Tag: contemporary life

Some Truisms Aren’t True!

poverty

Our world is full of pseudo aphorisms — all widely accepted and all utter crap.  For the most part, they’re harmless, even cute.  But lately they’ve been creeping into our fundamental thinking — causing trouble — and distorting our ability to handle problems.

For example, whoever said “There’s honour among thieves” obviously hadn’t met many thieves.  This is a truisms that simply isn’t true.  Thieves steal things; that’s their job.  When there’s no one else about, they will steal from each other.  Haven’t you ever seen The Sting?  “Honour among thieves” suggests that there’s some kind of a Rogue’s Code out there that governs the little bastard who stole your iPhone™.  There isn’t!  He doesn’t belong to a fleet-footed fraternity of contemporary Robin Hoods, dedicated to redistributing technology to the less fortunate.  The only creed he lives by is economics – straight up and down.  He stole your phone for money: that’s it!  We attribute a modicum of honour to his profession because most of us simply can’t fathom an ordinary person following a moral compass that doesn’t have a dial.  However, the reality is the gentleman thief is a fiction, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law to amuse his Victorian friends.  Unfortunately, it has somehow gotten stuck to our psyche, with disastrous results.  And it’s not the only one.

There is a general misunderstanding that poor people have a moral leg up on the rest of us.  It is widely believed that if you are struggling to make ends meet, you’re absolutely bursting with integrity.  Not only that, but if, for whatever reason, you jump off the moral balance beam, the assumption is you were forced into it by an unforgiving society.  Let me set the record straight.  People who take the early bus to menial, minimum wage (or below) jobs do not necessarily have either honesty or empathy hardwired into their DNA.  Yes, they are working hard and, quite probably, getting the shaft on a daily basis, but I doubt very much that moral intrepidity is based on an unfavourable income tax bracket.  The “Poor but honest” stories we all grew up on are wonderful tales for children.  However, unless you’re seriously into economic profiling, there’s no reason to believe that poor people are any less corruptible than your average middle-class, 80K-a-year systems technician (No offence, systems technicians!)

These are just two examples of truisms that simply aren’t true.  There are piles more.

Our society has some serious problems, and most of us sincerely want to fix them.  Unfortunately, we’re never going to come close as long as we keep using mythology as our starting point.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

incompetent

After years of trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with our society, last week (quite by accident) I discovered the problem.  It’s called the Dunning-Kruger Effect and it’s the reason our world is riding the Express bus to Crazy Town.

For those of you who haven’t googled it already, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is some serious scientific blah, blah, blah that boils down to this — incompetent people don’t know they’re incompetent.  In fact, they generally believe they’re actually good at what they do. (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Okay, this has been accepted folk wisdom since the time of Socrates.  Most of us kinda know the world is full of arrogant assholes who haven’t got a clue; documenting it has just confirmed our suspicions.  However (and this is the scary bit) given the recent research, there’s a lot of speculation that this phenom is actually growing.  OMG!

The problem is, the 21st century has created a perfect storm for the Dunning-Kruger Effect.  Here’s how it works.  In our totally connected world, any nitwit can post the most cringe-worthy crap on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. and within seconds, tons of people are calling it “incredible,” “amazing” and “awesome.”  This just adds fuel to the fire.  Now, throw in an unhealthy dose of celebrity worship, and suddenly the flames of nitwittery are out of control.  Let’s take a look:

Gwyneth Paltrow is a decent actress.  She was a great Polly Perkins and an acceptable “Pepper” Potts.  She has millions of fans.  But, here’s the deal, folks: she’s not a health care professional.  Her lifestyle, health and welfare company GOOP is nothing more than a walking encyclopedia of quackery, chicanery and out-and-out stupidity.  Yet she boasts millions of disciples.

Jim Carrey, a comedian with zero medical credentials, talks about vaccinations as if he were the Surgeon-General.

Leonardo DiCaprio (a spectacularly gifted actor who didn’t finish high school, BTW) truly believes he has the inside scoop on climate change.

Bono, Sting and Sir Bob Geldorf, a crew of used-to-be musicians, walk with presidents and prime ministers, chatting about the causes and cures of poverty, disease and starvation – and they’re taken seriously.

Russell Brand is not an economist.  Neither is Tom Morello.  And, it’s no stretch to say the accumulated political expertise of Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin and Angelina Jolie is the ability to cry on cue.

And it goes on and on — from fly-by-night diets to Flat Earth athletes.

But the Oprah Winfrey Award for arrogant incompetence has got to go to Kanye West.  Mr. Kardashian, who freely admits he doesn’t read history books, somehow came to the incredible conclusion that slavery was a choice.  A CHOICE!  And this guy has 27 million plus Twitter followers!

This is insanity, people!

But here’s the scariest of the scary bits.  I haven’t even mentioned the Big Kahuna, the poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the beginning, middle and the end of most arguments in 2019 — a certain politician who’s presumably the leader of the free world.  Now, that is scary!

 

Dear Young People

luis-quiles

Fair is fair!  Last week, I wrote a piece called “Dear Old People” and put the boots to old buggers carrying on and on and on about “the good old days” and how super special they were. Now it’s time to put the shoe on the other foot and explain to this current generation that they’ve got nothing to be smug about (as if they could get any smugger!)  Here are a few things young people need to remember before they start shooting off their mouths about how uber-cool they are.

You didn’t invent sex, and from what I’ve seen recently on TV and in the movies, you’re not even doing it right.

And speaking of movies, when your largest contribution to cinematic history and Western culture is various super people beating the crap out of each other, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

You did, however, invent Twitter — the nastiest, meanest, pettiest, most judgemental, disrespectful form of communication in human history — and history will hold you accountable for that.

Angry Face emojis aren’t actually going to change the world.

And instead of just sitting around talking about saving the planet, you might try picking up those paper coffee cups and plastic water bottles you’ve been throwing all over the place.

Quit complaining!  God!  Spending half your life offended and the other half bitching about it has got to be a miserable existence.

When your biggest concern in life is celebrity gossip, you’ve got a serious hole in your soul.

“Brave” — you keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

Zombies aren’t real — and neither are Disney princesses, Jedi knights or the MCU.  Talking about this stuff all the time is like debating what kind of cookies Santa Claus likes best.

A tattoo doesn’t mean you’re unique, spiritual or a badass.  It means that you have disposable income – just like everybody else west of the Vistula.

And BTW:

The entire world, from Baltimore to Borneo, is sick of hearing about your stupid student loan.  You borrowed thousands of dollars to study Post-modern Ventriloquism – what the hell did you expect?

Illustration: Luis Quiles