There are ‘fictions’ and there are acoustics of insinuations; the mass and energy all behind this populist simulation is beckoning, with all its unputdownable might, to be accepted as ‘facts’. There are ‘virtualisms’, cosmetically wrapped and muffled with pink-posturing, with loads of colorful frills of visual-vehementality, urging to sediment them in subconscious and unconscious mind domains as ‘realism’. Why?
It is a deluge out there – torrents of mighty cascades of ‘Iconism’, populism, perceptional parenthesis, benchmarking and signposts of semantic successes and utility. Tough… hugely tough to keep oneself standing ‘rooted’ and in ‘poise’ of personal positioning…! The mist of confounded consciousness and cognition has been dexterously manufactured and munificently persevered so that average and common men and women may never see the bright Sun of actuality of reality. Why?
There are projections of ‘I’ and populist list of expectations from ‘Self’. More than that, there is this fervent felicitation of an ‘over-effort’ – both physically and mentally – to toe the populist cultural benchmarking of Good, Right And Appropriates…! The utility and validity of success and wellness is no more a personal optionality, rather a collective compulsion because the ‘I’ or self itself is no more emphatically rooted and poised in ‘self-analyses’ and critical thinking. Why?
There are so many such situations in contemporary life-living and external milieus, which seek an answer. There may be so many ‘whys?’, but there is only one answer to it – Human stupidity is a powerful and over-encompassing eco-system, where stupidity is not only the ‘demand’, it is also the ‘supply’ and it is also the consumer and consumables. Human stupidity, bejeweled with bright and shiny hypocrisies is the Quantum Mechanics of the Law Of Causality, which singularly explains everything. It is altogether a different matter that this Causality of Stupidity has been and is still called and boasted as ‘Intelligence’. The collective unconscious mind consciousnesses are conditioned to it.
The intentional celebration and rejoicing of infinite and indefatigable human stupidities may very well bring to fore the true, right and brutally honest answer of all these questions. The first small step of course is breaking the ice – accepting stupidities and hypocrisies; many of which we all see, know and acknowledge consciously and subconsciously. However, there are majority of stupidities and hypocrisies, which we do not and cannot see, know and therefore cannot accept, even if we consciously try to. Majority of stupidities and hypocrisies are wired deep in our unconscious – collective and personal. That is why, we cannot absolve ourselves by accepting only our ‘conscientious stupidities’. We have to unravel the subconscious and unconscious mechanism of innate stupidities.
This eBook attempts to unravel and bring forth some core and critical stupidities and hypocrisies, for personal celebration. It shall be great if they are rejoiced collectively and institutionalized. This celebration shall unleash the energy towards their gradual corrosion and final elimination from our personal as well as collective unconscious minds. What better way to unburden humanity of its innate and embedded malaise…
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Background Continues…
Almost a century back, when probably it was more challenging to say it, a great man said it with humble sincerity – “Every race, every art has its hypocrisy. Every community, every nation has its own lie and hypocrisy, which it calls its idealism. Every creature therein breathes this lie from birth to death; lies are adapted to the mind of each race and art. There are only a few men and women of genius who can break free from it through heroic moments of crisis… genius cannot be defined without touching the ridiculous….”
Somehow, when contemporary socio-economic-political milieus are fast becoming more prone to smothering even peripheral iconoclastic insinuations, with a ‘novo-empowered’ socio-political layer pounding on any ‘other realism than what they profess’, it has somehow become amply clear that stupidities and hypocrisies are not about races or nations; it is purely about how human brain works, how the consciousness it engenders perceives Reality and how Reality expresses itself for perception of human body-mind plexus. It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that stupidity and hypocrisy as primary and innate pragmatism, is human as well as cosmic design. The primary culpability therefore is not stupidity-hypocrisy itself but by conscious and vehement denial of it by humanity at personal and collective levels. This is classical ‘conscientious stupidity’, which Martin Luther King Jr. pointed at. If it is something which everyone almost conscientiously follows but equally pragmatically ‘excuses’ himself or herself off its culpability, then sure the trouble has its catastrophic effect because of its acceptance – rather non-acceptance. The trouble then is collective human manifestation!
