence. "And so" might have been a better couplet. It seems almost as if, no, check that, it seems exactly as if the people with the most confidence are the numbskulls who know the least about that in which they seem to hold such unassailable certainty. Anybody ever heard of the Dunning/Kruger Effect? Ask that question to a room full of people and it's only the smart ones who'll say "yes" honestly. The other smart people will say "no" honestly. And the blissfully blessed will say, "Hell yeah I know what that means! I wrote the freakin' book on the lemming cooter effect!" Or some such stab at scholarly parrotry. When challenged with, "It's not the 'lemming cooter' effect, it's the Dunning Kruger effect. You really haven't heard of it, have you?" They will not only NOT admit to their ignorance, they will take your challenge as, well, a challenge, and double or triple down on their ersatz erudition. "You callin' me a liar boah? You think just cuz I had two parents with the same last name BEFORE they got married, well yer better'n me ain't ya? You think just cuz you got on that high fallutin' shirt 'n I don't...? You think that I'm dumb cuz I ain't got as many teeth as y'all ain't ya?"
To be clear, this is a woman from northern British Columbia, Canada speaking these words, having no excuse but admiration for her southern U.S. patois.
The Dunning Kruger effect is something I see more and more as accountability dies a cyber death and people can say whatever the shit they want with all but complete impunity from those who might stand some chance of correcting them. So long as they do so on the sites and venues where they feel safe to let their fatuous flags fly! And it seems almost as if, no, check that, it seems exactly as if the people with the most confidence in their confidence are people who are in positions of power the very mention of which invoke an earnest respect for one who has risen to those positions through distinguished behavior, intellect and unimpeachable wisdom. World leaders, CEO's, doctors, lawyers, television news anchors and reporters, good GOD even the narratives you hear from everyday folks on the street, because that's what our words have become since we need to watch them so carefully, even those narratives can't be fully trusted. Regular people now speak in "narratives" and people who used to have to EARN our respect have more often than not fallen into rather than fought for and earned their positions of power. This is a sad fact of life most of us have not yet strayed far enough from our media misled, sports, video game, music, work and self-imposed responsibility stupors to realize: people don't earn riches and power any more, they inherit them. For the most part. Rags to riches is dead. Class mobility is a thing of the past. The owners of you and I have been ordained. And as sickening as it sounds, as much as this world has worshipped capitalism and rising to the top through hard work, cunning, ingenuity and enterprise, these lucky motherfuckers are receiving the dreaded SOCIALISM we've been brutalized with as if it were the hammer and sicle of Communist (or socialis) Russia. They're being GIVEN FREE SHIT! A LOT of free shit! So much that there is no hope that they can fail even if they are lugubrious, priveledge-addled half wits. They hold the reigns of our future. Yeah! And you know a few of them. Not most of them because, we're not in their club and can't hope to be, but we know some on the perifery who hope to gain entrance to the anonymity of the big boys' club. Wannabe's like, you guessed it, Donald Trump. By his NON anonymity, you can easily guess how close he is to securing a place in this club. Even as president, he's just a wannabe. And as such, he's the perfect example of this Dunning/Kruger effect. Anything he says that he isn't trained to say by his well paid handlers is pure stupidity, yet he is so often called smart! He's probably lost more money than any man alive, yet we think of him as a billionaire business whiz who's laughing all the way to any bank he's not suing or being sued by over defaulted loans. He just can't seem to realize, through ignorance-spawned confidence, that people are laughing at him, not with him. Ironically enough, both the ultra rich he wants to join up with to rule the world, and also those he considers to be far beneath him.
As my last post stated matter-of-factly, what the hell is wrong with people being given free shit? It's what America and most countries have as the motivation that keeps all those mice running on those wheels that power those nations. People wanna get rich. The BAD part of capitalism. But people also wanna give their kids easier lives by making THEM rich without all the back-stabbing, deceit, and scumbaggery. The GOOD side of capitalism. Ahem. The majority of the good intentions that have been sacrificed at the altar of the god known as Mammon have been justified by this one loophole. And you can't fault it, really. People will fight, fuck, chisel, con, pilfer, fenagle, you name it, they'll do almost anything after looking into the eyes of their little babies and seeing that innocence. Imagine if you not only were the heartless Mandalorian bounty hunter that stumbled onto baby Yoda, but the parent who had given birth to that adorably innocent, cute, powerful, cuddly... well you can say the same about any kid. We can all understand that protective instinct. Hell, I bet even Donald Trump was a cute kid! No Yoda, but... I myself might have sworn to provide for him through thick and thin no matter what kind of a douchebag he turned out to be, and unconditionally supported him with all my means, if I, (spiritu sanctu the power of Christ compels you) were his father. When you give it a good think, it's really quite something how innocence has so often been the catalyst to its opposite!
