You can't fix stupid, but stupidity can be fixed

We've got a problem. By "we", I mean those of us who find ourselves in what we like to think of as the 1st World -- and I'm not the first to ask somewhat naively, where's the 2nd one? Yeah, you, almost all of your reading this, and your friends, and your friends' friends, if they have any, and the people around you, like family and neighbors, and all of us who have too much time on our hands, too much money in our pockets, and too little sense to know what to do with either.

Now, before you go off all insulted because you're struggling to make ends meet or you're starting to sweat all the debt you're carrying around or whether there is going to be anything left for your kids or grandkids ... if you're concerned about any of that, you are precisely whom I'm talking to. Your problem isn't insufficient funds, it's insufficient gratitude. The vast majority of human beings on this planet would swap places with you in a heartbeat: and you'd die having to deal with theirs, and they'd think they'd died and gone to heaven. It's a matter of perspective, true, but also relativity. According to popular, widespread, and most oft proclaimed ideology: you chose your problems; the vast majority of humanity had theirs dumped on them by people who care more about themselves than even you do. If you've got a conscience, you'll never make it into the top 10%, let alone 1%. You're not cut out for it. Or sell your conscience. At the moment, however, you're just in the way ... of progress to make a better world or your just another wannabe for those at the top who want, and will eventually, get what you have.

You might get the impression that I'm a bit miffed at the moment, a bit irked, a bit bothered, a bit off-center. And you're right. I am. But, I firmly believe that I have every reason to be. Oh sure, I've cobbled together a fixed-income existence; I don't own anything other than a car of good middle age; I've got family around me, a couple of friends (who at least people who tolerate having me around); I've got a roof over my head, enough to eat and access to the world's largest cesspool of information, the internet. I haven't got a single reason to complain about anything in my life. But I'm also not only not the only person on the planet and I'm not the only person in my immediate environment. I'm part of a larger whole that varies in size depending on time of day, phase of the moon, and societal configuration.

In other words, I lead a relatively normal Western life. And I'm thankful for that, believe me. I'm thankful that I have the wherewithal, the inclination, the talent, the time, the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. But, I must admit, I'm rather bothered by the echoes that are finding their way back to me. Like most of you, I've got a real life and an online life, and the online life has to do with social media to a large extent, and regardless of what you think about either in general, I can assure you that, in particular, the online part is causing me more and more concern with each passing day. That's why I'm bringing this up here, with you, with all of you who obviously have an online life as well. The number of people with online lives is growing daily. The "society" that these online denizens are forming, however, is not exactly what I had hoped it would be way back when 95% of the people on the internet lived within 10 miles of my home. Yeah, I've had a chance to watch all this develop, and I'm not all that excited about what I see.

I'm going to out myself right up front: I don't believe the least in "human nature", but I believe unboundedly in "human potential". I believe -- deep, in the very heart of my own being -- that human beings are the living expression of the possibility of all possible possibilities. (That's the optimist heart that beats in my breast.) And I also believe, unreservedly, that the low end of those possibilities is the world we have thought out for ourselves, the world in which we're all -- at the moment -- forced to live. Stated succinctly, we're the biggest of all of G-d's failures. (And thus beats my cynic's heart in that same breast.)

We are, and have shown, that we're capable of the most exhilarating flights of brilliance: fire, the wheel, more-than-sufficient food production, disease eradication, alternative energies and explorations to the stars. At the same time, we have demonstrated that we're capable of the most terrifying horrors imaginable: war, genocide, unimaginable physical and psychological violence, greed, selfishness, self-absorption, and lack of empathy that there are moments when I find myself almost yearning for that last affront to occur so that we all go down the tubes the blinding fire of nuclear annihilation. And therein lies the rub, as the bard so eloquently put it.

You should be aware that all of G-d's children don't have the same intellectual capabilities and capacities. And that's OK as far as I'm concerned. Some of the nicest people I ever had the honor of dealing with weren't the sharpest pencils in the box, as they say, but they were Menschen, in both the true and Yiddish senses of the word. They cared about others, were kind, generous, helpful, supportive, and chock full of empathy and sympathy for the plight of others. I don't consider these people stupid, however. No, to me, stupid is when you think you know something, when you think you are smarter than you really are, or when you let external, non-personal "attributes" drive your actions.

