Why are people so stupid?

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Discuss.

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 10 September 2005 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

i always feel it's a matter of quantification.

are they more stupid now than they used to be? or is it just more acceptable now for stupidity to be brazenly expressed, rather than kept politely at bay by social conventions?

is the culture at large more accepting of stupidity now?

do people now feel they actually have a right to be stupid? can stupidity, then, in some absurd way, be considered political?

― miss de winter (miss de winter), Saturday, 10 September 2005 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I think our culture has, over the last 40 years, become meaner, coarser, more impolite, and crude. It shows in our popular culture, and in the way that people communicate with each other. Yes, I think American culture is very accepting of stupidity. I think it valorizes stupidity, immaturity, and teenage self-absoption. Look at the all reality TV shows that are so popular, each on descending into the exact same pattern of selfishness, egotism, ignorance, and inability to play nice and share with others. Look at ILE.

I think it may very well be political. Stupid people are easier to control because there is a social pressure that keeps them from taking anything "seriously" (god forbid) and therefore asking uncomfortable questions of themselves, their friends, their neighbors, and the regimes and practices they support.

Disagreements are reduced to slogans, stereotypes, and dismissive satire. Discourse is dead.

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 10 September 2005 23:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Like pirates. Because they AAAARRRRRRRRRRR.

― Luminiferous Aether (kate), Sunday, 11 September 2005 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

and then there's the deadening security blanket of 'irony'. it's one of the most odious elements of postmodernism, and in it's present anodyne form enables just about everything to be considered 'acceptable'/'good'/'hilarious' without first passing through even the most basic process of individual reflection. it feels like people no longer have to OWN their likes/beliefs/cultural microcosms, because anything goes, as long as you've got the ironic 'angle' on it (and probably a really crappy hairstyle to match).

― lisa de winter (miss de winter), Sunday, 11 September 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not sure it's a modern condition. The works of William Golding (sorry, yes, it's that To The Ends Of The Earth obsession again) are full of the nastiness and deliberate small-mindedness of the human condition.

ILX seems to be a kind of a microcosm of the larger world in that way. What I am finding interesting is the parallels of ILX nastiness to 17th Century witch hunts.

― Luminiferous Aether (kate), Monday, 12 September 2005 07:17 (twenty-one years ago)

You try to stay away from people, you try to avoid them, you try to stay out of their way and avoid conflict. And then you find - through innocently following a trackback - that they are obsessively quoting and repeating every little thing that you say.

Why are we so fascinating to these people? Do they not have lives of their own? It's just weird.

― Ancients of LAUTRO (kate), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:08 (twenty-one years ago)

It's just creepy, really.

― Ancients of LAUTRO (kate), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:11 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

People are wonderful, I don't mind them at all.

― ss sleepingbag (sleepingbag), Thursday, 21 September 2006 14:50 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

Discourse is dead.

this board is dead

― bobby bedelia, Saturday, 5 April 2008 04:40 (eighteen years ago)

this thread is funny

― John Justen, Saturday, 5 April 2008 04:41 (eighteen years ago)

ploppage?

― libcrypt, Saturday, 5 April 2008 05:39 (eighteen years ago)

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