Food for Thought

“Giving a voice to those who never had one” seems to be the message of the day. It is viewed as a quality, public figures receive praises for doing this and the message behind it seems to be that democracy itself leans on this principle. Since it is such a revered course of action, more and more people either promote this generous idea or take advantage of its application.
Yet nothing is all-good, just as nothing is all-wrong. It is a good principle but its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. We live now in a world of cacophony where everybody seems to have been given a voice and uses it in the most violent way. I believe that the idea behind this phrase was for the society to employ caring, intelligent, knowledgeable individuals to voice the desires and aspirations of the silent ones to those groups of governance and organization who can do something about them. Yet this idea was somehow lost and now everyone, no matter how educated, how informed, how intelligent, is given the gall to speak up. And that exposes the weakness of democracy – where the vote of a very informed person, intelligent, who pondered heavily on the matters at hand can be voided by the vote of somebody who doesn’t have the slightest clue about parties, candidates, what they stand for. The same way, the clear, informed voices get lost very often in the cacophony of the well-intentioned, ill-informed masses.
Now, please, don’t get me wrong. People should have a voice, no matter how wrong it is. After all I sincerely believe in the freedom of the speech and one of my favourite quotations is Voltaire’s “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” I admire any opinion, no matter how contrary to mine, if it’s presented with arguments and with a sound reasoning.
I used to believe myself that there are lots of people, admirable ones who due to a lack of exposure, could not have a beneficial impact on the society. And it is true. After all my grandfather, a simple peasant, but educated and self-taught, who would stop reading and getting informed only until the harvest, was such a man. Still, life has shown me that the vast majority of the people doesn’t have opinions. This situation doesn’t seem to prevent them from voicing the opinions of others without stopping and considering their validity. And it would be impossible to analyze these ideas/opinions/ideals because they do not have the tools to do this. They don’t have the tools and the biased leaders of opinions don’t offer them (for good reasons – they might work against them and their agenda). In an age where ignorance is cherished and promoted, all one has to do to push his ideas is to wrap it in a good intention and decent, but sub-mediocre minds would embrace it. Examples for this thing happening are in the thousands. Take for example, the help given to Africa. It seems like a “no-brainer” (oh, the love of the society for this term shows where we are heading to), a good and generous instinct that we have to send money over there, to help the poor children (no, I’m not ironic, they are poor, they are destitute, they live difficult lives), to send them fertilizers and help them grow a solid agriculture. Unfortunately, it only seems. There are a number of voices – smothered by high-profile do-gooders such as Bono or Bill Gates – who point out correctly that the western help, if anything, made the Africans even more helpless, it made the rich more rich and that many average people were pushed below the poverty line. Fertilizers made them more dependent of the prices of oil and fertilizers destroy the soil as it did to India in the 70s and 80s. Still, trying to point this one in public will make them treat you as a criminal who wants to condemn those poor people to eternal hunger.
And that brings us to the next point: it is ironic that exactly these new voices stifle the voices of reason, those who try to understand, investigate and debate things. Well intentioned people write to magazines complaining about racism in a 19th century depiction of N American society (duh! wasn’t there any?). When somebody dares to state the fact that Hitler did – a side effect, unintentional – a social service by confiscating and then hiding thousands of art works in protective bunkers, masterpieces that would have probably been gone in bombardments or vandalized, then he is bullied out of the job because he, an anti-Semite for sure, dares see some good in a sacrilege.
To me this seems like the radical groups who want to be given a chance to use democratic tools to get in power and then destroy the very same democracy that gave them a voice. Any lucid opinion that is perceived as an attack of the human values is shamed and destroyed with rush. This contrasts with times not long passed when stupidity and uninformed opinions were shunned and publicly ridiculed. One might say that is better kindness than intelligence but I beg to differ. Idiotic kindness can lead to more evils than considerate intelligence.
I guess my opinions make me an elitist. I am sure they do, but what other option is there? One would not want a bus driver piloting the plane one flies with. One would not desire his children taught history by a mechanic or have his food cooked by a chemist. Then why let uneducated, uninformed or even stupid individuals (yes, stupid, like in low-IQ but not as low as to be considered mentally challenged) make the decisions for our present and/or future?! Voice, like respect should be given to the ones who deserve it.

I recently joined a FaceBook group fighting against usage of names derogatory for special needs people. I read the description and it seemed to me well-balanced and having a good point – many groups created on Fb have very offensive names. After just 2 days, when reading some points of views in the discussion list I noticed very one-sided comments… well, let’s not hide behind words (and I am doing this on purpose) stupid comments. While the group included people with very balanced and rational comments, quite a few people would go as far as saying that words like “stupid, moron, cretin, idiot” should be outright banned from language. One person, mother of a child with Cerebral Palsy was even going as far as saying that she feels like slapping over the mouth the people who use the word “stupid” – never used against her son. I could, of course, let her know that my feeling was that she had issues accepting the terrible affliction of her son and was taking on the world, but I doubted I would be listened.