Three of these are particularly dangerous: money, guns, and power. You can be bright, but once money (or in its most fundamental and nefarious form, the love of money) takes over it's good-bye smarts. Money is a prime cause of stupidity. You think your money makes you better, and smarter than everyone else, but it doesn't. It makes you think you're an authority on things you have no idea about (e.g., Bill Gates and world health or education). Guns are also a classic, and they (or the violence they represent) is a key feature of the gangster/Mafioso boss Hollywood has infected us with for decades. The propensity toward violence or violent behavior, the willingness to use it so "resolve arguments" is prototypical of stupidity in general. And finally, power ... often some vague combination of the previous two attributes, or "actual" power, like a political office (here, Bush the Lesser jumps out as poster child for what can happen when the intellectually challenged get it in their heads that they're better than and worth more than others) ... is the worst of all. And it's the one that has the most disastrous effects on the most people.

Even the most superficial gloss over the history of humankind reveals that it has been those awash in stupidity who have been in charge. We don't know who it was who figured out "fire", but we know practically everybody's name who used fire -- in one form or another -- to ensure that hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people had to suffer to satisfy their own egos. And we praise them, look up to them, remember them, and as school-children are forced to memorize their names, but in the end, they were stupid, self-absorbed, self-serving egoists who forced their personal mentation on others. Alexander the Great, the Roman Caesars, the British and other European royal houses, from Stockholm to Madrid, and, most recently, a whole bevy of American presidents (not starting with but particularly egregious since Reagan), have tortured the life out of countless human beings for the greater glory of , and we laugh and gloat and cheer and pat ourselves on the back for being so "great". But why? What's so smart about being able to kill untold human beings at will? Why do we think -- at this point in history, here, at the beginning of the 21st century (since we've agreed on counting years) -- that this is a good thing? Sure, it enables you to sit there in your room; fat, dumb and happy that you can look down upon the vast majority of humankind; but you need to explain to me what about this is good.

Recent history has shown us what's going on. Whether is was Thatcher in Britain or Reagan in the US, or Clinton (who could cover it over better than most), or Blair or Bush the Lesser (if that wasn't the tip-off, I don't know who was) or Merkel, or Cameron or Juncker or Schäuble or Gabriel or Obama or that it's not the bright ones who are leading the way and seeing to it that the proper shots are called. No, among this limited selection of individuals there are those who -- on their own, in a normal conversation -- would come across as half-way intelligent and reasonable, there seems to be the overwhelming propensity, if not compulsion, to blow any and all alleged inherent intelligence to the wind and strut forth as a contender for the crown of Village Idiot.

This -- not the results of neoliberal economic policies -- is what trickles down. We then find the same behavior patterns in the general population, be it in alternative political parties (like the AfD in Germany) or alternative political candidates (like Trump in the US (though Hilary isn't much better) and his followers) or just plain misinformed-and-proud-of-it welfare-bashers, gun-nuts, evangelicals, flag-wavers, sports-fanatics, and small-minded bleaters would rather complain about others than actually do something for or with others to make a difference. And I'm amazed each day at the number of people for whom this description applies.

No, I don't have a very high opinion of the general quality of information available on the internet, but there is a lot of good, sound, reliable information to be found there. But you have to go looking for it, and you have to wade through cybermiles of sludge and jungle to find it. There are good, sound, and inspiring insights to be found there, but you have to be able to weigh and evaluate, compare and contrast, and, well, think, to figure out which they are.

Of course, you have to be willing to explore thoughts, ideas, opinions, and views with which you don't necessarily or immediately agree and you have to be willing to assess their validity, their impacts and maybe even their worth. But that takes both time and effort and, well, with all the important stuff so many of us have in our lives that needs to get done, who is going to ensure they do this as well? But, most importantly, you have to be willing to communicate what you find and discuss it with others, not just with people whom you agree with. You need actively engage other ideas and notions if you are ever to come up with thoughts and ideas of your own. And who, pray tell, is going to be willing to do that? There are some thank goodness, though they are few and far between. There are some who haven't yet given up, even though they are reviled and ridiculed by those who have chosen stupidity and their particular way of life.

The point is that we don't have to be in the messes we're in. We don't have to deal with all the ignorant nonsense which pervades most of our lives. We don't have to allow stupidity to rule our lives ... but we are, we do and we will, because to change any of it, we might just have to change ourselves. So, don't complain about stupid (and all that is wrong with everybody else) if you choose stupidity yourself. And that is the choice too many people are making.

