The Care and Feeding of Your Idiot

© G. Johnson, 2016

There are 7.4 Billion people on the planet and for every single one there is an idiot; a person perceived to be lacking intelligence, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way.

Of course, I do not live everywhere so I can only speak with surety in regards to my own country,  however, it's safe to assume we are a decent sample of what humanity has to offer (both good and bad) and here you don't have to look far to find an idiot.

How is this possible? you might wonder.  If there were actually an idiot for everyone wouldn't the population be closer to 15 Billion?  Are these idiots invisible?  (Unfortunately, no.)  Are they some shadowy, counterproductive-clan lurking unseen for the most part?  (Yes.)  Do they exist to covertly rise, lob volleys of egregious stupidity and then - poof- retreat into anonymity?  Yes, they do, and we (all of us) are where they hide.

A few will bristle at this declaration.  "I do not shelter idiots," they will say.  "I fight them.  I fight them everywhere I find them."  And they're right.  They do.  We all do.  Or at least we think we do.  In fact, most of us consider ourselves the world's greatest idiot locators.  We can spot them for miles.  After all, we've all had this experience - struggling to educate another and discovering we're dealing with a level of 'lacking intelligence' which stuns us into speechlessness.

Still, we harbor them as well. In fact, I say with confidence, just about every single person ever born has had an idiot; a dimension of themselves perceived to be lacking intelligence, or who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way and every once in a while (for some it's a bit more frequently) they pop out in all their heinous, low-browed, knuckle-dragging glory.

For instance, if you are a breathing, thinking person and you do not consider yourself biased (an unfair inclination or prejudice for or against someone or something) in any way - you are in full possession of an idiot.  Because we are all biased.  Every last one of us.  We have all made assessments and judgments about gender roles, people, places, and cultures based on second-hand perceptions given to us through family, society, media, religion and politics.  We can't help it.  It's the way we work.  Our minds are constantly struggling to understand and define the world we live in in an effort to build a sense of stability and security for us.  To do that we must form determinations of everything we perceive (note I said perceive, not experience) and since we cannot possible know everyone, taste or smell everything and be present in every place on the planet, we make 'guesses' at what is 'out there' based on second-hand reports (opinions) and from these 'guesses' we decide whether it's good or bad.

Or, if you don't believe you're bigoted (a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions) you are in full possession of an idiot.  Because at some point or another we are all bigoted.  Think about it.  Consider a staunch opinion or view you have.  Gun control?  Abortion?  Politics?  Religion?  Now think about the 'other' side of that issue.  Think about those stubborn faces and hand-painted signs blatantly proclaiming the opposite view.  Are your hackles rising?  Do you sort through your 'friends' list in an effort to weed out those unenlightened morons?  Have you given them up as hopelessly stupid?  Or maybe they should be forced to live together in a segregated community where no one has to listen to them?  Get is now?  Right.  Bigot.  Idiot.

How about we wiggle down into misogyny (dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.)  For example: if you have ever a) assumed a woman was a slut/whore based on your judgment of the way she was dressed  b) assumed a female with a good job/grades/pay exchanged sexual favors to get it  c) automatically wondered what a rape victim was wearing or why she was where she was or doing whatever she was when she got raped  d) have ever been pissed at rude/bad driver and upon recognizing it was a woman felt like the situation now made sense - Guess what?  You, darling, are in full possession of an idiot.

Or the big, hairy one no one wants to own, racist.  (A person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.) You are definitely not a racist!  After all you have -insert various label- friends!  And you can own that - provided you've never been uncomfortable when you suddenly find yourself the minority in a group.  And as long as you have never looked at faces of a different hue on the street and instinctively worried for your safety.  (By the way, shifting your purse to the other hip isn't going to stop someone if they are intent on robbing you.)  As long as you have never rounded a blind corner and twitched at the unexpected sight of a member of a different race and had to choke down a flash of panic.  Because guess what, sugar lump; if you take for granted you're safe when the faces around you are the same color as your own - Yep, that's right; you are racist and you are in full possession of an idiot.

Still want to argue it?  Well, you must be better than every human being who ever graced us with their presence, because we all have an idiot.  Go digging back into the lives, writings, quotes and thoughts of humanity's saints and heroes and you will find glaring examples of their idiots.  So, no - if Gandhi and Saint Peter had moments of glaring misogyny and John F. Kennedy could refuse to allow Sammy Davis, Jr. to perform at his inauguration in a evident moment of racist idiocy while actively fighting for equal rights, and if Abraham Lincoln can have said this:

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality ... I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men,"

during a campaign speech on September 18, 1858 in Charleston, Illinois, (Source - "What Lincoln Said in Charleston in Context: Parts 1 & 2"by Brooks D. Simpson, 01.29.2011) and still went on to issue the "Emancipation Proclamation", then it's pretty strong evidence we all possess an idiot or two.  Kinda like tenacious foot fungus.  And just like a bad case of Athlete's Foot, no one wants to own it.  Well, get over it.  You have one.  I have one.  But like the above examples we do not have to be susceptible to the stupidity of our idiots.  We can learn to dis-empower them and go on to make the world a better place.  For everyone.

