Here’s what it sounded like to visit this blog when it first began.
From February 9, 2015, “Dare to be stupid: Bigotry means choosing to limit your mental capacity“:
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 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.
I think what I want to clarify and explore further here is that, yes, the choice of bigotry circumscribes one’s capacity to perceive, to process, to consider, and to comprehend, thereby limiting one’s mental capacity. Thus bigotry becomes a form of voluntary stupidity. But it’s a particular form of it. Which is to say that hate will always make you a dummy, but being a dummy will never make you hateful.
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