So don't come down on the rich too hard for wanting to give their kids easy lives. Did I just say that? At any rate, back to Mrs., hang on, how do you write the plural of Mr.? Mr.s? Hmmmmm.... Anyhoo, misters Dunning and Kruger. So Donald Trump is the example, too easy, I will use to illustrate the Dunning/Kruger effect. Is he, a man many believe to be the veritable antichrist, the apotheosis of this effect? Well, no. The Dunning/Kruger Effect has an upside. Our whole world situation has an upside. Though there ARE scientists from Sweden who say global warming has gone past the midnight mark and we should all enjoy our last few years on Earth before we all taste the flaming hot kiss of global destruction, uh, there is still good news. Though the cream has sunk to the bottom and the top has been occupied by undesirables in every government, corporation, bank, and stock exchange in the world, don't dismay! Watch the following vid:
Okay. I admit, this is a bit of an old vid. The makers probably still didn't know about the education ministress who is an absolute character out of Harry Potter,
But still, the main point of the vid must not be lost. Confidence comes from ignorance and ignorance is drawn to confidence... that comes from ignorance. This in a friggin' nutshell, is the perfect explanation of the Trump phenomenon. Now, how come I, a lowly nobody, might be the first person to lay this out for you? Oh sure, you've thought of it, but haven't put it into words, but what in Sam's Hill, Hell's blazes and Dickens' dick has kept the rest of the SMARTER people from figuring this out? Well, I've got a theory. I think there are plenty of minds who worked this out long before my feeble, vodka and ginger ale-limited mind did. But they are all probably working on books and don't want to release any spoilers. I, on the other hand, am not writing a book, so there you go. Maybe I should write a book...
My original point was going to be how it's easier to be a Trump supporter than not. For instance, if I were to say that "Keep America Great Again" spelled Donald Trump if you rearranged the letters, Republicans ERVERYWHERE would be printing it on T-shirts, caps, truck bumpers, front lawns, internet memes in the months it took them to realize it wasn't true. Oh to be that ignorant! Perhaps a better example is one I covered in my last post. The insistence that the Coronavirus isn't all that dangerous. Not even 10 thousand people have died from it alone. There are comorbidities. Let's get out there! We need to get back to work and back to school! Don't be afraid! (at least not of this very specific fear. Stay afraid of the good fears, but...) Don't be sheep! (well... at least not in this specific instance...) It's ludicrous, isn't it? And it takes but a meme to convince thousands. Even just that one word, "comorbidities," well, that sounded pretty learny, and all that other shit is shit I already (have been trained to) believe in so shit yeah! I'll buy THAT T-shirt! If only there were a meme that could de-program that zeal as easily!
Ahhh, but there's the rub! De-programming the overinvested is a difficult thing. This overinvestment may be the very component of ignorance that has lead to its ubiquity. Ignorant people don't want to be wrong. They dread that as much as the rest of us. But that dread is far behind their collective dread of research. Learning. Fact checking. Even in this day and age when you don't have to do nerdy things like go to a library to be educated and informed, you just need to judiciously surf the ever increasing volumes of information on the internet, but... porn. I gotta say, and there's no UN cringy way of saying this so I'll just blast it out? Come on! Bad blogger! Bad blogger! How much porn does a person need? Honestly! Shouldn't there be plenty of time after, uh, using the porn sites, to find one's way to a news site or an educational post? Granted, there are the various junk sites out there that pass themselves off as educational, but are really fueling the idiocracy, but doesn't everybody have a fighting chance to traverse the labyrinthian cyber world unsullied? If nothing else, shouldn't ignorant people have a website or two where they could at least learn about their ignorance? For goodness's sake, literally, wouldn't it be beneficial, for the good of all mankind, if we could just convince ignorant people that they are ignorant, and that's fine? In fact, as the title of the post implies, or outright states, people who aren't ignorant actually ENVY you! You have a LOT going for you, could you just stop trying to be intellectual; voting; engaging in internet arguments way over your heads; making memes; sharing false information; and running for office? Please?
The very words "ignorant" and "ignorance" are burdened with negativity that in my opinion is a little harsh. "Don't be ignorant," we say. "That's just plain ignorance." The assumption by the person uttering such statements is that it is a deficiency and a character flaw to have ignorance or be ignorant. Yet how many of the smartest people ever haven't wished they'd never become so? “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” ― Bertrand Russell He's one of the most quotable guys ever isn't he, old Bert? For my money one of the smartest.
Alexander Pope gave us a gem that is oft partially quoted:
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
Too many of us are drinking shallow draughts and getting intoxicated. Isn't intoxication a state of bliss? Whereas, if you drink largely at the Pierian Spring, (the location of the Muses who inspire all great art and science and a fountain of knowledge), you will receive knowledge, but it comes at the price of sobriety. So if you're not ready for it, just have a little. Leave the thinking to the hard drinkers of knowledge. Being an intellectual lightweight is only shameful when you pretend to have the alcoholic capacity of a true bacchanalian boozehound. So know your limit and stay within it. No shame in that.
Albert Einstein said, with obvious allusion to Pope, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot."
Confucius said, and I believe this nicely puts my point into a tight package with a lovely bow, "Knowledge without practice is useless. Practice without knowledge is dangerous." It's not the ignorance I question, it's the practices I've listed. Memes. Trolling. Becoming president. I think there is one great thinker who sums up my point with intellectual acuity that is difficult to top. And it's not George Carlin this time, although he DID say, "I'll tell you what the government DON'T want: they don't want an electorate capable of critical thinking. THAT'S what they don't want." It's part of the danger of knowledge. He went on to say, "They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation." Those are the people I'm talking about, with envy, today. There's nothing wrong with being one of those people. Nothing. So long as you...
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