Dumb people

I'm rather hung up on a particular aspect of society these days, one I feel myself reluctantly unable to accept. In a way I feel rather betrayed by my childhood, though honestly I should stop expecting so much of the American education system, stop blaming others for my inability to reconcile reality.

Simply, I cannot come to terms with the fact that stupid people exist. I am unable to wrap my head around the idea that there are people who are unable to think logically, and whose reaction to sound logic is to become upset and enraged, to turn that which they don't understand into something worth fighting about.

I really don't want this to come off like some rant against the ignorant. I've honestly had it up to here with the holier-than-thou attitude of the new intellectuals, the bastard children of our awful higher education, using their newfound learned status to loudly denounce entire subsections of people for having beliefs contradictory to the liberal spectrum. There was an underclassman in my community college who I entertained a friendship with, and to be honest he was a pretty decent kid who will probably do well at getting stoned and playing bass guitar for the rest of his existance. Once the two of us epically bailed on a play we were forced to attend as part of an English class. I had recognizing more than a few performers as part of the horrible LARP crew that frequented the comic store I worked, I declared I was having none of it and the two of us snuck past the instructor and out through the rear stage door, nodding at the preparing performers as we ran for our cars.

That was a long explanation which basically comes down to the two of us dicking around at the mall, this mate of mine noticing a Confederate Flag license plate on some big red envirorment killing truck, and in a moment of "take that!" inspired bravado he bent the thing over backwards.

"Take that!" Shouted by countless numbers of my educated peers. The lesbian classmate who invited me to her protest rally outside the supposedly anti-gay coffee shop which fired her, the youtube rebutals of smirking atheists, disproving god with pie charts and other useless hyperbole. "Take that! This is the rallying cry at which I cringe, wishing people could learn to emphasize with their supposed enemies.

I don't really know where this goes. I guess I'm just very lost these days. It used to be I could just talk to somebody, though I now find myself constantly worrying if I'm actually connecting on an intellecual level with these people. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm horrified when things which make perfect sense to me are seen as great insults by the people I interact with, or when I'm caught in a situation talking to someone, and it feels like I'm talking to some puppet or something, nobody watching from beyond the veil of humanity. It scares me to realize there's likely been countless scores of people who've thought the same of me. Tried to engage me on a higher level only to recieve a spattering of sardonic wit, my dismissive or sarcastic manner regarded as ignorance.

I really must sound like an elitest. Honestly, I find myself in a great conundrum. Do I consider myself a smart person? Maybe, I wish I was smarter to be honest. I wish I found time for books, for engaging cinema, for rewarding discussion amounst peers rather than just reiterating highlights of the latest South Park episode. Unfortunately, I am caught between two worlds. I am one of those people who is in love with the disgusting pulp media delivered to the masses. Maybe this is just a poor excuse for being a nerd but I read comic books more entranced by the attempted mythos of these ridiculous characters rather than for any reasonable plot. I consider pro-wrestling to be one of the highest art forms ever attempted, great stage plays starring an outlandish cast of muscle-bound men and over-sexualized women - the storyline never ending, the audience consisting of those who have no idea what great poets these men are. Most of all I love everything Japanese, a culture where a man dressed as a devil riding a motorcycle in a rubber suit can be an enduring character, where dangerous obsession with fantasy cartoon violence and underage pop idols is the norm for outcast Japanese men.

I guess I'm one of those people who likes things "ironically," as is the term tossed around. But really there's no irony. I love this filthy, self-serving media. I'd probably even watch Nascar if they didn't take it as seriously as they do - if the cars were painted up with skulls and during the Mountain Dew Turbo Minute everyone in the stands got to fire bottle rockets at the lead car.

So this is my problem - I am an educated person who longs for ignorance. I want to live in a world where I don't have to think all the time. I want to sit around and play Madden video games, watch The Dark Knight fifteen times and have no honest idea who Citizen Kane is or why on earth I should care. Instead of a backlog of important books and literature to read, I want a list of which Spiderman comics I'm missing. I want to be the kind of person who when someone presents me clear and direct evidence that god is dead, I can hold my head high and tell them "I hope that you find Jesus someday."

Instead here I am anxiously awaiting the weekend, where me and my local fetish support group will be dressing up in costumes and living out our depraved fantasies. Most of them seem dumb enough to just enjoy the fun, not thinking about what dangerous perverts they all are.

Maybe the fact that I recognize this, makes me the most dangerous one of them all.