Insinuations of iconoclastic import apart, it seems, there looks like an emerging realism in most contemporary minds of sincere thoughtfulness that –
“… Paint the pink and rosy landscape of personal hypocrisies and then install it with golden metal frame on the wall of socio-political discourse of purported ‘self-importance’, and you have idealism structured for most uninitiated minds…”
It is at least something, the powerful and authoritative bunch of people are doing. The masses naturally follow them as benchmark of success and wellness. Never ever stupidities and hypocrisies had this absolute and unflinching patronage of power structures of milieus as it is in contemporary times. The modern media plexus has the technological expertise and moneys have the penetration into minds that can install and stand any stupidity and hypocrisy as ‘Idealism’ of the day. They are doing it marvelously! The average men and women have no wherewithal to even suspect; the enabled and empowered have been left too emaciated to protest.
Human ingenuity of ‘preferred positioning’ for pilferage is instinctive. It cannot be completely done away with. It has been said hundreds of years back by a wise man, ‘Nobody can understand and check when a fish drinks water while swimming in water’.
Self is an undeniable reality and selfishness is also very natural. It comes out of the genetically designed urge for self-preservation of any living cell. This visceral self-preservation drive is the ‘auto-mode’ manufacturing factory of all personal hypocrisies of humanity. Then, sense of utilities and worth, emanating out of this subconscious and unconscious instinctive behavior/action, embarks on a mind journey to list all these hypocrisies as idealisms of collective wellness. In good old classical times; the societal and cultural milieus used to install exalted idealistic positioning, which restricted and restrained personal stupidities and hypocrisies. In contemporary times however, the societal-cultural milieus have either been vitiated, manipulated by powerful or have lost the traditional role of the vanguard to personal vitiations.
The nobility of human selfishness is not an innate or wired personal behavior. It is rather a social product, which is an evolved socialization process. The fear or care for social approval and reprimand restricts and conditions the intensity of inclination of selfishness to indulge in ingenuity of pilferage. The reward and punishment emotions are wired behavior pattern in all humans. The basic fear is the fear of majority and the only potent check on human ingenuity. Human beings are social creatures by nature and what they really dread is not hell or law of the land but complete disapproval and alienation from the society.
That is why; the only successful insurance for success of any goodness is the acceptance of majority. Corruption could not be successfully checked in most nations as our society in general not only approved of it, rather also encouraged it. We made the rich our icons eulogizing how he or she pilfered the whole system. Corruption; and all such ‘short-cuts’ and ‘diversions’ of societal behavior, is instinctive self-preservation need of all living being. The subconscious and unconscious mind approves it and then structures it with all possible pragmatism to list it as ‘idealism’. As this stupidity and hypocrisy is visceral and common to all, there always is a powerful societal and cultural energy to paint them as ‘idealisms’ of life and living.
The new millennium, this decisive age of ‘Conscious Causalities’, beckons for a ‘re-evolution’ of idealism of human behavior and actions – individually and collectively, based not on hypocrisies of ingenuity, but acceptance of innocence of the pragmatism of realism of human mechanism and thought processes. There is this express need to weed eclectic and universal hypocrisies from all populism of human possibilism. There is this primary need of installation of such a ‘re-evolution’ seed in the social discourse of new generation men and women. Then only, this discourse shall be plastered over the small layer of political opportunism. The vice-versa is not possible. Political discourse never has this consciousness and will to install any ‘re-evolution’ enterprise. Globally, this task is exclusive domain of societal initiatives. However, no societal initiative is built up without personal enterprises.
But then, as said above; if there are only a few men and women of genius who can break free from it through heroic moments of crisis, humanity probably needs them here and right now. However, the ‘handfuls’ cannot do much. The battle against infiniteness of human stupidity and hypocrisies require a critical mass of humanity. Therefore, all men and women are called upon to join the battle against stupidity. The first step is towards acceptance of stupidity and hypocrisy as our ‘design’. Celebration of Stupidity is just a metaphor, a symbolic gesture to initiate the enterprise of acceptance of our own personal stupidities and hypocrisies as our innate body-mind design. If it is an absurdity and social stupidity that genius cannot define without touching the ridiculous, then probably it is time for some ‘ridiculous’ insinuations to penetrate the societal and cultural discourse.