Good Book, bad behavior

The Good Book tells us that the span of our lives is but "threescore years and ten" and, if we're lucky, another 10 on top of that (cf. Ps 90:10). That's not a lot of time. Now, we could be foolish enough to take the statement literally and then point out all the cases above and beyond and go on about how wrong the Bible is, but that would be missing the point. This statement was made a couple of thousand years ago and given that the current overall life expectancy for the US is just under 80 years (#36 worldwide), it's still valid enough.

To the Ancients, you should know, numbers had more significance than as mere placeholders, as they are to us today. Different times, different ways of thinking. Seven was the number of knowledge, both secular and spiritual. Any number to the first power (that is, times 10) was a spiritualization of that number's meaning, so 70, in a sense would be something akin to deep insight, perhaps wisdom. Eight was the number of material satisfaction, hence 80 would mean something like having come to terms with the world. No, there are no extra-deep, esoteric secrets here, rather a simple, at the time, perhaps, generally accepted principle of life: we're not here for long at all, it might not be such a bad idea to make the best of it, not just materially but spiritually (or intellectually or psychologically, if you prefer) as well.

To me, however, the real point to keep in mind is 70 or 80 years is really no time at all in relation to the world as a whole or the entire cosmos. And here, it really doesn't matter if the world is 6,000 or 15,000,000,000 years old (whereby the latter number really hammers the point home): our participation in the Grand Scheme of Things is orders of magnitude less than the total; at best it is more or less a bit-part, walk-on role in the Greater Cosmic Drama. No reason to take ourselves too seriously, on the one hand, but on the other, we should never forget that we really don't have much chance to get a handle on that bigger picture anyway. For as smart as we allegedly are as a species, we have to overcome a significantly small window of opportunity on what's going on, and most of us don't ever even try.

There's another passage in that Good Book that's always been one of my personal favorites: "To every thing there is a time, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecc 3:1, of which, by the way, the Byrds did an awesome cover, "Turn, Turn, Turn"). Not only is there really "nothing new under the sun" (Ecc 1:9), it keeps repeating itself. We go over the same territory, through the same experiences, have the same learning experiences over and over again, and nothing seems to change. As I've said before, as a species, we're slow learners. In this case, too, we could conclude that there's nothing we can, nor need bother to do, because it's all going to come back around anyway. But, as above, that would be a terrible misreading of what we're being told.

There are a couple of reasons why things happen over and over again. Take the seasons, for example, they go through the same rhythm and sequence year after year. The same is true for the months of the year and days of the week. We need to sow when the time is right and reap when the fruit is ripe. Whole civilizations were built upon this very simple principle (e.g., Ancient Egypt), but there are other things, very human things that could be different, that don't have to be repeated, if we would put our minds to it.

In both cases, we end up with the same result: we start thinking there's nothing we can do about anything, it's just the way things are. And while it often looks that way, the real secret lies in being able to determine what you can and what you can't change.

Surprised?

It's been a long journey, when considered in terms of blog-miles, that's for sure. What we can see, however, is that there is still common ground for believer and non-believers, for the politically and the socially inclined. If we're willing to accept that the others may -- even in their own way -- be right, we still have a chance. It is not cultures that are important, not nationalities, and certainly not religions. No, what is important is only what binds us as humans: similar desires.

What I like about this approach is that there are no absolutes, but the willy-nilly relativity that drives all of us crazy is not there either. In other words, it is possible to find common ground for discourse, discussion, and debate ... if we want to. That's the key element in the whole equation, though: whether we want to.

I haven't been everywhere, by any stretch of the imagination, but, I'm pretty sure I've been more places than many people who may be reading this. I'm not bragging, I'm simply reporting -- and all of you who have traveled extensively and who have seen a bit more of life than your own slice of reality will certainly agree: deep down, at base, fundamentally we humans share much more than separates us. No matter where I've gone and whom I've talked with, some common themes kept and keep appearing: food, shelter and clothing; something meaningful to do; a certain degree of safety and security; the ability to celebrate the happy moments of life; the comfort and support of others when things go bad; something better for the children than we had; a simple, fruitful, relatively happy, safe, and healthy life. What is so hard to understand about that?

