Ignorance is Not Bliss

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education. ~Bertrand Russell

Here’s a question I’ve been pondering.  Something along the lines of “if a man speaks in the forest and a woman is not there to hear him, is he still wrong” type of ideations.  Let’s face it, by and large, the majority of people (especially my fellow Americans, even though I am certain it applies to other countries as well) are stupid, or rather ignorant.

Stupid conjures up some Forest Gump level of intelligence wherein the individual afflicted with such ends up dutifully shooting themselves multiple times in the foot. Ignorant is a lack of training or lack of understanding borne of not being informed about a particular subject matter.  I personally use the term ignorant quite a bit, and I use it in its normal non derogatory manner simply meaning that the information has not been passed to the individual yet and given a length of time and a bit of attention span, ignorance is thusly curable. Stupid is almost always fatal.  And of course I will now admit to being ignorant myself in many areas, however, observation is not one of them.

Unfortunately for most, observation of one’s surroundings almost always falls to the level of importance of picking the strangers nose that happens to be standing next to you.  I recall reading at one point in my first college career in a psychological journal someone left lying about the science lab (me being the uber geek I was) that spoke about a psych student taking a nude statue from the art department, placing it in the schools trophy case for a week, the removing it.  Afterwards the student sent out a survey with all correct answers to be entered into a drawing for 3 free pizzas or some such nominal prize for returning the survey (this was pre computer ubiquity).  Some quantity in the 4 digit’s went out, roughly 50% of them were returned, NONE had the right answer, out of 2000 or so sent out, 1000 or so returned not one person noticed that there was a nude statue in the school’s athletic achievement cabinet.

This leads me to believe (and through 40+years of observation know, however anecdotally) that the majority of bi-pedal hairless fire monkeys don’t pay much mind to what goes on around them. Even less so now than say 30 years ago or longer when one’s life literally depended on a situational awareness level that is no longer necessary for day to day survival. To wit,” Weenie suburbanite consumer anti-depressant-addled television addicts beget weenie suburbanite consumer television addict offspring. There are exceptions to the rule, however what do you expect from these kids' whose parents are utterly incapacitated by fear of the unknown and risk of any kind?” as stated by Boris the Schnook on a board I belong to, kind of says it all right there.  Situational awareness is no longer needed; at least that’s what the majority of suburbanite America believes.  Plug into your IPod, put your head down and don’t even notice the pennies that are lying on the ground where you walk.

This led me to a stream of consciousness, epiphanal as it was, that if I were to plant 10 various fruit trees in my back yard, would anyone notice I had an orchard (however small)?  Since the trees would not be planted in a straight line one after the other for efficiency purposes, would the majority of people simply walk by? Even if they were hungry at the time they passed by it? Since everyone knows that orchards are all planted in a straight row right? Right? Bueller?   What about planting corn in triangles or some other such pattern that is not normally seen, what about scattering corn plantings (one or two plants maybe three if I’m feeling feisty) around the yard in such a way as to mimic some sort of native American themed landscaping? Would anyone notice there was food planted between the holly bush and the English boxwood. Would anyone other than the birds notice strawberries planted in a tiered planter on the porch cascading down like some piece of landscape art?

Since the inception of public schooling in America we have been consistently dumbed down to levels heretofore unseen in the world, not everyone mind you, but enough of us to have made a awful large impact in the world. If you look at the famous 8th grade exit exam from the late 1800’s I’ll tell you right now that I have a masters degree and would be hard pressed to make it out of the 8th grade if I were alive back then.

The ultimate result is a general inability to keep situational awareness, something that is about to become extremely important for everyone.  Because it’s in being able to take advantage of other peoples failures of situational awareness that those of us left who retain it to thrive in the post whatever is coming world. By mixing and mingling edible plants into the normal landscape most individuals will pass them by without a second thought since they do not come in a neat row being grown for obvious food, they probably will simply think they are ornamental and not edible anyway, because what they have learned tells them that are not how food is grown, unable to think outside that box will be their downfall, and possibly your saving grace.