August 20, 2006
No Cure For Stupidity
I accidentally read something by Larry The Cable Guy a little while ago. After saving part of my brain from nearly shutting down (while trying to downshift in order to comprehend something so mind-numbingly bland and unfunny), I realized that it's just an act. Unfortunately, the pervasive theme of his material seems to be that it's okay to be dumb and uneducated, and that really sticks in my craw.
When did being stupid become acceptable?
The canned answer from most people I know is "When Bush was elected as president, duh." But that's not good enough of an answer for me. Sure, it must have been great for all the barrel-assed cracker trailer-trash yokels to see a president that they "could drink a beer with", and that seemed to share a common agreement with their unbelievably closed-minded Christian bullshit, but there's some other dynamic at work.
It's the general dumbing-down of our culture as a whole that is to blame.
I honestly can't remember how many times, in the course of my days in East Texas, I'd be sitting at a table, reading quietly, and inevitably some slack-jawed fucker would blurt "READIN' AGAIN, HUH?" and all of his slack-jawed buddies would yuk it up like there was some secret joke that I was missing out on. And maybe there was. But I didn't want any part of it. I just calmly held my place, looked up, stared straight at them, said, "Yeah.", and kept staring until they all uncomfortably turned their attention elsewhere.
Same went for movies. Some people would be engrossed in a conversation about what they watched last night or over the weekend, and they'd ask me. I'd mention an older film, a drama, or anything that I happened to have been watching, and they'd blink and go back to talking about how funny "Not Another Teen Comedy" was, and how hilarious it was when the girl did something to a guy with a dildo or someone farted or ejaculated.
A lot of people misunderstand me when I bring up how increasingly mediocre a lot of people's tastes have become (especially in respect to Blue Collar Comedy tour and Larry The Cable Guy). When I tell people that `Git R' Done' is played out, they get mad. They think that I'm being some sort of elitist asshole by saying, "Well, there's nothing wrong with enjoying something that panders to the lowest common denominator every once in a while(I like action and horror films, for Christ's sake), but it shouldn't be a standard, and you shouldn't be satisfied with it."
Then again, a lot of the people that I knew back in East Texas treated you like a fancy-assed uptight sissy if you happened to know something related to current events. Or had an opposing viewpoint and were able to back it up with information and *gasp* rationale. Or ate a spinach salad every once in a while and enjoyed a nice red wine. You get the picture.
Maybe I am an elitist. But that doesn't stop some people from being idiots and thinking that there's nothing wrong with that, which is deeply flawed. I know that they say ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is all too common nowadays, and ignorance is the root of a lot of problems that we're currently facing.
Socrates said: "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Fortunately, Ol' Socco wasn't saying "Fuck it, give up!". He was basically stating that the pursuit for knowledge is long-lasting, and that a bit of modesty in regards to your knowledge is necessary. I know I don't know everything, and I'm fine with that.
In spite of all the people back home who would practically fellate me when I got sick of them trying to cheat off of my papers and finally snapped and screamed "THE FUCKING ANSWER IS WORD-FOR-WORD ON PAGE FIFTY-SEVEN, NOW JUST OPEN YOUR EYES AND USE A TINY BIT OF EFFORT", effectively garnering myself a detention for profanity, I've still got a long ways to go.
And that's okay. There is, however, no excuse for being a moron.
Posted by Jake at August 20, 2006 09:20 PM
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