Yes, there are fanatics of all sizes, shapes and colors; they speak all different kinds of languages and they all share the same delusion: that whatever they think it better/more important/more right than what others think. These people are a minority. A loud, vociferous, boisterous, and often aggressive minority, but a minority nevertheless. We need to spend more time thinking about all the things that we have in common instead of focusing on what is different about the others. We need to find more opportunities to engage others who are different from ourselves, if for no other reason than to experience that the reality-pie can be sliced any number of ways. We need to want for others what we want for ourselves. And, we should be ready to admit -- to ourselves and others -- that we don't have the exclusive right to wisdom or morality. We humans are all in this together, and the sooner we realize that, the better off all of us will be.

Public trust

As is so often the case in modern life, we seem to be faced with something of a predicament, if not a dilemma. How much government do we need? What kind of government should we have? How free may we allow markets to be? Which has priority: the common or private good? I'm not saying the answers to these questions are easy, far from it. What I am saying is that I don't think we think enough, nor seriously enough about the answers. Many appear to have ready answers on their lips, but does what they have to say reduce or increase the difficulties with the predicament.

We're back to where we have been many times before: Do we live in an economy based on sound social principles? Do we live in a society based on sound economic principles? Or, perhaps just a little more bluntly: do we live in a society or an economy? I realize that the industrialized West, in the USA, first and foremost, society has been traded in for just an economy, and a relatively poor one at that. Privatization, de-regulation, reduction of social spending, and unrestrained markets is what the people clamor for ... or have I only been able to hear part of the yelling. I suppose so. Being as far away as I am, I can really only hear who is shouting the loudest and that's what I'm hearing. Here in Europe, the most recent elections -- in France, Greece, and two of the Länder in Germany have made clear statements that the people want more of their society back. Granted, it's not all as simple as that, but it's really not all that complicated either.

We -- and by that I mean all of us, every single one of us -- must decide what is important to us. We have to decide whether we want to have a society or not? If we decide we want one, we then need to decide what kind: tyrannical, authoritarian, democratic, free, social ... should it be a community or just a collection of individuals, every person for him or herself. These are very, very fundamental questions, but they are questions that each of us is called upon to have an answer to. And, oh, by the way, it isn't that you just have an answer, you need to know why your answer is your answer, you have to be able to justify to others the advantages of your own view. In case you are wondering how far this need go, that, too, is simple: you should be able to make clear to anyone that how you think is how absolutely every human being on the planet should think. If it's good enough for you, it has to be good enough for anybody. If it isn't, it's just another lousy -- and I do mean lousy -- opinion.

And, yes, I believe everyone is entitled to their opinions, regardless of how lousy they are. But no one should expect that I honor or have much respect for the lousy ones. If you aren't willing to put any effort into having it, why should I put any effort into dealing with it, let alone respect it?

Precarious privatization

The conflict of interests spoken of last time dealt specifically with education, but that is not the only area in which we should be a bit more cautious. I realize there are many out there who are strong advocates of free markets, but they've really got no support to fall back on. Not every area of human endeavor is a market, nor should it be. And, there are some things that may look like markets but aren't.

Now, for all of you who now want to start beating me over the head with Adam Smith, I would ask that you at least read him before you use him as a weapon. The good scholar (a moral philosopher, no less, whose Wealth of Nations is hardly comprehensible without first understanding his Theory of Moral Sentiments and I'm guessing only a handful of people alive today have ever read that). Mr. Smith may have been skeptical about too much government, but he was a strong advocate of government in that it should oversee and take care of those areas which would not naturally profit a private individual. Government, in Smith's eyes was there to provide a justice system, enforce contracts, grant intellectual property rights, but also to provide public goods such as infrastructure (roads, bridges, transportation means, national defense, and one would suspect utilities). He supported public education and religious institutions because he believed they provided a general benefit to society, and most strikingly, he advocated protecting infant industries and regulating banking.

In other words, the "patron saint" of the free market was only in favor of those areas of endeavor that lent themselves to being regulated by the laws of supply and demand. He suspected that if left to their own devices, business would collude to the disadvantage of customers, therefore oversight was necessary. He was also in favor of several forms of taxation, such as taxes on rents, and was a very strong advocate of progressive tax rates: those who earn the most should contribute the most to the common good. For Smith this is common sense; for his so-called followers ... well, most of them ignore in him what they don't want to see.

What we learn from Mr. Smith, then, is that anything that has to do with the common good, with providing benefits to everyone, not just a privileged few, should include government involvement. The government also has a right and a duty to tax so that the common good may be assured. The solution to too much government spending is more discipline, to be sure, but it is not to turn over public trust to the private sector. Even Adam Smith knew that too much money in too few hands did too little good to too many people.