By Morf Morford, Tacoma Daily Index
Several years ago a popular television show (back when there was such a thing) was “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” We learned back then that not many adults were, in fact, smarter than a fifth grader.
To put it mildly, not much has improved or even changed, since then.
Yes, a key principle of any living language is that it always changes. But English, especially the American version, changes at a rate – and an intensity – barely comprehensible – even to native speakers.
Every generation contributes to the larger language in ways that may or may not last, and that might, or might not, define that generation and our culture for many years to come.
I’ll leave it to you to decide how representative, or lasting, these terms and words from the 1980s and ’90s still are: “Chill pill”, “Gnarly”, “Diss”, “Hella”, “Dude”, and, of course, “To the max”.
It might be my bias (and I’m sure that it is), but I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who, especially as an ostensible adult, uses terms like these.
And yet, for whatever reason, I hear and see in print, so-called adults (at least according to their chronological age), who speak and make deliberately public statements that are incoherent, contradictory, if not outright absurd gibberish.
“Your brother’s brother is an idiot.”
“My brother doesn’t have a brother.”
Actual overheard conversation
Sometimes, for all of us, the wrong word comes out, or we just can’t think of the right one and we pick one that we presume, is close enough.
We all make mistakes like that, or slightly (or dramatically) exaggerate. Ever use the term “I’ve been there a hundred times” when you actually had been there just a couple times? That’s not stupid. It’s just sloppy.
Lies are deliberate deception.
We rarely say that we have been somewhere “a hundred times” to make the point about the quantity of experiences at that particular place – we are, in most cases, making the point that we have been there before and it is familiar to us. Maybe too familiar.
In other words, while the statement “I’ve been there a hundred times” might not be technically true, it feels true – and, while the literal count may not be correct, the intent is authentic. “I’ve been there more times than I want to count, and the place has no appeal to me now” might be more accurate – but who talks like that?
But, as I mentioned above, lies are deceptive and stupidity is its own category of deceptiveness: beginning with self-deceptiveness.
Politicians and high maintenance business leaders (and crime bosses) are particularly vulnerable to this toxic level of self-deceptiveness.
Those around them learn very quickly the first commandment for success; for their own well-being (as in career or literal survival), the path to success lies in unquestioned allegiance to the “dear leader” no matter how pretentious or preposterous they might be.
In contrast, a wise leader knows that there is nothing more useless, if not destructive than a coterie of “yes men” who fawn and applaud every utterance.
Dishonesty might be the best policy for getting elected – or promoted
Whether it is from a doctor, a friend or a life-partner, the “truth” can be unsettling and disturbing. And “truth” is usually more complicated.
It is far easier to retreat into familiar slogans or clichés about “those people” than to take into consideration the layers of contradictions and complications within all of us.
Cognitive biases flare up; we prefer to hold onto whatever we believe, and any conflicting information is, by definition, threatening, in other words, in any category, whether it is religious faith or economic philosophy, or even how to fry an egg, for too many of us, we have decided that we already know everything and are unwilling to accept anything new.
And the key premise of propagandists still holds true; tell a lie often enough and people begin to believe it.
Far too many of us have become near-permanent residents of “echo chambers” of news media, websites, even neighborhoods of those who already agree with us.
We rarely learn anything new and become more convinced that what we already believed was right.
And, for too many of us, the louder and more insistent, the more convincing it is.
This is why we find that confidence, more than competence, tends to succeed when it comes to political office or business leadership.
And we all act surprised, even horrified, when so many of our political and business leaders (and other celebrities) show themselves to be egotistical, self-destructive bullies.
“Our exploratory research points to a range of balanced options going forward, and we’re currently assimilating the data-sets as a priority to create some top-line metrics”
We might use too many syllables, and words we barely understand, but behind it all, those who use such terminology are like second-graders who found a thesaurus.
In our culture and economy, and around the world, we seem to be in the midst of a range of insurmountable problems that only seem to be larger and more menacing as time goes by.
And the problems keep growing because so few of us are willing to speak, or hear, the truth. We have become accustomed to levels of analysis and communication more suitable to second-graders rather than so-called adults who claim credit and avoid responsibility as if that, instead of getting a job done, was their primary duty.
As Sherlock Holmes put it, it is always better to see what is there instead of what we wish was there.
I have heard it said that we are in an era where adults act like children, and children act like adults.
Children love to learn and absorb new information and ways of doing things.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I find it tiresome and a waste of time to have people tell me what I already know.
I want to learn things and make a difference.
And those politicians and business leaders who congratulate themselves for doing so little? I’d rather spend time with some actual second-graders. They’d probably be more honest with me.
