I know I’m not the first person, and definitely not the only one, who is dealing with total bullshit at work.  The funny thing is that people generally go along with stupid shit no matter how anti they may actually be.  It drives me crazy when I catch myself starting to believe the bullshit or being bullied by it.  I know you are all wondering “what the fuck happened?”  Without getting into details I’m going to outline a few issues that I believe represent the current state of affairs for the majority of employees.  I’m sure even Jung would agree that these items outline cross-cultural archetypes even though they mostly are defined through the US today.  I wish I could better grasp the mind the drives this madness, not to correct it – but to destroy it.  Anyway, without additional delay:

Work Stupidity List 5326:

- Apathy, laziness, and poor performance are rewarded while intelligence, hard work, and innovation are punished.

- Supervisors care more about achieving the next tier in their personal career ascension than they do about the company mission or their unit’s performance.

- Commands and reprimands are given thoughtlessly and accepted carelessly.

- Everyone is always at fault.

- The easiest option is always the right option.

- Respect is demanded not earned.

- Enforcement of trivial regulations supersedes achieving critical goals.

- All supervisors want to be your friend.

- Real problems are seldom confronted while infractions are nuked repeatedly.

- Longevity is the prerequisite for leadership, not ability.

- The more money spent by a certain department means the greater the importance of that department.

- Budgets are for exceeding not minimizing.

To most people anti-intellectualism would be a completely negative ideal, but for whatever fucking reason it is swallowing up every facet of modern life.   Most people are fucking idiots.  They don’t want intelligent conversation or enlightening art – they want stupidity.  Nobody is encouraged to be intelligent.  Nowadays people are brazenly stupid.  They are proud of what they don’t know.  We don’t accept anything on TV, where the attention span is like 3 goddamn seconds, that is not amusing, violent, and sexual.  Blatant willful ignorance is the norm.

Potentially this is the most enlightened period in human history.  The development of new ideas and technologies has not reduced human stupidity it has enhanced it.  There are more means of becoming educated, more books, more movies, and more information than could possibly be used.  We have an almost unlimited potential for knowledge at our fingertips.  Technology is everywhere, information is abundant and available, and the world is full of lessons.  The funny thing is that these days to be stupid requires effort, but most people choose this path over intelligence.  Most people would rather play dumb.

TV

Does it make you intelligent or increase stupidity?  It’s a no-brainer.  The media is about dumbing down, the media is about simplifying, the media is about the twenty second sound bite.  The scenario is not unfamiliar.  Here I sit like a slug.  My mouth feels like I’ve been chewing on old underwear.  I’m covered in greasy crumbs.  I have this sour feeling and I’m tired like I’ve been sleeping on the floor.  I’m all alone.  I don’t know exactly what I’ve even been watching all this time.  I am numb, but feel vaguely alarmed and vaguely aroused.  I am frustrated because there has been no release.  This is the TV experience.

Look at popular culture.  Youth is venerated over the aged.  Qualities of youth are carelessness and stupidity, along with a certain ignorant frivolity.  In contrast an older person knows better, has experienced more, and has a degree of wisdom.  An older person’s actions are driven by goals.  Maybe in a world overburdened with facts and information stupidity can be appealing.  Maybe it’s a reverse psychology mind-fuck.  For example, most people in this world appear completely stupid.  Therefore if I appear to be intelligent I will irritate them so I’m going to be more stupid than they are so that they like me.

I know the feeling.  At the end of a long day I want turn my brain off.  Most people do it, they call it vegging out.  You sit in front of the TV and become a passive consumer.  It’s a virtual catatonia, a mindless meditation.  All the while marketing is attempting to impose this philosophy of futility.  That way people will only pay attention to the superficial things in life, focus on this fashionable consumption and thereby keep people controlled, passive, marginalized.  This also prevents people from taking positive control of their lives, prevents them from amassing commodities, and maintains the mindless consumer slave-state.

Media that is less complex, has less dialogue or is fundamentally simplified, can easily be marketed all over the world to any audience.  This favors action, violence, and sex.

People don’t really know what the fuck is going on so they create ridiculous and rigid belief systems to help them understand the world.   Religion for example.  These belief systems are actually injurious to thinking and learning.  In a belief system information is processed deferentially.  This means that information that supports the schema is taken in while information that rejects the schema is rejected.  This sets a course that is detrimental to actual understanding.  In this way, ironically, a belief system actually makes you dumber.  This eventually leads to a complete failure to see things as they really are and the ability to take in new information.  Most people have a very automatic association to these belief systems (i.e. religion and politics).

So what does all this have to do with the bullshit going on at my work right now?  Well, probably nothing, but let me end with a quick quote:

“I do not make terms with incompetence.” – Atlas Shrugged