If 5 percent humanity has appropriated 95% resources of the world and rest of 95% population is made to suffer, with millions of humans starving and dying uncared; if handful of 50 people have cornered incomes and wealth of over 60 percent people and all these are being allowed to continue on the name of some ‘ism’, some ‘idealism’ and some ‘golden hypocrisies’, it looks like a definitive time for ‘re-evolution’ of human sense of righteousness and appropriateness. It surely seems like time and right space for those ‘ridiculous’ and ‘stupid’ energies to break free from populist idealisms.
If there is this populist idealism that ‘politics can and should usher in solutions and install righteousness’, then probably, primary ‘breaking free’ initiative is required against this idealism. The politics and its hypocritical power structures, in devilish collaboration with corporations of wealth are the definitive number one stupidity of contemporary humanity. This stupidity must first have mass human acceptance for half riddance of heap of infinite human stupidities. The politics of contemporary world must first be made to come clean of its stupidities and hypocrisies otherwise, its powerful tentacles will smother any societal and cultural initiative for breaking free of contemporary stupidities.
Societies, like individuals, if sit easy and comfortable with procrastination and delegating ‘self-goals’, then it seems, probably, primary ‘breaking free’ initiative is required against this idealism. A celebration of stupidity is the call, because, it probably is something ‘touching the ridiculous’ to break free of the malaise of humanity. Anyway, a collective is always a summation or holism of individuals, yet, the collective unconscious itself has the repository of all energies of probabilities, which an individual may feel induced to pick up and own. This mutuality and symbiosis between individual and societies are the call of the contemporary times.
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Background Continues…
End of Second World War and humanity across national borders had accepted – There definitively was something terribly wrong with the way human mind is handling the world and also, there was major trouble with the way nations’ politics accepted realism of national interest. Naturally, when many million people die in wars of madness, there always is a need for retrospection and reinvention of contemporary human realism.
More than politics, state agencies, governments, diseases, poverty, calamities, terrorism, criminals, pollution and corruption; human stupidities and hypocrisies alone kill more than all put together. Interestingly, there is data that nations or international bodies keep about that! And if the stupidities were as infinite and calamitous like the two World Wars and the casualties were as massive as the Wars orchestrated, humanity truly had serious business in sitting and accepting the culpability sans any semblance of hypocrisy.
After 1945, the end of second world war, globally, it was felt that humans probably needed more ‘intelligent’ mechanisms in management of societal, economic and political arena for larger wellness of human race, so that in future, the world could not be in such a situation, where conflicts between humans reach to such stages, where war becomes inevitable. Naturally, globally, intellectuals were called for the jobs and world over, most nations buoyed up its most intellectual and most intelligent people to the fore to manage society, politics and economics with good precision. Smart and ‘intellectually designed’ systems were evolved and put in place. This continued with many experiments till the start of new millennium…
However, somehow, as and when we see ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’ on rise in many parts of the world and national-international politics stretching all limits of insanity and hypocrisies, especially in the two decades of the new millennium, it seems, ‘intellectualism’ has failed in some big way. It seems, average person, common men and women world over are very critical of their own intellectual leadership. It seems, they feel the intelligent people, the intellectual crop of their society, culture, economy and politics have duped and dumped them. They somehow feel, most of their troubles are because of the ‘hypocrisies’ unleashed and heaped by the intellectuals of their respective milieus. This seems a common global trend.
In India, in the USA and in many other nations, there is a very clear trend and people’s movement towards what is being termed as ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’. There was an old saying in political philosophy, which goes like – ‘The wearer alone knows where the shoe pinches.’ This self-centric, self-actualized and self-styled individualism, somehow in bitter antagonism with society and most collective institutions, with stupid insistence to see and feel only one’s own ‘shoes’, seems to be the seed of this fast growing trend of ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’.
