Do I sound as if I am on a tear? Maybe on a rant? I may indeed be today it might be that I have run across a great deal of what I can only term self-determined ignorance.

Ignorance can be corrected through education. Stupid is a birthright often passed down in families but sometimes organizationally inherited. Stupid is a choice.

Definitions are my own. I do not feel sorry for stupid people, although they often make me angry. In this day and age, it is unnecessary to be stupid and yet people continue to choose stupidity. People who choose stupidity over the alternative show no self-consciousness or embarrassment regarding their choice, in fact, many rejoice in their decision to remain stupid finding the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The truth is that stupidity is all too often rewarded in our society.

When talking about stupid people many point to the example of the McDonalds Hot Coffee Lawsuit. The woman who sued was a 79-year-old former store clerk, Mrs. Liebeck. She spent a week in the hospital recovering from third degree burns. The attorney who took her case to court had defended other similar cases against McDonalds for the same cause, winning other settlements. McDonalds had settled coffee burn complaints over the past decade leading up to Mrs. Liebecks's lawsuit, 700 of them in fact, for as much as $500,000. The funny thing is that originally Mrs. Liebeck only asked for a measly $20,000 to cover her out-of-pocket hospital expenses. Someone at the Phoenix store didn't want to pay and McDonalds agreed that they were not liable. During the trial itself the defense attempted to shift blame onto Mrs. Liebeck using her age as part of the problem. The result was a jury that found in favor of Mrs. Liebeck in two respects, one that she should be awarded compensatory damages of $200,000 which they then reduced to $160,000 finding that she was 20% responsible or at fault. The larger award of $2.7 million was for punitive damages based on the finding of the jury that McDonalds showed a reckless and malicious disregard for the well-being of their customers. The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000 after trial. Ultimately the case was settled in a secret negotiation without another trial and the records were sealed.

The above is an interesting case in the annals of "Stupid" people. Most of us point to the victim and assume that she is stupid; but wait, was she the stupid one in this case? McDonalds served their coffee an average of 35 degrees hotter than the coffee served anywhere else, that is at 180 degrees. McDonalds had settled at least 700 other similar burn claims in the preceding decade. McDonalds executives were, as we say, betting on the come line. They were the "Stupid" people in this case and on many levels. They bet they could shift the primary responsibility to the ignorance of Mrs. Liebeck rather than their own stupidity. They bet that she would go away with her tail between her legs. They bet that a jury would be as ignorant and as stupid as they were in their disregard of Mrs. Liebeck's injuries.

Other forms of stupid are rampant in society today, but do we correctly identify it, or are we identifying ignorant as stupid and vice versa. Are racism, sexism, ageism, and all the other ism's a result of ignorance? How many well-educated people do any of us know who are racist or sexist? How many organizations are run by people who would prefer to hire youth over experience? Despite science and medicine how many people cling to antiquated views of sexual orientation or even gender identification? Oh, I know this last sentence will cause a few people's hair to stand on end, maybe their hair will even set on fire. Nevertheless, consider this, if the basis of decision-making is anything other than rational, than a person is participating in a form of groupthink or following the herd. This form of irrationality is often found to run unchecked in organized religion.

Do you read the above and assume I am condemning faith as a form of stupidity? I am not. I do however, condemn those who blindly follow man, any man, within the context of organized religion. Any person who believes without question the words and works of man is making a choice, the choice is to be stupid. There is another choice, always. That choice is to correct ignorance through personal investigation and education. In the case of religion this would mean to read and study for ones self not just under the direction of a self-proclaimed expert of Sunday morning hellfire. Organized religion has been the bane of man for more than 2000 years. Organized religion has a rich history of war, torture, death, corruption, mismanagement, misinformation, and general misalignment with the greater good of society. Those who follow man, not faith, down the path of organized religion without question tend not have their eyes open beyond ignorance and many remain in the unfortunate stupid zone.

Finally we come to the crux of the real problem today, public education, and its propensity to educate to the lowest common denominator. Those at the bottom of the mix are left behind and those at the top are beaten down to the middle or over-medicated to blend in. Any child who shows early signs of being different, being ahead of the curve that is, well we can't have that now can we. Brilliance is a disruption to the flow of information to the middle and normalcy is what we seek. Mediocrity is in truth what we seem to strive for even in government today. It is what we are apparently comfortable with. The truth is that society is bothered by those who think, those who use their minds for other than the mundane.

Society is troubled by those who are outside of the norm whether to the left or the right of the bell curve. We set up a variety of organizations, funds, and foundations to assist those born to the left and pat ourselves on the back when we contribute to these do-good organizations such as the Special Olympics. But for those born even a bit right of center, well for them we have special and not very complimentary names; nerd, geek, dork, loser, dweeb, freak, and tool are some of the more popular uncomplimentary appellations heard on high-school campuses throughout the US. So as these young people are beaten into social submission by the stupidity of their peers, their fragile egos damaged possibly irrevocably by the vacuous and vicious middle of the bell-curve majority we lose the brilliance of possibility to the mediocrity of conformity that is demanded by our public school systems and ultimately even by our university systems.

Sadder still is the truth that these brilliant children can discern for themselves, looking ahead to a future that will continue to reward stupidity over brilliance; mediocrity over exceptional; the truth is everywhere around them every day in government, in business, in the media; with only rare exception the mediocre rise while the brilliant fail to thrive. What message do we send when the very best we have to offer is Paris Hilton as a role model rather than Amy Barger, a 34-year old Cosmologist at the University of Wisconsin Madison who has done break-through studies of black holes and light wave lengths. Where are we setting the bar when the most interesting news for weeks is the drug and alcohol related death of Heath Ledger rather than giving accolades to Nathan Wolfe, 35 whose studies of infectious disease outbreaks pave the way to predictability and prevention of future outbreaks worldwide; never heard of Nathan? The list goes on; however the work of the young men and women in labs, observatories, and universities worldwide does not pique the interest of stupid people near as much as the antics of the rich and stupid. Somehow the majority of the population knows that it would be far easier to reach the depths of depravity than the heights of achievement. Maybe that is the point, stupid is easy.

Does society protect stupid people? The simple answer is of course we do. The more difficult answer is that we do more than protect stupid people. We celebrate them. We elect them. We place them in positions of power in publically traded organizations and pay them ungodly amounts of money to look pretty. We put them on television and in movies. We forgive them any sin so that we can laugh at them. We forgive them any character flaw except failing to amuse us. Protect them? No we do much more than that we create them and encourage them to greater depths of dissoluteness each year. Stupidity exists because we, society as a whole demands that it remain in the majority, the middle of the bell curve as it were. Stupid will continue to exist until we, society demand that it cease to be celebrated and begin to celebrate instead excellence.

McDonalds: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm