Ignorance, trés cool? I think not

I'm not sure when it became acceptable, and then worse 'cool', to be stupid but it's really kind of annoying that I am forced to listen to the inane babble of these idiots who seem intent on making their voices heard.  Whoever it was that made this decision that being dumb/uneducated/ignorant is a model to aspire to, or heralded that 'vapid was the new black' certainly left me out of the memo that alerted everyone else to this fact.

Far be it from me to lay claim to being some kind of intellectual wunderkid, but there are some small facts that I feel are really not excusable to have not been mildly aware of given that you seemingly, are capable of reading.  Case in point: Justin Bieber.  The fact that a fifteen year old doesn't understand the meaning of 'German' when asked about the origin of his surname is horrific, "German... uhhh we don't use that word in Canada".  No- I guess you're too busy hanging with the other North American (as in the continent not the country, before I'm accused of not knowing that Canada is not part of America) idiot, Sarah Palin, chasing some "mooses" to rustle up for dinner to know what German is, or realise that Germany is in fact a country (a very large European country in fact, famous for it's role in both the World Wars... small, insignificant really, minute- details). 

It is not the famous who antagonise me the most though, this particular accolade is awarded to the high pitched, hair flicking tribe that is the female University student.  Yes, University student.  I know, you would think tertiary education would somehow correspond to some level of intellect.  Experience has taught me otherwise, and I have come to realise (nay, become convinced of the fact) that the University is not actually educating these girls, but merely gathering them en masse so they can present, discuss and exchange all of their vacuous ideas in a common forum, thus allowing the propagation of such stupidity into wider society.  The most distressing thing about this particular species of the stupid variety is that they are sadly misinformed that they are intelligent.  Armed with phases such as "Freudian philosophy", "market economics", "statistical correlation", "mitochondrial DNA", these girls then unreservedly integrate their new-found knowledge into everyday conversation and yet would struggle to explain the difference between right and left wing politics (and would instead ask what a "politics" bird looked like). 

The most entertaining of the brainless bevy, without a doubt falls to the "I'm a female and I'm dumb, will you sleep with me?" variety.  You know the type, the flirtatious cretins who pretend (dubiously so, I'll admit) to be ignorant for the sake of... well I don't know, I'm not familiar with this method personally, but I'm guessing for the sake of being cool or cute-sy (gag) or making their guy feel like a "real man" should.  One cannot help but cringe when they girlishly giggle and (unnecessarily loudly) ask "So how does rugby even work?".  You grew up in New Zealand you dim-witted waste of space.  You know and he knows and everyone around you knows that you know how rugby works (and guess what, just because of that, they all think you're even more stupid than before).

There's no need for everybody to go about reading Nineteenth Century French philosophy or educating themselves about the Theory of Relativity, but for goodness sakes, reading a newspaper occasionally would not hurt.  They've even made learning easy these days, you can watch stuff on the TV... amazing right?  If you get super desperate, I dunno- talk to your parents, they often have some quite interesting insights into the past.  When you don't know something, guess what? Google that sh*t, works a treat (and no-one has to know how ignorant you might be).  It is definitely not a crime not to know something, one is never going to know everything that there is to know in the world.  This is not an excuse to remain forever ignorant though.  It's not as if access to information is difficult in the technological age.  Most importantly, if you are going to absolutely insist on being ignorant (or find yourself in the position of seeming so), at least be quiet about it. Nobody likes a loud village idiot.

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