In many countries, common men and women are so scared of high sounding intellectualism and rational-talks that they feel, it is always better to be ‘Foolishly Selfish’ than being a ‘Wise Befooled’. The reason seems to be simple – In over 70 years since the Second World War, the ‘intellectuals’ have brought about and sustained such social, economic and political idealism and systems, which has only led the world towards a destination, where human misery has only become more complex and global conflicts have only become too complicatedly unmanageable. The precipitation of these stupidities is the menacing crisis of the rich-poor gap divide, with one percent people having 99 percent resources of the world. The trust deficit of humanity has reached its rock bottom – human relationships therefore are becoming complex, conflicted and shattered. The high sounding economists, scientists, politicians, corporate leaders, societal and spiritual icons and generic celebrities have failed the humanity big time as these handfuls have to own what Martin Luther King Jr. termed as ‘Conscientious Stupidity’. The leadership of humanity ‘sincerely’ duped and dumped the masses with their conscientious stupidities because, they were not honest and compassionate enough to accept their ‘golden hypocrisies’. This the average men and women have now understood beyond doubt. This however does not mean the masses can be absolved of the culpability of their stupidities of collective unconscious as well as individual conscious.
The simple thing is – Even an average person can now clearly see and decipher that the huge load of hypocrisies that the post Second World War ‘intellectualism’ has dumped on human lives, are majorly responsible for contemporary global troubles. At least, this seems to be the popular meme or collective unconscious thought of major human population.
That is why, it seems, this trend of ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’ is fast catching up everywhere. The analysts say that recent political changes in India and USA are major indicator of how ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’ has become the first choice of common men and women. All anti-intellectual enterprises, dogmatic idealisms and illogical perceptions are being cheered and voted for by masses. They have rejected the traditional intellectualism and now rely on anything, which sounds ‘anti-intellectual and anti-rational’.
That is why, in India, in USA and many other nations, in society, cultures, economy and politics, those people are rising to ‘new leadership’ positions, who attack traditional wisdom, established intellectualism and status quoism of hypocritical prudence. As people feel duped and dumped by hypocrisies of ‘White Wisdom’, they have become votaries of anything that is not white and ideally ‘Grey Practicality’…! All shades of grey are being cheered and hailed…! Interestingly, stupidities do not have only ‘50 Shades of Grey’!
Why post Second World War intellectualism failed is a complex question. But then, humanity, especially the intellectuals have to ask themselves. May be, because true intellect is so ‘holistic’ that it always has trouble ‘installing’ its utility and worth in other’s mind. However, what seems a likely cause is – Contemporary ‘Intellectualism’ itself has been a reactionary intelligence. If ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’ is a reaction against hypocrisies of intellectualism, the intellectualism also seems to be largely reactionary. Global intellectualism has never looked like having a ‘receptive-mode’ intelligence to evolve a global order with consensus, collective endeavors and holistic perspectives. Human intelligence never was holistic, compassionate and aligned to Reality and it probably could never be.
Secondly, probably, intellectualism has not been something, which is universal and stupidly simple – that is INNOCENCE. Human life and living has gradually become very complex. From relationships to retailing, everything for an average human has become too complex for simple understanding. Most people are grappling with complexities and therefore, there is a common wish to accept something, which is simple and honestly uncomplex. Stupidities and anti-intellectualism always has this advantage of sounding simple and practically amenable! Stupidities come easy, simple, automatic and natural as it is what we are wired for. Naturally, there is a populist global call of ‘Be Yourself’ viscerality and it has mass takers. Because, it is uncomplex and easy!
Intellectualism itself has grown more complex. From politics to economy, everything is now beyond average person’s understanding. When renowned economists openly say, they can tell what is wrong with economy but cannot tell what is the solution because they do not fully understand it, then what an average man or woman can understand is imaginable. Everyone is now into financial markets but even geniuses cannot say they understand it. But, this acceptance is rare. The simplicity, honesty and innocence are core elements, which modern intellectualism has been missing hugely and this makes most people hate intellectualism. Rather, contemporary intellectualism has become synonymous with hypocrisies. The global trend of ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’ seems a reactionary outrage against complexities and hypocrisies of intellectualism.
