Worzel's World - Fixing stupid

 

The ills of mankind are many – almost as many as the remedies employed to cure them. The physicians are diverse and seldom agree. Some people take recourse to drugs, others cry out to God and seek healing and wholeness through faith. There are therapies aplenty – Reiki, Bowen crystals, homeopathy, and there are more diets than you can shake a knife and fork at, all said to give you greater health and wellbeing. There are supplements for those who believe more is better and fasting for those who believe less is more.

Think up practically anything and there will be an example somewhere of someone touting it as a beneficial therapy. But no matter how efficacious the therapy or how skilled the physician there are still those who insist ‘You can’t fix stupid’.

Indeed, in spite of, or perhaps because there are so many ways to fix the sickness and disease inherent in the human condition, the human condition stubbornly remains unfixed. And if you buy into the recent pandemic that we are told is ravaging the world and killing millions, disease and death is on the ascendant and therapies of all sorts are fighting a losing battle. Don’t worry though, there will soon be a witches brew of poison called a vaccine that you can pump directly into your bloodstream that will fix everything.

Yeah right.

Not all therapies invade the body. There are some that infiltrate the mind. The writing of this column has been predicated on, if not the belief then at least the hope, that if stupid cannot be fixed then some of the symptoms may be alleviated, that some of those afflicted with this most debilitating of diseases might be rendered non-contagious.

The recent ‘panicdemic’ has been a major setback to those of us in the healing game who have laboured long at combating the more pervasive and more dangerous contagion of stupid. When Jesus said ‘leave the dead to bury the dead’ he wasn’t kidding, and the statement wasn’t entirely allegorical either. I meet dead people all the time and wonder why they don’t have the common decency to shut up and lie down. This is, after all, the traditional role of the dead. Of course, I can claim some expertise in this area having been dead myself a couple of times, and in my sometime occupation of grave digger one develops an eye for such things.

The first step in combating any illness – and being dead is about as ill as you can get – is isolating the pathogen and identifying its characteristics. Incidentally this is something not yet done with: SARS-Cov-2.

The greater contagion of widespread terminal stupidity is often known by the scientific name of cognitive dissonance. It can be caused by what George Orwell referred to as doublespeak. People are asked, or forced, or choose to believe contrasting and frequently opposing concepts at the same time. Immediately this is attempted confusion results. Soon after this, if left untreated, stupidity sets in. Then eventually death is the obvious and quite logical end.

Hypocrisy inevitably results in cognitive dissonance, however a person who is coerced by external pressure to act in a way contrary to their own beliefs can also be a victim. For instance, an honest receptionist who is told by her boss to lie to a caller saying he is in a meeting when in fact he is not, will feel compromised. Should she refuse to lie and endanger her continued employment but be at peace with her own standards? Or lie, retain employment and experience cognitive dissonance? Choosing the second option will lead to the necessity of rationalising their behaviour and making excuses for it: ‘The boss told me to’, ‘I was just doing my job’, ‘It was only a white lie’, ‘It was necessary for the greater good’. This is the beginning of an ultimately sad end.

When nonsensical measures were imposed during the 2020 lockdowns I would often challenge their rationality: ‘So the virus can count and will refuse to enter a shop with 10 people inside but will rush in as soon as there are 11 eh?’. I was invariably met with the response of ‘Well we just have to do it’.

Well actually, no you don’t. If you do you will be forced to rationalise the irrational and this choice will trigger the process that will cause you to become stupid. This is why cognitive dissonance is rampant. It may also explain why the world at large is, by any objective standard, going absolutely mad, and why you can’t fix stupid.

„ Feedback? Email prof_ worzel@hotmail.com