Words are just words. Like the atom technologies, they can be used to construct hugely beneficial things or destroy. They make up for the variety of this world and suppressing them would be totally wrong in my view. Of course, they should be used in the manner they were intended and adjust them to the sensibilities of the modern world but NEVER banned. I cannot describe the actions of a child playing in the street where cars drive +60 km/h with “less-than-intelligent”. A stupid person is NOT the person who by nature’s/God’s will has limitations but I believe it’s more appropriate to describe a person who has the capacity, the intelligence of being better and choosing not to do it. Education of how these words are to be used correctly is the only viable approach I can see. Banning? Even it would make some sense, which I don’t believe, it would never work since it doesn’t change attitudes. If “stupid” would be banned, people would use “oagadugou” or “phadhoum” (make-up words; can’t vouch they don’t mean something in some language 🙂 to describe the same thing. (When I was an adolescent, a friend has invented the word “babar” to describe cigarettes whenever his parents could be eavesdropping.) Education, on the other hand, could explain to some kids using “Look – here goes that retard again!” that in actuality they are the stupid ones because they choose to behave so hurtful despite having all the natural assets (intelligence, empathy etc.) to be something better.
I evidently withdrew from that FB group because I don’t want to be associated with hysterical people who want to social-engineer the very language. Then, at a party I mentioned my feelings about this, in approximately the same terms I am using here. A woman, teacher, retorted she doesn’t allow children to use the “stupid” word even when they describe themselves or their actions. Asked “why?” she looked at me as if it was obvious – “This could erode their self-confidence”. I started to argue that a balance should exist between boosting self-esteem and keeping it in check with reality. When one did something stupid, he/she should acknowledge that and apologize and try not to repeat it. Unfortunately, the teacher took the “higher ground” and kept silent. I say unfortunately because I honestly believe that only dialogue can educate free people – monologues are meant for slaves. In fact the whole assembly – about 6 people were witnessing this conversation – kept silent because, apparently, it is very embarrassing to have a contradictory conversation at a party, even if kept within decency boundaries. Later, reviewing the moment in my mind I reached the conclusion that the general silence was the saddest thing of that evening. 2 of the witnesses were very down-to-earth people and from other opinions they launched throughout the evening I strongly believe they were on my side. 2 others were Eastern-European immigrants and I have still yet to meet one Eastern European, who was educated there, who believes that artificially boosting children confidence is beneficial for anyone. What was sad is that no one of the 4 took any defense unless later, out on the porch, in private… at a time when it didn’t matter anymore. Some might consider this behavior good manners, I personally believe it comes from cowardice. I’ve seen it in team meetings (people loving the way you “told them off” but only in private conversations), I’ve seen it in high-school, basically I’ve seen it in any social environment. I remember a question a Women Studies Group from Algonquin posted as an answer to somebody accusing the group of manipulating The College: “How do you think 70 people could manipulate 1500?” This is exactly the way to do that: shame people into keep their mouth shut, throwing at them “guilt by association”: “he/she is a racist for saying that and you are one too if you defend his/her words”, being bullied into keeping your mouth shut because of what others could do or say about you… The silent majority, focused on every-day problem, allow “political officers/activists” take over and dictate their lives. What is more disconcerting is that later the same silent people complain of the results of their silence.
To come back to the conversation I had with that teacher, I had a vague compensation because the very next day I tripped over an article on BBC: Warning over narcissistic pupils! which confirms my belief that by boosting the self-confidence of children without any anchor in real-life performances is as bad as trashing it by continuous criticism (as it was done in Eastern Europe). Already we all witness the behavior of the Generation Y: demanding before giving, believing that they are entitled to everything and asking more and more, coming late at work and leaving early, suing over anything that discomforts them, abandoning their family/employee duties at the first sign of hardship… Imagine what 20-30 years of such education might do. I know it will all bounce back – the selfish, narcissistic generation will have children and faced with the choice of catering to their needs or the children’s, they will chose the former. Those children will probably grow with self-absorbed parents, trapped in an eternal pursuit of happiness. They will be neglected, ignored, their needs will not matter and as such they will grow to detest these attitudes and the wiser of them will write books, will work hard to avoid what they didn’t like (after all the Generation Y is the result of the New Age parents who preferred to be friends than parents, who didn’t believe in impositions of any kind). I know it’s a full circle but what good will that do to me, to us as a society in 50-70-90 years from now?