ON STUPID

As the color sighted among you have most likely realized, we have a new look here at Two For Me.  I think with the blog's shift in focus from, 'things that bother' me to a more general advice and observation topic base, a concomitant shift from the darker backgrounds of yesterblogs to today's lighter color, is fitting. 

My question to you today is, how long should we fight stupid? 

I know that as readers of this blog you are, statistically speaking, far less likely than your fellow non-readers to be stupid, or hold stupid beliefs (especially those readers who have called me 'a genius' or said something I wrote is the 'funniest thing I've ever read').  I'm sure that, like me, you are faced with an unending cavalcade of stupid.  I'm also sure that The Stupid infuriate you, that they dig their way into your skin, gnawing at your external safeguards like a disease ridden tick, infecting you with first rage, then acceptance.

First though, I have to warn you; I'm not here to deliver good news.  This is no Marathon, the war was fought and lost long ago. This isn't even Thermopylae.  It isn't some battle in the midst of a larger war.  Our massacre won't cause any to rise up their own army and fight back.  The Stupid have won.  We are, much like the delicate Cassowary, endangered.  We are guests of The Stupid, our presence tolerated and accepted; necessitated only by the need for more Apple products (seriously, have you seen their new mouse?) and Malcolm Gladwell books. 

Still, much like our flightless if gloriously plumed mascot, we are proud beings.  We are cursed with knowledge and with that knowledge comes the corrective urge.  'It's whom, not who', 'fewer, not less', 'passers by, not passer bys', 'You're pants are on backwards'.  We can't help it.  We see an error and our nature urges us to correct it.  We hear a co-worker state in simple and unequivocal terms that snakes aren't animals because they're reptiles and, no matter how much we try to just nod and move on, our eyelids develop a twitch.  We don't want to correct, we need to.

The question then becomes, how hard to we fight to correct?  Remember, these are not people looking to be corrected, they are not seeking proper understanding. They fight back, they have forced us to spell dialogue, dialog, and pronounce the silent 't' in 'often'.  They have taken the notorious from notoriety and put the lie in laying. There are no objective truths, only their opinion. Allow me to illustrate by recounting for you a conversation I had earlier this week:

The Stupid: Snakes aren't animals, they're reptiles.

Me: Reptiles are animals too, you don't have to be a mammal to be an animal

The Stupid: Right, you just have to be warm blooded, snakes aren't warm blooded

Me: No, warm blooded has nothing to do with it. Dolphins are mammals too.

The Stupid: Right, like sharks!

Me: No! sharks aren't mammals.

The Stupid: Well then what are they? They're not reptiles.

Me: Reptiles ARE mammals! And they're fish!

The Stupid: Well snakes can't be animals.

Me: Why not?

The Stupid: Cuz I like animals and I don't like snakes

Me: (brain aneurysm, followed by): So if you did like snakes they would be animals?

The Stupid: Do you have any candy?

I reproduce this not to embarrass the stupid, because as has become clear to me The Stupid feel no shame. Truly right and truly wrong are not important factors in their self image.  Thinking they are right, is all The Stupid need and in most cases, nothing you can say can change that thought. Take this guy for instance.  He, as his t-shirt explains, has clearly decided that any attempt at improving himself would be messing with perfection.  It's like the 300 pound woman wearing spandex and heels.  She has reverse anorexia, where we see exatra chunky oatmeal trying to escape the confines a hot pink Ziploc bag, all she see's is lots of sexy.  They all have it, and nothing we can do can ever break their mirror. 

So, to offer one view I posit that we go as far as we can. We do the Cassowary proud and shake our fists, or in the Cassowary's case our funky red dangly things and fight until we can fight no more.  We push until they ask for candy and then push some more and then, if we're lucky, maybe, just maybe, they'll exile us; take us out of the wild and put us in a zoo somewhere where can be alone together building iPods.