Brain damage? March 22, 2007
Posted by mscrankypants in Day-to-day, Opinions, Stupid people.trackback
What on earth is wrong with people?
Yeah, I know people are sinners, etc., etc., … but what’s wrong with their brains? Why can’t they think? Is logical thinking a lost art?
I spent some time while driving around the other day trying to think of people I know who I can carry on intelligent, logical, semi-intellectual conversations without worrying about losing them or having them make totally silly responses that show a marked inability to think.
It came down to three or four pastors that I’ve known, a couple of friends, a couple of college professors, and a few assorted people my daughter knows. Other than that, it seems everyone else has a serious lapse or two somewhere in their thinking processes.
Is everyone brain damaged?
It’s not like people need to agree with me and my cranky opinions for me to feel that they can actually think … I just would like to see some logic and normalcy to their thinking processes.
Maybe I just live in a really stupid area? Or maybe there’s something in the water that’s killing brain cells? Or … what?
I know that having an IQ of 163 makes me a bit out of the ordinary … but why can’t regular people think? I just don’t get it. I mean, gosh, how tough is it to think through something like: If A = C and B = C, then A = B?
I’ve had people tell me before that I’m “too logical.” They mean it as an insult, but I take it as a compliment. 
But it begs the question, how can someone be too logical? To my thinking, that’s just not logical. I find that illogical logic comes up in everyday discussions, theological discussions, and even just in the area of cold, plain facts.
For example, I know a young woman who’s an absolute whiz at math (she thought college Calculus was easy, for example, while I had to work for my “A”). But this same young lady who breezes through higher math has no head for facts. It makes me scratch my head and wonder, “How can that be? Isn’t math all about facts?” But ask her a question about nearly anything not having to do with math, and she’ll pull some random — and usually wrong! — factoid out of her head (but then she’ll swear it’s right, too).
I admit that she’s a rather extreme example, but even just general folk seem to have virtually no common sense, no logical abilities, and no grasp of basic facts about the world around them.
How did the whole world lose it’s ability to think? When did cold, hard facts become something relative and not something that’s either true or untrue?
Oh, it just makes me cranky. 
No, I don’t think there is anything wrong with you at all - nor do I think it’s just you. The world is stupider then it used to be. For one thing, the public educational system has been destroyed - political correctness and dispensing drugs has replaced teaching kids to think.
It doesn’t behoove leaders or other world powers to enable the common folk to think - lest they might rise up and disagree with the crap they are being fed. Sorry if that sounds paranoid but I do think it’s true.
Add to that, the ability of modern technology to remove practically any thinking obstacle and do one’s thinking for one (computers, adding machines, microwaves, instant food, gratification, etc) and really who has to think any more? As long as you have a computer, an IPod, the latest clothes and know all the p.c. positions you’re set.
Fortunately, there are still a few dinosaurs around who do think and maybe somehow we’ll manage to create a new movement to revitalize the use of the brain. If we can tie it in to global warming we’ll probably have a better chance though.
WC
Ms. Crankypants, As a tanjent, what do you think of the corollary between emotional intelligence and IQ?
I think there is a big connection between “common sense” or “motherwit”; however you phrase it, and the kind of basic logical thinking you mention.
And I also think that, if you were plunked down in 1935 or 1915 and had a chance to interact with people back then regularly you might soon be ssaying “these people are total idiots! How can they be so dense as to not understand the thigns everyone understood when I lived back in 2007!”