True Explosions or Mere Rumblings of a Small Mind?

True Explosions or Mere Rumblings of a Small Mind?

What does the writer want to achieve when he decides to post his views on the Internet. I suppose the postings can fall under the following categories (the list is by no means exhaustive):

1. To share info and pieces of entertainment or attempts of “literary” production
2. To make trip report, announce upcoming visits, and the like.
3. To relieve oneself of loneliness by unconsciously making oneself a butt of laughter.
4. To make one’s presence known by saying anything whether it is worthwhile or not.
5. To engage in a war of words.
6. To advocate a cause or to weaken the cause adopted by others.
7. To cause explosions in the mind of the reader by adopting some controversial positions.

It is the last category that I would like to address. One person dropped a bombshell by asserting that PVL was stupid for holding NDN in high esteem for thinking that China was the ultimate threat of Vietnam and was the real beneficiary of the civil war that North Vietnam under the leadership of the “icon” HCM initiated. He went on saying NDN was a stupid politician for being murdered by his allies and underlings.

I made a comment by saying under that person's narrow definition of what constituted a stupid politician, it was hard to argue against the logic presented there. I then made a further observation that under the said person's definition, Julius Caesar, Trotsky, Sadat, and Rabin would all be considered stupid politicians. I then went on a limb and ventured an opinion that a reasonable and informed person would not consider the personages mentioned above stupid.

An ignoramus jumped in and asked the first person a point blank question if the he considered PVL and NDN “that stupid”. The ignoramus received a terse “yes”.

I then pointed out to that person in calling somebody stupid, one presupposes that one is smarter than that person. So by implication, he was asserted that he was smarter than PVL and NDN. I thus asked him to supply the members of this forum with facts and evidence to back up his plain and brazen assertion. He replied by asking me to go back and read his prior emails and if I did not get it, I did not get it.

I wrote back saying that I had gone back and read the emails of his and indeed I didn’t get it, that I was lost in the wilderness of his verbiage, and that I was left with a suffusion and surfeit of skepticism that he was smarter than PVN and NDN as he implied. I then inserted a short paragraph about language that I took from my blog.

Today, he went back to his original email and repeated the logic of his narrow definition of what makes a politician stupid, the logic I already stated that I found difficult to argue against. What interested me was what made him think or imply that he is smarter than PVN and NDN. It is my opinion that to label somebody stupid on the Internet is a daring act for which I gave him full credit for bravery. When we call somebody---politician or not--- stupid, we make a stand that we think we are smarter than that person otherwise we would not know or think the person is stupid in the first place. To call somebody a stupid politician while one is not a politician himself smacks and smells of overweening arrogance. To call anybody stupid makes a bystander wonder if the person who makes that statement is truly smart in the first place. As far as I recall, I have made several statements accusing a certain individual ignorant, but I have never posted a piece on the Internet, labeling anybody stupid. Ignorance is not a sin; it is merely a temporary condition which is easily remedied. All it takes is a simple willingness to learn. Stupidity, on the other hand, is a lasting condition; it is beyond help. It is something one is born with. It stays with the person for life. Arrogance is not endearing. Overweening arrogance is a sign of true “stupidity”.


Wissai
October 27, 2009