Imbeciles are always and everywhere. Nitwits are pervasive among us no matter the school of thought or political stripe. They have been with us from time immemorial.
Get used to it. Scream it at the top of your lungs.
I’m surrounded by nincompoops!
The nincompoopery — these people are our neighbors, our family members, and our friends. And you never know: an ignoramus may stare back at you in the mirror this very morning, for I have met the boob, and he is me.
Accordingly, I have set down a rule for myself: in seeking the comfort of certainty, I will never shirk the strife of doubt. Even the most basic truths require renewed efforts to be known and embodied.
Doubt is the friend, not the enemy, of hardy and healthy faith.
To freely wrestle with the uncertain and unknown, to brave the depths of the profane and strive towards the heights of the divine, and to find a sustaining faith on the other side — that is to be human!
Now, if I were ever to seriously enter into politics at an elite level, it would behoove me to drop this approach altogether, at least publicly.
Doubt is, indeed, the enemy of man-made political authority.
Look closely enough and you will see supposedly sacred truths supporting the ruling elite — truths that are never to be questioned.
The good news is that as long as you believe these sacred truths, you’ll be rewarded. You’ll be considered moral and informed by the cool kids with all the opportunities that ‘following the rules’ provides. Not a bad deal, especially if the elite are actually competent.
Yet, as Western history has shown, without honest questioning of authority, the seeds of liberty cannot continue to take root and bloom — inertial forces will begin to rot institutions from the inside, corrupting the values for which they stand, with the worst people rising to the top.
And I do not think it insane to suggest the current ruling elite of the West, in their all-self righteousness, have been so corrupted as to make good things seem detestable and evil.
That said, to question power’s shibboleths is no small task, even in a nominally free democratic country such as ours. Just look at Canada today. There can be consequences, personal or financial if one flies too close to the Sun.
So be it.
The cornerstone of human liberty will always rest upon the sacrifices, big or small, of those who honestly admit and act upon their ignorance of belief in the power elite’s deceits.
So, if you’ve had any doubts of late about the ruling class’ sacred truths, why not consider trying a little ignorance?
Let us pretend we do not know what everybody claims one should know.
Socrates (who famously used his own ignorance to question the authorities of Athens) is credited with saying, “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.”
I take this to mean any knowledge we may discover will always appear dwarfed next to our natural ignorance.
Despite our best efforts, man remains tragically limited, fallible, and flawed — never quite able to reach the promised land here on earth despite power’s promises. Ignorance is the birthplace of man’s search for meaning and its final resting place.
To claim full or total or unquestionable knowledge is the original sin of hubris which leads to our downfall. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing when considered to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Thus, to be reminded of one’s ignorance is an opportunity for further learning and growth. Damn any notions of embarrassment, shame, or punishment. The contemplative life does not care for glory or social standing in others’ eyes.
The contemplative life is not a democracy.
When it comes to American democracy then, it is of little surprise the word “ignorant” — when used by or in regard to the ruling elite — is treated as a favorite insult in the American political arena right alongside “hypocrite,” “racist,” “bigot,” “traitor,” or “libertarian.”
However, despite their public displays of pride in being ‘moral and informed citizens,’ most Americans know there is much they do not know. The problem is, in knowing so little, their elite-managed democracy requires them to pretend their crumbs of knowledge are a bellyful, at least enough to have an allowably ‘informed’ opinion on every issue under the sun.
Accordingly, Americans have been trained to look at political events in a frantic zeal — and upon coming to ready-made answers furnished by corporate media — separate into factions who claim they are the keepers of the real truth while all the other factions are just a bunch of lying liars who lie.
This is how the American public can so often claim to want the facts without ever coming close to the truth. One faction serves as the foil to the other faction’s fact-finding mission, creating a smokescreen spectacle of righteous indignation and virtue signaling.
And, when some sacred truth ever does begin to be questioned by enough people, you can be sure members of the ruling elite — whether party politicians, corporate journalists, rent-seeking businessmen, bleeding heart entertainers, tenured academics or paid activists — will look for a way to protect their power and interests, including emergency suspensions of common law.
So, what are the regime ‘truths’ to be questioned honestly today?
Here’s three, just as a sample:
(1) That voting is a person’s most fundamental individual right.
(2) That government, university, and media ‘experts’ should be shown deference as authorities because of their credentials.
(3) That “equity and justice for all” is an obvious improvement, progression, and outgrowth from “liberty and justice for all.”
If my suggestion to question these ‘truths’ inspires you to think I am an ignorant nincompoop, well, I do not deny it.
Let us hope, for all our sakes, you are not wrong despite all you claim to know.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 9 am-12noon. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback please email newsandviews931@gmail.com. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
