Life and Stupidity

Somebody wrote an email describing a predicament faced by his own society, “Life is tough, but tougher when you are stupid.” 

But I am going a little further, “Life is tough, tougher when you are stupid but even tougher when you are stupid and you don’t know you are.”

This is a malaise faced by various societies in the world. For political reasons, a particular strata of the population are kept ignorant of their own weaknesses. Instead an imagined utopian ideal is descended upon their minds, making them believe they are superior. Sadly, with years of indoctrination, this particular strata loses sight of reality, living in a comfort zone void of externalities. Slowly but surely realities do catch up, and when that happens it may implode, crumbling their very existence.

An education system plays a very important role in nation building. But when the education philosophy is tampered for political gains it loses its virtue.  “Thinking” suffers. But for powers that be “a thinking society is deemed to be a dangerous society.”

Ever since divinity was institutionalized,  programmed behavior was deemed to be superior because it conforms to a prescribed behavior adhering to its own code of conduct. Any stragglers are ostracized as witches and devil worshippers. Da Vinci and Galileo to name a few were people who suffered during their times because their thoughts and actions did not conform to the expected conduct of their times. Interestingly, Galileo, for his orientation towards heliocentricism, was banished for heresy and upon his death, was buried in an unmarked grave. Three hundred and fifty years after his death, Pope John II acknowledged in 1992, that there was an error of judgment but stopped short of any admission of guilt by the institution of wrongful conviction of Galileo.

Thus we can see what an institution, political or otherwise can do in stifling human thinking. The progress of a society hinges on the “knowledge of knowing what one does not know.”  When one does not know what they do not know, their life would be somewhat like a dream. And once the society wakes up from this state they would be staring at the naked reality. At that juncture that society would realize that they are ill equipped to handle the said realities which eventually could lead to social revolution. 

So if one is stupid and does not know that he is one, the harm is not only to him but life would become tougher to everyone around him as well.

An intellectual society is also a cultured society.  But how do you create an intellectually endowed society? There must be an inner realization to constantly hunger for excellence in knowledge. Ironically there is a race but the quest seems directed at material excellence. That is fine but not at the expense of negating the virtues of humanity. With the creation of a more open networked society across the globe, it is inevitable any social conditioning currently in place or any future attempts would be futile. However if the society itself refuses to step out of this comfort zone it only prolongs its eventual misery at the cost of others as well.