I Weep

Some people are very dumb. Obviously dumb people, which is to say the people whose appearance and manner of speaking spell out how dumb they are, are not the ones we have to worry about. Like the cartoonish racists of movies like "The Help", the cartoonish idiots are not the ones who represent the worst of the problem. It's the ones that seem smart but are dumb at the core who we have to worry about.

A fine litmus test can be found in the form of satirical news articles. I remember when I first discovered there was such a thing as "The Onion". The Onion is a fake newspaper and website filled with articles that tell falsehoods in order to shed light on some kind of truth. That's what comedy does, in a way. It helps to unearth truth, or to neutralize what is painful in life. It does that with things that are, on the surface, lies.

Even the first time I laid eyes on an Onion article, I got it. Employing critical thinking, I saw that it was not true, accurate news reporting that I was reading. It couldn't be. That's something I always manage to do. I read something and then I wonder if it seems right. The fact that it comes from a reputable news source like, say, USA Today or ABC news, carries much wait from me. The fact that it's reported by multiple sources means something to me. I check these things if I'm not sure.

It's astounding to me how many people who are otherwise accomplished individuals of merit don't think twice about articles that don't seem convincing for even half a second. I admit it gets hard sometimes to tell. The real news can sound crazy, and other things that used to automatically tell you a news store was bogus (like profanity in the headline or colloquial, conversational language in the body) no longer are adequate indicators.

Still though, people are obscenely gullible and credulous. There was this item about Barack Obama at the G-20 summit. The article concerns Obama breaking from prepared remarks to openly call Vladimir Putin a jackass. The article also, among other things, makes reference to Putin wrestling bears. I wouldn't for a split second believe that story, even though it ran under the auspices of the New Yorker. I still looked at the substance of the story and knew it was a humorous, satirical not-true article

Other people looked at it and didn't get that. Maybe they put more weight into the connection with the New Yorker. Maybe they didn't know who Andy Borowitz is. He's a comedian, and he writes satirical articles. He's not a journalist. Being ignorant of that doesn't matter, though. Nobody ought to have looked at an article describing the president behaving like he's never ever behaved in his like and believed it. Nobody should have read an article saying that the president of Russia wrestles bears and thought it must be true because someone wrote it in formal, journalistic language.

I really do despair for humanity sometimes. Our civilization is hanging on by a thread. That thread is the very small minority of people who are competent, intelligent, clear-thinking individuals. There are barely enough right now. We cannot lose any. The torrents of lethal idiots will destroy us all if that feeble dam that is the best of us gives way, and a day doesn't go by where I fail to question whether we're there yet.