It is about 60 days until America goes to the polls and decide the future of the country. But the election process is already underway. Campaigning and presenting one’s views before the American people is most important because the agenda put forward by each candidate should determine how one votes. Any democratic process requires a minimal level of intelligence. One has to understand the issues in order to vote appropriately. Unfortunately, many voters are ill-informed and wallow in stupidity.
Emblematically we see displays of stupidity all over our society – especially on social media platforms. In one example of this, a video has gone viral of a social media influencer licking a toilet seat in order to start a “Coronavirus Challenge.” We prefer to call it the “Stupidity Challenge.” Her name is Ava Louise. The TikTok video of her licking an airplane toilet has achieved millions of views. Here is the video via her Twitter account:
Her caption reads, “Please [retweet] this so people can know how to properly be sanitary on the airplane.” Louise’s video on her Twitter channel has over 296,000 views, and her video that was shared by another Twitter page has more than 6 million. In an Instagram story on March 15, Louise said that she made the video to get on CNN and that she “Cloroxed” the toilet for 40 minutes before licking it, while riding on her sugar daddy’s plane – so Louise claims.
Monkey see monkey do. Yet another social media influencer named Lars took the Stupidity Challenge as well, and guess what? Lars contracted Coronavirus. Some said that Louise should be arrested for encouraging people to get infected. Others posted their TikTok video responses, posted gifs, and commented with their horrified reactions to her clip. Louise claims she’s “totally fine” and, to prove that she doesn’t have any respiratory infection, she takes a long puff from an electronic cigarette or “puff bar” as she refers to it.
Notice this new term of “Social Media Influencers.” Just who and what are these people? Influencers start social conversations, drive engagement, and set trends among receptive audiences. Influencers often use sex or simply bizarre and stupid behavior to get them noticed. They prey on the weak and stupid. They then use their notoriety to make money. In other words, they are like the modern-day mythical character of the Pied Piper. The Pied Piper, acting unusual and strange via playing a musical pipe, offered clickbait to drive out the rats in a local medieval town. When the local mayor renigged on payment, he did the same to the children of the town and drove them into a cave to never be seen again.
You may say these Influencers are geniuses to be able to capitalize on their popularity to make money – profiting from the stupidity and folly of unknowing followers. Perhaps true, but to what end? Is the stupidity portrayed by these Influencers driving our youth into a morality cave never to be seen again? We know we have a “pandemic” of Coronavirus, but perhaps we also have a pandemic of stupidity – driven by many of these social media platforms. And one has to ask during this election season, are there any political Pied Pipers (political hacks, pundits, and media) ready to prey on the stupidity of voters?
What does our society say about stupidity? In general, there are no laws against it – except when fraud occurs – it often does. But before you roll your eyes, is there anything written in our moral codes about stupidity? Regardless of your beliefs in religion or in Biblical texts, it might be interesting to know what it says or not about stupidity. It is a Sunday Thought article, after all. So we did a search to see if there is any guidance on this subject. It turns out that there is a lot said about it – it seems humans are quite prone to stupidity.
Continuing with the theme of our political environment we see running up to this November, let’s look at a few examples on the topic of stupidity Biblically and relate it to our voters, young and old, who are about to decide the future of America:
Proverbs 9:13 – “Folly is an unruly woman; she is simple and knows nothing.” Have you not seen many marching through the street shouting out slogans that are outright lies and make no sense. For example, “hands up don’t shoot” – which was a lie. Another common chant we hear is, “this is what democracy looks like” – coupled with violent protests to force a political agenda.
Jeremiah 4:22 – “For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil!” Many give a pass to stupidity as a joke. But it is no joking matter. It can be an infectious cancer that causes a society to do evil. How many times have seen in the recent protests turn to riots have we seen inspecting followers have their lives ruined getting caught up in many of the stupid activities of movements that yield no productive results for society.
2 Timothy 3:7 – “Always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Many of our youth have been educated, or should I say indoctrinated, in our universities. And, they actually know very little about issues, history, nor the electoral process. Take a visit to the Campus Reform website – it is full of sadly amazing examples of stupidity.
Ecclesiastes 10:1-3 – “As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are.” The notion here is that, unfortunately, stupidity can easily outweigh wisdom – one can see this in view, counts of silly videos vs. videos trying to promote wisdom on our social media platforms. It is interesting that the text states that the wise are to the right, and the foolish are to the left – just saying.
Proverbs 14:23-24 – “In hard work, there is always profit, but too much chattering leads to poverty.” In terms of economic policy, many voters have very little knowledge of the effects of socialism over the long term. Instead, many still believe that the government can alleviate the need for hard work – see here and here.
Proverbs 12:1 – “The person who loves correction loves knowledge, but anyone who hates a rebuke is stupid.” It is well documented that when one actually goes out to have a rational conversation with many of the protesters, there is a denial and refusal to listen to any fact that would be contrary to their own beliefs.
2 Timothy 2:23-24 – “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.” The foolish do not debate. It often is not worth getting into stupid arguments. Use prudence before you do. Take a look at this woman who dared to get into a debate – it did not end well for her.
Proverbs 17:11-12 – “It’s better to meet a mother bear who has lost her cubs than a fool in his stupidity.” Unfortunately, how dangerously true this one is. A man was hunted down and then shot and killed at a rally by the fools in Portland, OR for his political beliefs.
Hosea 4:6 – “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Elections do matter – it shows the collective intelligence of society. Because many voters will go to the polls this November, having engaged in the stupidity of the lack of knowledge, there is a potential that many bad choices will be made – and yes, can destroy us as a nation.
This was just a small sampling in the Biblical texts on the topic of stupidity. We could as well, have written more examples of voter stupidity. But constitutional they are allowed to vote – sorry. So we will have to do our best to pull them back from the licking of electoral toilet seats. And no, don’t take the electoral “Stupidity Challenge” – VOTE wisely. For the avoidance of doubt, and if we must say for some, DO NOT LICK TOILET SEATS!