The trouble is – ‘anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and solipsism’ may be current choice of masses but like the hypocritical intellectualism, it also does not have any solution for human conflicts and troubles. Solutions are only in simplicity, honesty and innocence of collective human wisdom. Therefore, intellectualism needs to own its failure and sit down to device mechanisms to redeem, reinvent and reinstate its utility and worth as true friend of humanity.
This however is a big ask. Asking intellect to shed its reactionary energy and settle for receptive energy of innocence and simplicity is probably the worst stupidity. Therefore, what is easy, possible and pragmatically reasonable is to reach out to average and common men and women. It is better to ask common people to accept the much needed innocence of acceptance of their own personal stupidities and hypocrisies and celebrate it un-hypocritically, marking 2020 as the ‘Year Of Stupidity’. This innocence definitively has the intent and content to make common people see and accept that politics, leadership, intellectuals, icons, celebrities, etc are always expressions of ‘institutional and structured’ stupidities and hypocrisies. Any time, in any circumstances, simple and innocent stupidities of average and common men and women are far less a threat to humanity than those these leaders and intellectuals have the potential of.
Acceptance and celebration of one’s personal stupidities is what humanity can do and should do as there is no way these collective, institutional and structured stupidities and hypocrisies of politicians, leadership and intellectuals could be restrained and emaciated. Celebrating stupidity, in a way shall also mark the rejoicing of emancipation of humanity at large, from the collective, institutional, structured and calamitous stupidities and hypocrisies of politicians, leadership and intellectuals.
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Background Continues…
There is a belief that a certain critical mass is required for anything to take shape. On that basis, it may be accepted that for an idea to take shape, the critical mass is average of nine percent. Therefore, a rumor can take shape, if around nine percent of population starts believing and accepting something as fact, true and right. This critical mass of ‘9%’ is what we may call the proverbial smoke of a certain fire!
However, a fact and realism must have a minimum critical mass of 99%. Truth, fact and realism can be allowed to have maximum of only one percent uncertainty of probability; nothing more…
So, rumor starts at 9% – the ‘smoke’ and for the fire to happen, it needs 99% surety. The large range between 9 to 99 percent – the 90% domain, is the humungous playground of probabilities; or what we popularly know as ‘Perception’ and beliefs.
Interestingly, a bottle of pure whisky is also liquor and a glass full; with only 10% whisky and 90% water/soda is also liquor. Somehow, many accept, ‘soda’ or water mixing is a must for taste and ‘amicability’ of liquor. Masses love the ‘taste’ and feel of amicability…!
So, if an idea is believed and accepted with minimum critical mass of 9-10% fact (whisky) and 90% bubbling perception (soda), it is still ‘fact’ (liquor). If 20%, then perception is strong. However, higher the percentage of whisky (fact), the ‘taste’ of ‘liquor’ loses ‘amicability’. Therefore mixing ‘soda’ with ‘liquor’ – 90% perception with 10% fact is always brilliant for taste. Masses love it…! Though, the true connoisseurs of whisky would insist, not even a drop of water should be added in whisky as it kills the true taste. They say, people do not know how to enjoy a real whisky and therefore this stupidity of ‘mixing’ and diluting the brilliance of taste!
Most of us are geniuses out of this convenience of ‘playing safe’ in the huge playground of ‘probabilities’ or ‘perceptions’. It is because, in this playground, nobody is a referee, supervising the game and therefore, anybody can score any number of imaginary goals and claim to be a hero. Reality, in its infinite shades is a blissful invite for endless stupidities of self. Hypocrisies line up naturally in stark defense of personal stupidities. Hypocrisies then form cooperatives to install safe structures against any attack of rationality.
For example – There is a very ‘strong perception’ among many young men that ‘modern women’, especially modern working and career women are ‘sluts’ and responsible for most of social and familial troubles in relationships and marriages. On social platforms, anyone can check how many young men splurge ‘choices details’ about ‘modern women’, which cannot be written here…! Somehow, for many men, this ‘perception’ is the most ‘tasty liquor’ of contemporary times. The safe and secure ‘critical mass’ to this ‘perception’ has been assigned years back to install it as ‘Reality’ of collective unconscious.
