In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king

This of course seems to work on the theory that the people who are blind don't have eyes, which I can’t be 100% sure about, but I don’t total believe is correct.

Either way, I think this might apply to Jon Hamm this week, as he rightly pointed out a big problem in society - stupidity is revered! (No, I am not sure I tied the saying and what Jon Hamm did together, but read on to find out).

So, in an interview with Elle UK John dropped this little gem:

“Whether it's Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. [...] Being a fucking idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you're rewarded significantly.”

Now, is s there anything wrong with what he said? No. It is just a straight up statement about the fact that society is in a horrible position where morons are idolised and made successful for their idiocy. If you take a look around the Internet, TV, or news papers you are going to find it pretty hard to argue with it.

Predictably Kim Kardashian(‘s publicist) hit back on Twitter to defend herself(their client):

“Calling someone who runs their own businesses, is a part of a successful TV show, produces, writes, designs, and creates, 'stupid,' is in my opinion careless”

OK Kim, that’s nice, now sit back down – though you were singled out as being part of the problem, Jon was pretty clearly referring to society as a whole, it isn’t all about you (of course, that is not something she would ever understand).

Clearly this love of stupidity is a wide spread thing, but didn't Albert Einstein say “Imagination is more important than knowledge”? Maybe Jon is wrong, and these people are just really imaginative and that is better than being smart?

Not to go and call Albert Einstein wrong, but maybe in his time there was a higher expected base level to work from. Sure, imagination is very important, but so is being smart enough to not have to breathe through your mouth all the time.

So, back to Jon, he does make a very good point, but I can’t help but feel that because he used completely relevant and real examples, that just happen to be people(sic), it will go unnoticed. In fact, it is already happening that way, everyone (not everyone) is discussing the Hamm-Kardashian fued don't tell Khole about the ham *boom tish*) when really the talking point should be something closer to "shouldn't we change the role models in our society from the idiots to people who are intelligent?"

This same issue has actually come up during the Republican nomination votes recently. Maybe not surprisingly these events have been amazing (in terms of stupidity on display) and a huge endorsement to not vote for any Republican at all (seriously, how could you vote for any of these guys). The other day RickSantorum came out taking shots at Obama, including these gems:

“President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college, what a snob!”

and

“That’s why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image”

You know, because going to college is something that should be looked down upon. As is having any aspirations of becoming an articulate and educated person, or The President of America – these are clearly negative things that people should not want to do. He actually went on (or maybe in another speech) to explain that college and education was bad because of the effect it had on peoples religion: 

“62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it”

Which, again, I don’t see the negative side of. Isn’t it good that people go to college, get educated, and realise that religion is all crazy rubbish that shouldn’t be encouraged? (also, as noted in the link above, that fact about people losing faith in college is being disputed by experts anyway).

So, at this point I should probably come to some kind of conclusion – but really I am not sure what I have to say, or if I should need to say more than is written above. There are a lot of stupid people out there, and they should not be idolised or respected. People should work to learn as much as they can and continue to learn throughout life, and not get sucked into the current popularity of stupid people. Unfortunately, some of the most powerful people in the world are clearly idiots, and that effects everyone.

Ah… don’t vote Republican?

In terms of the Kardashian/Hamm thing, I think the best coverage by far was by The Superficial, if you are interested, here is their take on the initial event and here is the follow up a few days later.