The correlation between bigotry and stupidity has been widely observed but also, I think, largely misunderstood.
Consider, for example, the recent illustration of this correlation from the great state of Vermont, as summarized by Doktor Zoom:
Here’s a sweet little story of Democracy in Action. A bright eighth grader writes to her state legislator with an idea for a law: Vermont doesn’t have an official Latin motto, so why not adopt one? And for that matter, make it a reference to history? Neato!
So state Sen. Joe Benning — a Republican who was actually trying to do a good thing, which he has probably learned to never try again — introduced a bill to adopt the motto “Stella quarta decima fulgeat” — “May the fourteenth star shine bright.” Because Vermont was the 14th state, see? Benning noted that when Vermont briefly minted its own currency, it was engraved with “Stella Quarta Deccima,” so the phrase had real historical cachet.
And then Burlington TV station WCAX put the story on its Facebook page with the headline, “Should Vermont have an official Latin motto?” and all Stupid broke loose when morons thought that Vermont was knuckling under to a bunch of goddamned illegal immigrants.
Charles Topher collected some of the most vivid examples of the xenophobic backlash:
There were hundreds of similar responses. All just as angry, aggrieved and resentful toward some vague, imaginary Other. Hundreds of examples of hundreds of Vermonters expressing the same jaw-dropping ignorance and stupidity.
The correlation between bigotry and ignorance seems obvious here. Hundreds of eager volunteers have stepped forward to demonstrate their own defiant combination of the two.
One theory to explain this correlation, then, would be to say that bigotry is an expression of ignorance. Or, in other words, to say that ignorance causes bigotry — to say that those who are ignorant will tend to be hateful (or, more precisely, that those who are ignorant will tend to be fearful and that those who are fearful will tend to be hateful).
If we accept that theory, then we must commit ourselves to education. Education is the antidote to ignorance, and therefore education could be the antidote to bigotry.
But what if what we’re seeing here from these angry anti-Latinists isn’t simple ignorance? What if it is, instead, actual rank stupidity?
The distinction matters. Ignorance, after all, is a universal aspect of the human condition. None of us can know everything. Our essential human finitude means, for all of us, that the number of things we don’t know will always exceed the number of things we do.
But we have evidence here that these Go Back to Latin-land commenters are displaying something more serious than simple, innocent ignorance. Their anger, grievance and resentment prove that cannot be the case. That emotional investment shows us that this is a subject about which they claim to be concerned — a matter that they have given their attention and focus. If their anger is genuine, and they are truly concerned, then we cannot conclude that their enduring ignorance is simply a matter of inexperience — of not knowing any better. It must be, rather, an inability to know any better — an inability to perceive, comprehend and absorb the clear facts that are right in front of their nose.
That means what we’re seeing here is not ignorance, but stupidity. Education can be an effective way of banishing ignorance, but stupidity is impervious to it. Education may be a remedy for bigotry caused by ignorance, but it will prove useless against bigotry resulting from stupidity.
The good news, though, is that there’s another possible explanation, another theory to explain the correlation seen here between bigotry and ignorance/stupidity. It could be the case that cause-and-effect flow in the other direction. The stupidity we’re seeing here could be an expression of the bigotry on display.
Or, in other words, it could be that bigotry causes stupidity.
I think there’s evidence to support this alternative theory — evidence provided by the very same indignant Vermonters making the audaciously stupid comments about the state’s proposed Latin motto.
Those comments, please note, aren’t just a little bit stupid. This is an astonishing breed of off-the-charts stupidity. It’s the kind of stupidity that makes you wonder how it’s possible that these people are able to tie their own shoes, to feed themselves or to cross a busy street without getting killed (presuming, for the sake of argument, that Vermont has any busy streets). And yet most of these people, in other contexts, seem surprisingly capable of intelligent behavior.
What we see here, in other words, is the kind of stupidity that we might expect from people with a diminished mental capacity, yet it comes from people who otherwise show that they do not have a diminished mental capacity. What they’re displaying, then, is not a lack of mental capacity, but a rejection of it. They are choosing to be stupid — choosing to behave as though they were stupid.
Thus it seems that bigotry is not the product of diminished mental capacity. Rather, bigotry forecloses mental capacity. It constrains and limits it artificially.
That means, in turn, that education is not the antidote to bigotry. The opposite is true. Bigotry is the antidote to education.
You may be wondering why I described this as good news. I think it’s good news because it means that bigotry is a consequence of a moral choice. And that means that bigotry can be cured by making a different choice.
We shouldn’t over-simplify this. The chosen stupidity of bigotry is, like all choices, conditioned and qualified and shaped by a thousand variables — education, ignorance, environment, nurture, experience, lack of experience, etc. And, like all choices, it is shaped above all by prior choices.
But we shouldn’t over-complicate this either. Those choices still matter. Bigotry, hate and resentment are always an option, but they are never the only option.
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