© G. Johnson, 2016

First, after you accept you have one, you need to try to understand where your idiot comes from and simply being in possession of one does not make you a terrible person!  It is - I repeat - it is the natural state of the human animal to fear or be made wary by anything which differs from the known.  It's an animal instinct still buried in our lizard brains that helped us survive when we roamed mountains, plains and grasslands being eaten by large, furry things with huge teeth.  (Or other humanoids for that matter.)  If not for this knee-jerk wariness we would not be here.  Still, despite the fact our chances of being eaten by toothy, hungry quadrupeds has fallen significantly, our caution has not.  So, taking this into account, it isn't a hard stretch of the grey cells to understand if the faces around you are all the same color, then those are the faces which seem 'normal', known and thereby predictable (or safe).  And when we catch sight of one that isn't?  Given we instinctively think of anything different as 'unknown' and the unknown scares the shit out of us! (Ears sharp, eyes narrowed, body tense and nostril flaring...)  Yep, this is the homeland of our idiots.

So, now that we have established the ownership and the birthplace of our idiots, what do we do with them?  Destroy them!, some will yell.  Banish them off the planet!  Yeah, well, good luck with that because, sad though I am to say it, we can't get rid of them completely.  Not really.  Spawned by our inherent dread of the unfamiliar mating with our need to feel secure through understanding our world they are the bastard children clinging to us until the unknown becomes known.  Unless you are someone who can be everywhere and everyone in every culture, race, and religion your mind will panic and always try to slap a judgment on what is different while screaming danger signals like an over-reactive, neurotic goose.  So, yeah, long story short (I know, I know - too late) you have to learn to live with your idiot.

After you have stopped trying to make an orphan of your idiot, the second step is to learn it.  (You are the idiot expert, right?)  Keep a wary eye on it when you're moving around your part of the planet.  Discover what it reacts to.  Force yourself to sift through the foul, toxic garbage it vomits based on nothing more than collective labeling, fearful imaginings and biased possibilities.  Dig in and find all the nasty little tags and assumptions it has happily slapped on anyone who is not like you.

Next, disarm it.  You can't shut it up (not entirely) but you can sure as hell get some control over it.  And how do you do that?  With the same organ that spawned the damned thing.  Take charge of your thoughts and point out right quick your idiot is acting like - well, an idiot.  That it is judging one human being based on assumptions.  Or fear.  Or the actions of a few.  Or that it is making unfair assessments while playing lizard-brained, "worst-case-scenario" games.  That's literally it.

And stop letting it play with other people's idiots.  Please.  It just makes for a bigger mess.  When you encounter another person's idiot, don't pretend you didn't hear the sexist/racist/biased comment.  Don't act like it never happened.  Don't mumble some embarrassed non-response - or worse yet - force yourself to agree just to keep the peace.  Either admit you are working to control your own idiot and they might want to do the same or just walk the hell away and leave them and their ass-showing idiot pontificating for all to see.

If you want to control your idiot you will also have to be careful what you feed it.  Do not, under any circumstances, allow your idiot free-range grazing!  Plopping your idiot down among one sided-view points and allowing it to only be exposed to like-minded information/ people/experiences is a bad idea.  Homogenization (creating an artificial sameness) leads to oneness (as opposed to Oneness- as in one race, the human race) which, unfortunately, is a place where our idiots thrive since it closely resembles their homeland.  Instead, your idiot should be exposed to people and things which are different as well as a wide selection of various viewpoints and opinions.  (And facts, for the love of God - facts you know through personal experience to be true.  Because idiots love to feed on rumors, panic and unfounded opinions.)

Another delicacy which helps to inoculate your idiot against over-activity is strong and repeated doses of commonality, or finding something about a different individual which is similar to something about you in an effort to relate to the other person as a person and not as a race/culture/religion or opposing viewpoint.  Idiots only relate to other idiots who hold similar views but human beings can easily relate to other human beings across the board.  Fortunately, there are numerous areas of life with which you can treat your idiot, a varied and palpable selection given we all share the same basic human experiences and emotions.

Also, your idiot will be forced into a state of benign, distracted confusion if you force it to see those you encounter as individuals instead of stereotyped groups.  Idiots can only see collectives, or groups as a whole.  For instance, to your idiot one African American is thought to be all African Americans.  One white person is used to identify all white people.  One Latino = all Latinos.  Etc.  (This, I might point out, is not only severely lacking intelligence it is horrendously counter-productive to society as a whole.)

If you wish your idiot to arrive at a supreme state of docility (submission) treat it with conscious and continuous applications of open-mindedness (curiosity and non-judgement) and love (compassion) for those with whom you share the planet.  Compassion for yourself and the fear which spawned your idiot will lead you to compassion for everyone else who is struggling with their own idiot. 

In summation, begin working diligently to domesticate your idiot but do so knowing this will be a life long occupation.  It is for me and it will be for you.  My idiot and I are well known to each other.  She's reactive and irrational.  She's embarrassing and judgmental.  She jumps to conclusions and tries to destroy my curiosity and wonder by making me anxious as hell because I am in the midst of difference and diversity.  She even tries to lure me into long games of "Misanthropy" (a general hatred, distrust and contempt for humankind).

However, I fight like hell to resist (though I admit, sometimes I fail).  But even in those initial moments, when her howling blindsides my better sense, I have a store of rational understanding to cool the fires quickly.  For one, I've learned her judgment sucks given she is wrong about nearly everything100% of the time.  Secondly, I've found her to be little more than a dis-empowered, terrified creature who, if she had her way, would rob me of everything that makes my life worth living; hope, amazement, wonder, joy, friendship.  And finally, the only thing she cares about - above my loves, my children, my world, is keeping her own ass safe from whatever might be 'out there' waiting to eat her.  Which, as a mother, wife and woman - as a human being - is a mindset I refuse to tolerate in myself.  And for a very good reason.  When it comes time for me to hand over my part of this world I want to pass it off to my children and my grandchildren - to your children and your grandchildren - from my heart and not from my idiot.