General Public
In the film Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones’ character makes a point that the government can’t tell the general public the truth about aliens because, while a person is smart, people are dumb, frightened animals. The truth of this distinction is visible to us every single day. Your friend Claire, for instance, is a sensible, intelligent, fun lady who you can have a proper conversation with about the history of print journalism over a glass of wine. She is a smart individual, like you, and, when pressed to answer, like most of your acquaintance. Whereas “people” on the other hand watch Big Bang Theory (which you only watched a few seasons of anyway) and get angry about football (which you only do when something unjust happens to your team), and it’s “people” all around the world that perpetuate senseless wars and blindly, even willingly, enable global capitalism to ruin everything. Why don’t they just drink a Coke and calm the heck down.
The Independent is always trying to show us statistics about how ignorant and gullible the British public are about things like immigration, benefits spending and the Islamification of Britain. Those idiots are wrong about everything, it seems. We also know that the vast majority of the British public think they drive better than the average road user, which either shows how stupid everyone actually is (and they are all really stupid), or means that there’s one statistically anomalous menace on wheels dragging down everyone else’s average who somehow hasn’t been banned from driving yet. The truth is that all of those individuals are stupid, thinking that they as individuals are cleverer than the mystical average idiot public. They are wrong. You’re all wrong. Because you’re idiots.
No offence, but you, reading this, statistically speaking (and I mean this very personally), are an idiot. You are the idiot public that you know to be idiots. And before you get all huffy and indignant, no, I’m not out of the firing line either. I’m also probably an idiot. I’m writing for Vision, often in bad English, and I get the tone of most of my articles way off. This was supposed to be an interview with Claire Findall about her getting a scholarship at the Centre for Early Modern Studies. I got distracted. Where was I? Silly me. Oh yeah.
That’s why democracy is weak. I’m not saying there’s a better way of doing things without just letting one or a few other idiots make all the moronic decisions you morons would probably end up making anyway, but God knows you shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions for yourself. I mean, look at you. It’s no wonder that consecutive governments have nothing but contempt for what the general public have to say. Any sensible person wouldn’t dream of letting the general public have a referendum on, say, the death penalty, because you idiots would vote to bring it back in a heartbeat. Paedophiles, who are also idiots but that’s besides the point, would be executed without trial if you morons had it your way.
If the online surveys you idiots fill in had any political force, the cast of Friends would be forced to reunite and make one whole series every week until they all killed themselves. Who fills in surveys like that? Not just the bogeyman “general public” who defy mathematics to be stupider on average than everyone thinks they as individuals are, but individuals like your mate Claire. Yes, Claire, who you thought was so bloody clever, only now you think about it she can’t dry up without smashing a plate and gets the words wrong to “Mr Blue Sky” by ELO.
You caught her singing “Mr Blue Sky, please tell us why you had to hide a wafer so long.” She’s clearly deficient. Thinking about it, you can’t stand Claire, especially when she gets drunk and bores you to death about the liberty of the press under Cromwell. Try telling that to the Irish, Claire. Get lost, Claire. She, like everyone else, is an idiot. And your acquaintance who, earlier, you said were clever out of politeness, they are all idiots as well. Almost none of them can speak Russian, and the ones that can don’t notice when they’re mouth-breathing and accidentally made weird nasal noises. They unconsciously pull idiotic dwerpy faces when playing musical instruments like it’s all too much for their brain to cope with. They think they’re beating the teams on Pointless when they’re clearly just cheating by giving lots of answers and seeing what sticks. Some of them are “ethical pescetarians.” Go on, admit it, you’re ashamed of everyone you’ve ever met, including yourself, and you need a clever fascist to take care of you, to take away your human rights, ignore your protests and one-click petitions and stop you from ruining everything like a butterfingered moron.
Someone has read Plato’s republic and thinks they have the world all figured out.