The Colossus That Is Stupidity

The approximate size of human credulity
 

Belief without doubt is just credulity. ~ Soren Kierkegaard.


Knowledge is gained in bits and bites. Stupidity is achieved in stupendous galactic scales of measurement. Therein lies one of the simplest tests you and I can apply to distinguish truth from falsehood. A lie is voluminous in its breadth and depth.  It appears instantaneously in full form and encompasses all that is knowable about a thing.  The truth, on the other hand, is puny by comparison.  It provides only partial answers; it is piecemeal and painstaking. If the truth is presented to you in any way describable as comprehensive, it is only through facts accrued through many years, or even decades, of research.

Thus, I say if you have suddenly thrust upon you a rumor of great import, all-knowing, and without a modicum of doubt, you can safely conclude it is a big fat lie.

Here is the problem with the truth. We are all very busy people with our own work, our own lives, with our familial and other obligations. It is impossible for us to independently verify every fact dropped on our doorstep. Even if we did have time, we do not have the resources.  What really happened in Ferguson?  Frankly, most of us have no way of knowing by the light of our own senses. We don't have our own squads of investigators to ferret out the facts. We can only rely on what we are told, and apply our experience and judgment to make something of it. Results will vary.

Another recent example is the mega-tonnage explosion of stupidity that was the Ebola crisis in America.  Honestly, we all know this circus had more to do with the mid-term elections than public health. There is a reason that Texas hospital was ill-prepared for the first case: Ebola is (thankfully) unheard of in America, and it surprised them.  The CDC was not incompetent; the response was scientifically valid and effective. It was the politicians who pointed the disease vectors of hatred and fear to promulgate a "crisis" that never was. Let us conflate it with brown people crossing the southern border too! A case study in flagging stupidity.

Let me summarize. If you want to know, you have to work at it and take your time. And you have to accept incomplete answers. The truth is usually provisional, uncertain, and awaiting more data. To acquiesce in stupidity, you have to do nothing more than blink, and you "know" all.

Doubt is uncomfortable for many people. To be honest, I have no trouble with that state of mind. I'm pleased to be a "doubting Thomas" and it troubles me not that I don't know everything.

Updated May 8, 2015