Of self-inclusion

"Do my words mean more to hear, when I'm standing here, on a stage like all your silly idols do?" asks Daniel Gildenlow right in the first song of the debut album of his band, Pain of Salvation, and this sentence and the whole context makes it extremely meaningful to me, which mades me admire this band so much.

Sometimes I can't stand this meritocratic society. I'm tired of things being judged by who says it rather than what is said, a message turned relevant due to a renowned speecher. Of course one who has proven their abilities can have some merits, but I'm tired of this being jumped towards an unquestionable thing. But my point isn't Carl Sagan saying some stupid things and everybody still agreeing with him because he's written a bazillion of amazing things. No, I rather want to say that some people who should be heard are not.

But out of not too many, I remember one admirable professor who I had classes with at my university. He taught Modern History, and one of the reasons I admired him was both his solid knowledge and simplicity. One day he just went on talking about how he used to see farmers who had grown a more critical view of the world than several college kids boasting their academic intelligence around. How free I felt that day for hearing such words. But then again, all the students were all agreeing with him, even those to whom I am sure he could be aiming his words at. It could even be towards myself. We agreed because of his renown, and because we didn't consider including ourselves in that critic.

It's all about self-inclusion, which is something rather obvious that I see not being realized enough. I'm part of this, being a result this whole mentality, and spreading it around. But I don't want to be like this no more. I don't want to judge people by how well they write things. I have had enough proof that grammar mistakes most definitely is not a sign of stupidity, and also the opposite. I don't want to live in a place where being smart is the only thing that matters.

You're happy, but I'm smarter so I am better at whining than you are!

We have always been warned against stupid people. They're commonly spotted by their bad grammar, I hear. Then, when I used to go with my father to the countrysides, I'd always expect people thick as a brick who can't think the most obvious things. Thing is, when we were in a bar and there were some farmers talking, I noticed they can actually bring up some very interesting conversations despite their amusingly heavy accents, with as much critical thought or even more than us city kids think we have. Never understimate the others, is what I'm trying to say.

And the world warns us against cold people, and there we complain about being cold whilst we don't like it when people we don't know start having conversation with us on the bus. Oh, we find so boring people who talk about the weather. Our brain is filled with much more important concerns to care about insignificant things those petty people have to say.

We should stop caring about how much you don't care, then.

The world is full of people being cold and negligent, we're always being told that. However, most people I know who complain about this are cold themselves - in  level of unawariness that worries me. I know I am much colder than I want to believe I am, much more cold than my efforts try to show (or, I want to truly acknoledge my misdoings, it's easy to say things). I often wonder how blind we can get, as I see some intellectually developed minds falling miserably at this test. This kind of blindness, this kind of hipocrisy is commonly known as psitacism, or parroting. Repeating thoughts unaware of its meaning, leading to this kind of misthought. Oh, yes, self-inclusion, got to remember that. I really think the world would definitely improve a lot if we all practiced a little more self-inclusion in our critics (also we have to be careful not to do the actual opposite, that is, to include others in a self-critic). To put the problems always on the shoulders of anything but yourself.

We overestimate ourselves and we understimate the others. That is what being arrogant is all about. I know people much more arrogant than I am, so I find it hard to put myself in the same category as them, but I have to truly see the arrogance inside me, and I'll have made a huge progress already. It's the one who wears the mask of arrogance who is the most polarized and oblivious to the fact that we all are half stupid and half wise (and we see unquestionable wisdom in those of renown, even when zelously pretending to be against "religious" idolization).

We are arrogant and we judge ourselves superior, all wise. Some people adopt the fallacy of ridicularization to avoid accepting critics, which already show the mediocrity and narrow-mindedness present in the arrogance, for we do not  absorb critics and different opinions because we got trained identify and avoid stupid things (though, in an ironic twist, we will always fall for weaker ones, but we aren't less stupid than we like to think). If I'm not mistaken, this is what Peter's Principle is more or less about, we fool ourselves into thinking we are at the top, so we become incompetent because we don't bother improving. We lack humbleness, and we unawarely become some of forces we like thinking we are aware of, so we fight things that are ourselves, which makes this hipocrisy almost laughable. We become the truly stupid people the world warned us about. The society is hipocrite alright, but the society is us. I find it hard myself to truly realize society isn't an evil instituion forcing me to bend down to its rules, but that I am society and I have always been following its rules from the beginning, even when thinking I think I am against it  - against the stupid and the injust that are result of it!

I am far from hating and being ashamed of country or mankind, but my goal is to make some people to realize how stupid they are. If you agree with me, chances are you the one I'm talking about. Seriously, I'd find it worrisome if people reading this would just agree with me just like I saw them agreeing with my Modern History professor (like I did!). I'd rather see people trying to think this by their own means instead of repeating meaninglessly things told to us. Or then questioning me, which doesn't mean necessarily to disagree with or to downright doubt it, which seem to be the default interpretation of it.We tend to question only the things we are not comfortable with, which makes this whole mentality quite flawed, because we are only questioning, or plain doubting, things we wouldn't accept anyway. I try thinking the reason why we must question everything, in the first place.