Why Do People CHOOSE To Be Stupid?

It's been awhile...

And yes, folks, STUPID is a matter, for the most part, of CHOICE.
To deliberately ignore...block out...vilify...dis...whatever you want to use for the "action word"(verb) here...information, data, or proof of something just because it doesn't go along with one's way of "thinking" (note the quotation marks, please) is straight up STUPID...no other word for it.

Oh, I know, I know...
Not very fair, or charitable, or nice, Patrice.
Well, TOUGH !

Time and time again, I see others make excuses for this narrow mindset...too poor...too afraid...too old...too young...too too too...ENOUGH ALREADY.
By coming up with vast arrays of psychologizing rhetoric that attempt to justify STUPIDITY, those who do so are simply making it easier for it to continue, and to be perpetuated.
This way of "thinking" spreads like a virus, and eats away at ALL that our education, science, social insight, and common sense represent and stand for...and making excuses for it simply serves to feed it and make it stronger.

I teach community college courses for a living, and for about 99% of the time, I truly love it.
But, over the last couple of years, I have witnessed a devolution in the thinking processes of the students I instruct. Not only do they NOT THINK, they simply refuse to THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

If Mom and Dad...Grandma and Grandpa...Tweedledum and Tweedledee...believe it, then IT MUST BE SO !! Why do I need to believe/think/act any differently ?

And when I encounter this, which I do, every semester, in one form or another, I tend to scream...not out loud...and not to the student...but inside, where it is safe.

More on this later...

Peace...;)