Absurdity and Authority

I have often said the words “I hate people.”

I’ll admit that I don’t actually hate mankind, but when I frequently hear people say and do dumb things, it has become my knee-jerk response.

When unintelligent utterances come about, I often wonder if someone could really be that clueless and I rationalize it by disliking the masses. Yet maybe there is some sort of social psychology at work behind absurdity.

I challenged this ideal greatly a few days ago, when sitting in the HUB. I was positioned with my laptop, doing work in between my classes, where at the end of the table sat four girls. They were talking rapidly and when the one girl got up to leave, she uttered one of the most ill conceived sentences I have ever heard:

“I think I’m going to take the Blue Loop to the White Building.”

I froze (keep in mind we were at the HUB, which is about a 30 second walk to the White Building.) I sat wide-eyed at what I just heard and waited for her friends to verbally attack the comment. I didn’t have to wait long. Her friends laughed endlessly and pointed out the flaws in her comment. The girl then giggled and shrugged it off. This definitely happened a lot. She pretended that she didn’t realize her own idiocy, and when she left her friends went on to talk about how she says things of this nature often.

All people have inherited intellect and because of this I remain unconvinced of this girl’s actual lack of knowledge. True, we all have slips in common sense, but I dissected her thought process enough to realize she thought far enough ahead to contemplate taking the bus. She obviously thought about her next location. She had to have known. From this, I believe she was acting a part; she was playing a role.

So why do people “dumb themselves down?” To me, playing dumb makes you inferior; it in turn gives the others in conversation the upper hand, as they believe to have more knowledge than you. What’s the benefit?

Studies suggest that woman often act dumber when with their spouse to reflect on society’s ideal that, at least on certain issues, the husband’s superiority should not be tested. With that, studies also show that men tend to dumb themselves down more often than women in social situations. Men tend to “play dumb” in situations with co-workers and bosses.

This tactic can alternatively be done as a defense mechanism. Often people will avoid showing their intelligence in situations of highly structured and competition stature, where mid-level personal are motivated to avoid annoying others in order to improve their future there. It is also suggested that people will dumb themselves down to avoid responsibility.

I question, is it easier to remain the simple-minded one than challenge the minds of others?
If we position ourselves as dimwitted, do we in turn lessen our responsibility?

With this in mind, maybe “being dumb” is a lot less dumb than we think.