It’s A Stupider World.

I used to think maybe I was being mean or smugly-smart of a know-it-all or some such – but not so much anymore.

Folks like me keep trying to give others the benefit of the doubt. We hope for the the best, we calmly try and discuss, we try and debate and converse and learn from each other and hope to basically move toward a more rational society and culture where we can respect each others opinions and not devolve into hateful behaviour and keep an open mind always willing to learn.

..Also a society where we learn to outgrow our old bad habits, but never mind that for now.

For now I want to focus on the way that we have progressed in these past decades from my grandparents day to mine and those who are the next generation growing up around us all. We went from relative isolation the world over with limited resources and concentrated powers, monarchies and empires to a world that is exploding with connectivity, equalising technology and cutting edge science that grows in leaps and bounds (when we allow it) and yet somehow, we end up with things like this:

This is a man running for president of arguably the most powerful nation on the planet. And he’s not alone nor falling terribly behind in the polls.

And this is not a phenomenon confined to the U.S as some people like to think – there is what seems to be to be a disturbing trend bubbling up from under our society, things we should have out-grown coming back to drag us back to a frankly stupider time and it’s a trend I see in multiple countries and is one that threatens to boil over if we aren’t careful.

Our ancestors were in many ways stupid by todays standards – not their fault, but they were – for the amount of knowledge an average school student has access to now is unprecedented in years not that long back from now (go ask your grandparents!) and yet there is a remarkable number of people that are like Mr. Carson above who is a qualified and educated surgeon.

And on top of that you have things like this in India:

1. The current Prime Minister of India (and his ilk/crew whatever) publicly saying things like (a) Indian vedas contain the secret of interstellar flight and we used to fly around thousands of years ago, or (b) Ancient India had plastic surgery as our God Ganesh (elephant headed) shows, and so on and so forth.
2. …according to Golwalkar (second chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh), because the North Pole was originally in India, somewhere around today’s Odisha and Bihar, and eventually shifted to its present location. “It was not the Hindus who migrated to that land but the arctic which emigrated and left the Hindus and Hindustan.” (Read Full)
   
3. You can also read this excellent article: Rewriting history the Hindutva way
4. And this: The Hindutva Movement and Reinventing of History –by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen (Excerpts)
5. 

And the list goes on and on and on… But these days I’ve just been hearing and reading so many amazing things that people spout (in the face of sanity itself most times) that I’ve actually developed a 5-step process that my mind goes through to deal with it and not either shoot someone at random, myself or just have my brain squeeze out my ears in an attempt to escape the stupidity…

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5:

What about you? Where do you stand on the way things are and religious mentality/conservative harshness today?

Do you agree with me or think I’m a raging lunatic? Either way, I’m curious to hear it.

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