When Stupidity Wins

On a subway in Boston (there called the "T") I got into an altercation with a man who was dancing on the train. It was amusing at first, to watch him dance to an internal soundtrack, but it soon became lewd and disruptive. It actually began scaring two young women sitting across from me. So I told him to sit down and we had a lively exchange.

Yet, the amazing aspect to the story was how everyone else acted. Those sitting nearby ignored this man's obscene gyrations and the intimidating effect it was having on two innocent women. Men sitting nearby held their newspapers higher as though ignorant to the yelling, bump and grind performance in front of them while others looked away and generally pretended that what was happening was not happening.

This is the fallout of a "live and let live" ideology warped and skewed by a generation of dumb-witted entertainment and the diminishing and intellectually stunted rhetoric of our national leaders- political and otherwise- that say "peace, peace". Everyone is afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled intolerant, unenlightened or boorish.

In many ways it seems we are seeing the systematic stupidification of common sense and the dismantling of human virtue because we somehow get lulled into believing that it is more intelligent to permit wolves to linger among the lambs rather than taking the risk of mislabeling who is the lamb and who is the wolf.

No one wants to cry "wolf" out of turn. That is understandable and yet it is a fear to which we cannot simply submit out of hand.

Admittedly, I am not a man short on things to say. And yet, when in strange company I am reticent to speak too quickly. I quite prefer to know my surroundings before I allow my mouth to despoil the potential beauty of friendship, a first impression or the simple tranquility of peace. My capacity for small talk is woefully lacking and I fear I am quite dull in any initial engagement. I would say dullness is my form of restraint against saying something offensive or brash.

I long for peace. I pray for peace. And yet, I know such a thing will be in my lifetime an achievement I will not obtain. Not when there surrounds me such things that so irritate and grate good sensibility that I must rage. Inwardly, I abhor conflict and have suffered so many sleepless nights on its account for the anxiety and near panic it can create within me. The fact remains, however, that I must be a lightning rod if my conscience is to remain clear.

I would risk crying "wolf" and risk being wrong. When I am mistaken I will beg forgiveness and become the wiser for it.

To include within this article so much auto-biography will seem like vain self-righteousness to some, but my intent is only to describe the inward burning of indignation and frustration that I believe will be resonant to many who walk in a world darkened by unchallenged idiocy. For we are living in a time when more people than ever are educated with college diplomas and yet spend more time playing video games and watching TV in orders of magnitude greater than they do reading books to educate and elucidate their worldview or philosophy.

This isn't to say that we are dumber than generations past but only to say that too many have gleaned a worldview through media management. And that to me is the problem. The oversimplified portrayal of life through TV and movies creates a shallow caricature of reality. The result, in many ways, are national leaders that attempt to win the American public by trying to be their favorite TV characters and by espousing platitudes that resemble the happy resolution of a successful TV episode than they do of well thought visionary ideas.

It seems to me that our history is filled with national heroes that were either scholars with prestigious minds honed by debate with other dissenting but equally gifted minds or people of action and bravery tempered by real life conflict and risk. Now we have neither. We have leaders that want to appease everyone and therefore stand for nothing in particular. Leaders who create their ideology based on what will best suite the polls and who gage their conviction upon popular opinion. Rather than persuading or winning over the minds of the public, they would capitulate to the lowest common denominator of mass appeal- what will make the fewest number of citizens upset.

So we, as a general population, have been weaned upon decades of virtue defined by image, not by truth or honor. Both characteristics have outcomes that must sustain conflict and which possess results too far reaching and slow to make the 5 O'clock news to be considered useful or relevant for this age.

I realize I am saying this in the shadow of a presidential race and I want to emphasize that I am not in the least motivated by those events. I am writing this because the common sense and virtue of the ordinary person is being subdued by the dull-witted droning of almost every popular entertainment medium that says "Peace, peace" when sometimes there is none to be had without first engaging in conflict.

And I am NOT referring to war in the Middle East, to healthcare reform or to a stimulus package. I am referring to men who dance on trains. I am referring to parents who scream and rage at kids' soccer games. I am referring to the unchecked disrespect of the youth toward their elders. I am referring to the car that dumps a load of their trash into the parking lot right in front of where you are seated. I am referring to the guy swearing on his phone in the check-out line in front of your children in the grocery store. And I am referring to everyone that watches such things take place with placid inaction.

I refer to the moments when we allow stupidity to win.