Now, check two things – Definition of ‘modern women’ and data available about adultery among women. This very idea about ‘modern women’ is like a ‘smoke’, heavily loaded with ‘perceptions’, which have less than 10% fact in it. A set of behavioral traits are assigned gleefully to ‘modern women’ label, without any leeway to diversities of background and many other elements of personality and personal situations. Secondly, the adultery data of women is also full of ‘smoke’, with facts mixed up with loads of ‘perception’ to create a ‘fire-simulation’.
In USA, where most young men mouth about ‘modern women’ behaving and acting like sluts; only 14% women commit adultery, whereas the same figure for men are 22%. Despite this data women in general would not desist from saying that all men are habitually adulterous. In many developing societies like China, India, etc too many young men are mouthing the same perception about modern women, even when there is almost no authentic data about such an allegation. As there is sufficient ‘critical mass’ of ‘9%-fact’, it is good enough to label it as ‘liquor’ (Reality) or ‘sure-fire’.
How this happens? Actually, we all are wired like that. Humans are geniuses in accepting ‘perceptions’ as truths. This is our primary and most calamitous weakness, wired in our consciousness. In USA as well as India, vast majority of both men and women have been surveyed to be believing that ‘adultery’ should not be legally punishable. Now, this is some ‘smoke’ men would mix up with their zeal for seeing ‘fire’.
The trouble with living on the basis of ‘smoke’ (perception) and not bothering to check on the veracity of actual ‘fire’ (fact/truth) is visceral to humans and not only individuals but families, societies and nations are run and managed on the basis of this same stupidity of ‘smoke’ realism. Especially, politics is the smartest ‘perception-management’ skill, which most smart politicians are brilliant at.
As masses, the so-called common men and women are in huge infatuation with ‘smoke-syndrome’ and ‘soda-mixing’, they love such politicians. Anyway, in contemporary societies in infatuation with ‘WhatsApp-World’ of rumor-perception living, almost every smoke is equal to a volcano-fire…! Everyone loves this ‘taste’ of 90%-soda mixed ‘liquor’…!
Check how India’ current prime minister runs nation on populist ‘perceptions’, happily bypassing facts. Just 24 hours after demonetization, the prime minister, who flew to Japan, said there that after demonetization, women who had earlier thrown their mother-in-laws out of home to old-homes, were depositing 2.5 lakh rupees ‘black money’ in their accounts. Even in USA, where money and technology is sumptuously huge, social data is retrieved only after few years. Even in USA, real-time social/family data is a mirage. How could then the Indian prime minster cull out ‘real-time’ data about a particular ‘social-behavior’ in just 24 hours? Naturally, the prime minster blew up loads of ‘smoke’ to create the simulation of ‘fire’, in his favor…! There are numerous examples of his ‘perception-living’ wellness and smoke-building fire. Politicians sell the perceptions dexterously as masses love the ‘smokey’ populism.
Check this – The USA is spending around $700 billion annually on nation’s security against enemies and terrorist attacks. However, the annual budget for FDA, which supervises overall health of American people is less than $7billion, even as only this innocuous-sounding food poisoning kills ten times more Americans than what terrorist attacks kill every year!
Also check this – Politicians globally are prompt to declare terror as the worst enemy of humanity. People also love to believe that terrorism is the worst trouble of contemporary world. However, this is also only perception, which politicians love to sell for their own petty needs. Every year, around the world, around one lakh people die of snakebites. We all know that in 2015, around only 28,000 people were killed in terrorist strikes. So, can we say, snakes are the worst enemy of humanity…!
Every year around 12 lakh people die in road mishaps. This is 40 times more than what terrorist could kill. So, can we say, roads are the worst enemy of humanity…! Every year, around eight lakh people commit suicide. So, more than 28 times more people kill themselves than terrorist could. So, can we say depression or self-harm tendencies are the worst enemy of humanity…!
It is very clear, nothing else but humanity’s very own ‘intelligence’, which makes it accept million shades of stupidities is the worst enemy of humanity. We have become t