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Thus, creative thinking which promotes unity is now the responsibility of some undefined, centralized establishment. It would be nice enough if this were a planned process, with each idea adding to our collective happiness, but it is basically haphazard, with each item adding to someone's bank account regardless of long-term consequences for society in general. Without realizing what has happened, we have turned our right to be original over to the amassed media. Oddly, this constitutes one example of manic stupidity due to the lack of an overseeing schema as growth without development has produced change without progress.
A more extreme example of amoral stupidity is the way we are wrecking our environment. Thanks to our failure to plan resource development, we are killing our lakes and streams, poisoning our forests, turning rain into showers of acid and are generally strangling our life support system. Once again, it is only the confrontation with our technological excesses that is forcing reason upon us. As a classic example of the neurotic paradox in action, the immediate, short-term profits which technologically advanced corporations net spur them on in their commitment to despoil the land, water and air. These indulgences beget, however, protesters who assert their right to live and breathe and who gather strength from the obvious soundness of their position that if things continue at the current rate, there soon will be no environment left to despoil. Thus, the battle of those who would wreck the world in a random, chaotic, indulgent way versus those who would save it by systematic, controlled planning. With the political power structure being what it is, they will reach a compromise—to wreck it by systematic, controlled planning. If it is rather trite today to observe that our technological excesses are challenging our morality, it is still worth noting that this development may decrease the likelihood that compromises in the future will be reached on the basis of justice rather than on the basis of power. Power sharing based on rights meant that more and more often, more and more people dealt with each other as equals, but we are surrendering our rights to the shadow establishment. This is the most compelling change at work in our culture, and it may lead us to a blasé world in which variety, which provides both the spice of and disputes in life, will be unimaginable. In a more realistic vein, it would be nice if someday all existent disputes could be settled fairly rather than by force or formality and that all decisions reached would be functions of reason rather than irrationality. Whether we ever reach such a state will depend to a large degree on the role stupidity plays in our future. Stupidity can both prevent survival, by promoting misunderstandings, and promote it, by making us more accepting of our limitations. It is most likely, however, that stupidity will transcend survival because we do not understand our limitations. Specific
 stupidity.com  |