Dear Boogie - Volume 6
Dear Boogie -
I read your article about being smart. It’s refreshing to hear someone admit it! I’m not sure how smart I am, but I do spend a lot of time and energy getting angry at dumb people. They’re taking over! How do you stop from not going on a dummy punching spree?
Sincerely,
Mensa Mental Case
Dear MMC,
I agree - it can be infuriating to watch the Great Idiot Takeover unfold in front of our eyes. It seems like people are getting dumber, right? Worse, those dumb people now seem to be in more and more positions of power. How did this happen?
Well, first off - let’s look at the facts. It is tough to define intelligence, but for scientific purposes let’s just look at IQ. For most of the 20th century, the average IQ went up about five points per decade (known as the “Flynn effect,” named after the brothers in the band Crowded House by a research scientist who didn’t know their last name was actually Finn).
Logic would dictate that despite our perception, people are continuing to get smarter, right? Not in the United States! A recent study showed a general decline in IQs in this country for the first time in over a century. Before we jump to conclusions, there are a few caveats:
This was just one study. It’s never smart to jump to conclusions from just one study. So stop being such a conclusion-jumper, Pogo Pants!
The IQ decline wasn’t present in every demographic. Children and adolescents seem to be still showing the Flynn effect. Young adults (18-22) on the other hand seem to have the steepest IQ decline. It’s tough to draw any strong conclusions when the data is that disparate.
The study didn’t include Joe Rogan, who seems wicked smart.
But still - it seems like maybe there might be something to this whole “we’re getting dumber” thing. Still, I am not sure I completely buy it. I suspect the dumber people are just getting louder, thanks to social media and changes in national politics. But the problem remains: both in the media and our everyday life, we have to deal with a tsunami of infuriating dumbness. How do we deal with it? A few tips:
Empathy is everything. I am a little bit of a broken record on this point, but I believe empathy is the answer to most of our problems in life. Empathy isn’t simply a quality we have, but a practice we do. We do this by actively putting ourselves in others’ shoes and asking hard questions of ourselves.
For example, the baristas at my local Starbucks are fucking awesome. They remember my name, know my order, and generally brighten my day. Except one young lady. Here’s how our conversations go:
Me: Good morning! I’ll have a large hot decaf Americano, black with no room.
Barista: Great! What size?
Me: Large.
Barista: And is that hot or iced?
Me: Hot.
Barista: Room for milk?
Me: No. No room.
Barista: And you said Americano, right?
Me: That’s… what I said!
Barista: And a name for the order?
Me: Ragey Rageface! GRRRRR!
Every day. No matter how many times I see her. It’s the same thing. It drives me craaaaaaazy. But then, I try to evoke my better self and ask the basic empathy practice question: “Is this person doing the best with the tools they have?” And of course she is. The idea of her purposely being obtuse to slow down my order and ruin my day is preposterous. She’s either the world’s least ambitious supervillain or she is trying her damndest to do a good job getting my order right.
The next step in empathy practice is taking the focus off the other person and putting it on ourselves. In this case - why am I in such a hurry? I need my coffee as fast as possible so I can… go over there to sit down and craft dick jokes for four hours. My impatience and irritation with this perfectly nice person makes no logical sense. It’s a combination of my automatic east coast wiring and absurd sense of self importance (“Whaaat? You’re making ME wait?”). Anger at this person for being less competent than me is snobbery at best and cruelty at worst. That’s not the version of myself I want to be.
“But what about all the dumb people who are doing damage to the country?” you may be yelling at your screen while you pluck your pubes. That brings us to our next point…
Differentiate between dumb people and assholes. It can be a fine line, but there is a difference. Every dummy is not necessarily an asshole. How do you spot the difference? It’s quite the conundrum (or “conun-dumb” as it were! I love being clever!).
For example, in today’s political world there are more dumb people in elected positions than I remember in my lifetime. And I’m not talking about the “playing dumb to be charming but actually politically savvy” flavor of dumb of a George W. Bush. No, there are new depths of dumb-itude happening before our very eyes. There are “believe the world is secretly run by a cabal of Satanic pedophile lizard people” levels of dumb. These people are changing our laws and effecting the lives of our most vulnerable citizens and they are reeeeeally fucking dumb.
But here’s the thing: they’re mostly also assholes. They have bad intentions, either because of simple greed for power of a fucked-up sense of morality or a personality disorder from lack of nurturing as an infant (There goes my overactive empathy gland again!). Sure, we are starting to see them predictably implode because they are too dumb to actually function in government. But they are doing a lot of damage along the way. Remember - that is not because they are dumb. It is because they are fucking assholes.
So what about all the people voting for them? Are they assholes or just dumb? It’s easy to write them all off as assholes, but it’s hard for me to believe that all those millions of people have bad intentions. Being dumb means being easily manipulated. Fear is a very strong motivator. The well-orchestrated (and very smart) propaganda campaign gives these people a fear-based message that plays to their sense of tribalism. Facts don’t seem to matter anymore. Dumb people feel a strong pull to disappear into groups and follow ‘strong’ leaders who offer easy answers. And the evil motherfuckers working these campaigns have cracked the human brain code. In a way, the poor dumb people don’t have a chance.
So how do we deal with these dummies in our everyday lives? I think it comes back to empathy. Truly… I sort of feel bad for them. Don’t get me wrong - my pity is an entirely selfish act. I simply don’t like feeling angry all the time and I’m not going to do it. So when I do get mad, I try to think about who is pulling the strings. Is this person a manipulator or being manipulated? Every dumb person you meet is doing the best they can with the tools they have. They just have shitty tools - unlucky genetics, bad education, and a culture that emphasizes comfort over kindness. They are ripe for manipulation. Given the right circumstances, they would probably act morally and with kindness. Unfortunately, our society no longer encourages that (if it ever did). So what do we do?
Give up the idea of changing people. “Wow, Brendan - you are a fascinating combination of humanism and nihilism, aren’t you?” You betcha, Hoss! But to me, it’s about letting go of the things I can’t control. Getting mad at a dumb person for being dumb is like getting mad at a cat for not barking.
So yes, MMC - dumb people are having ‘a moment.’ But maybe it won’t last forever. Maybe being smart will make a comeback. Because you know who else had a moment? NSYNC. And we don’t have to deal with those assholes anymore, do we… wait, what? They’re back? What the fuck?
Boogie Writes is a completely independent endeavor by one hard-working funnyman trying to make his way in the world today (which takes everything you’ve got.) If you like what you read, please subscribe, support, and tell a friend! Also - do you need advice? Of course you do! Send your queries to brendan@brendanboogie.com with “Dear Boogie” in the subject and get some solid or at least passable advice!