I have decided that I am personally opposed to be the world being run by complete idiots. I think that in time there will be a need to decide that merely being a complete idiot is not a sign of a divine right to govern. Being a complete idiot may be a fine ideal for people at many levels and may feel really wonderful but it is not sufficient to outweigh all other possible human qualities.
We have a society that moves fast and moving fast has become essential to a lot of what we do and who we are. However, we often move in a lot of ignorance and foolishness. The adjustment to a somewhat more deliberate pace will not be an easy one.
I think that it is somehow important to be able to step out of the ordinary and mundane flow and norm of human life and society. It is important to be able to see the bigger picture and the connections between the separate pictures which are the worldviews of each society, nation and culture. I think it is good to be able to see the several goods that conflict with the several evils that may accompany a policy decision and also to see how those evils conflict with each other and how those goods conflict with each other. I trust the analysis that follows such a moral parsing more than one which starts always looking for just the good and the bad of a choice. I trust even less that analysis rooted in the opinion that there is no good or evil.
I like the idea that a school should be a place of learning first for all the students. I do not believe we can eliminate all the rest but I believe that rape, bullying, brutalization, farting, stupidity being propounded pompously and theft should be less important than well-organized lessons, sporting events, school dances, plays, bands, moderate punishments and friendly conversation at the lunch table. I am willing to see the world that I live in clearly but I am not willing to see it as all perfectly good and right.
I think that the main purpose of the world we live in from my point of view is to suck as much as possible. However, I sometimes choose to resist this trend. One thing I hate is that whole trend which has amended the election of any US Senators by the State Legislatures away, made absolute robots of the College of Electors to the point of completely ignoring them except as mathematical factors, diminished the role of the Vice President as President of the Senate, started the rule of saying the United States is a country instead of the United States are a country (to which like others of these rules I adhere), racial policy that says either no colored people can share a conference center with white people anywhere or else blacks have the obligation to overrun every white school and rearrange its curriculum and life. These are just some of the many ways in which the country which is my home has made being a complete idiot the national ideal. I wish it could be changed.
It takes great intelligence and knowledge and some discipline to really follow the beauty pageants system, baseball at each level, the NCAA basketball tournament or a good game of football. It takes great knowledge and intelligence to stay current on what is happening in Country, Cajun, Zydeco, Bluegrass, various regional forms of the Blues, Contemporary Christian, Southern Swing, Motown, Jazz, Broadway Showtunes and movie Soundtracks. It takes great knowledge and skill to follow and understand the Mercantile Exchange, The New York Stock Exchange, the history of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, the Urner-Barry Seafood Price Current, the NASDAQ and the Morningstar summary of mutual funds. Nobody apologizes for any of this difficulty. But I am convinced that in the essence of our polity and commonwealth and in the social mechanics that hold us all together we face the ideal of the complete idiot gaining ground year by year and generation by generation. I do not mean democracy. I really mean the ideal of the complete political idiot. I am not joking. We have not achieved our ideal yet, but that is the ideal to which we are being drawn and towards which we are drawing the world.
I wish we would adopt a different ideal. I fee l that there are real dangers in us all becoming complete idiots in this area of our lives. We will face challenges in the environment, politics, war and diplomacy which a complete idiot is not the best person to address. Sometimes we will need people who are not complete idiots.
Franksummers3ba's Blog 