The Commonplace Enemy

As an individual who considers himself to be an armchair philosopher (a term that I have may have just made up), I consider the base and lowly commonplace to rank among the very darkest blights that plague our modern existence. Worse, by far, than popped collars and people who talk in the theater.

The commonplace is insidious because it so effectively denies one the opportunity to engage the mind on anything approaching an intellectual scale. A person believes something, because everybody around him seems to believe it, and because he believes it, he decides that it must be true, because if it wasn't true, he wouldn't believe it. Right?

Which is why we still think things like it's aerodynamically impossible for bumblebees to fly (even though they do) and that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Well, some of us believe that, at any rate.

I remember when I was a little bit younger and the current President at the time, one George W. Bush, had just had a speech about how stem cell research was done. Over. Canned. Totally not allowed. Because it was all about protecting the babies, see? Who doesn't love babies?

This led to an argument with a particular aunt (who believes that bees can't fly and the earth is a thousand years old and that stem cells are harvested cold from the bones of the stillborn) about clones.

Particular Aunt: "I'm glad that Our Leader banned stem cell research. Now we don't have to worry about the clones taking over."

Me: "The clones?"

PA: "Yes, child, the clones! Don't you know that's why they kill all the babies, so that they can learn how to make clones!"

Me: "Uh, I'm pretty sure that's not what stem cell research is about, or even how they get the stem cells. And even if they were trying to clone people, what's the big deal? They'd basically just be identical twins. A clone wouldn't have the same personality as you, since they wouldn't have had all the experiences that made you who you are."

PA: "Clones don't have souls! The Bible says so, Matthew!"

Me: "Really? Which book?"

PA: "..."

It's tempting, I know... it's so very tempting to call such a person ignorant and exult in their stupidity. Except that, elitism aside, these thoughts that pervade the social consciousness are very much a disease, allowing a person to have opinions without actually understanding, or even knowing, what the question was supposed to be!

The truth is that a person who argues the commonplace isn't truly stupid, because a commonplace isn't the same thing as a genuine lack of knowledge. I think most people are cognizant of situations in which they don't actually know what's going on (although pride may force them to act otherwise). But a commonplace is a little bit of knowledge, and there's nothing more dangerous than a person with a bit of knowledge, because it generally gives them all the feelings of being right with little, or maybe even none, of the actual rationality and thought that would go into truly being right.

Put more succinctly: stupid people aren't dangerous. We know they're stupid, so we keep them at a safe distance from the sharp and pointy objects, so they're not a danger to themselves or others.

We don't make the same distinction for the person with a tiny bit of knowledge. Nor are any of us immune from falling under its lazy spell. "All the trappings of an expert who knows what he's talking about... none of the work!"

Like I said. Dangerous.