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with. The truth is that society is bothered by those who think, those who use their minds for other than the mundane. 5. 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. 6. 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. Or when the most interesting news for weeks is the drug and alcohol abuse and 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. 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 know 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. 7. 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 remains 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.
Valentine Logar is the owner and president of a small consulting firm offering primarily client advocacy and project audit services.