Nat Bradford did we write this in our sleep last night? Nick Ryan: Theres no accounting for stupidity and the world is full of halfwits NICK RYAN THE ADVERTISER NOVEMBER 30, 2013 10:00PM This sentence is only here because the first two words of the next one would stop pretty much every sane person from reading any further - so to avoid scaring everyone off I thought it best to slip this banality buffer in before starting the column proper right…about...now. Local government (see what I mean?), by its very nature, doesnt have a really broad reach unless of course youre talking about the poshly dishevelled Lord Mayor of London. Boris Johnson gets more media coverage than the lord mayors of every other municipality on the planet combined but even by his lofty standards hes had a good run this week. By doing little more than giving plummy voice to an uncomfortable truth. In a speech during the week, he raised hackles worldwide by proclaiming that some people are just too stupid to get on in life. The fact that he made this statement to a conservative think-tank in London as part of the Margaret Thatcher Memorial Lecture imbues it with an unfortunate political edge but extract the idea from the ideology and the sprouting kernel of truth remains. Some people are simply knuckle-dragging morons whose brains leave skidmarks on the inside of their skulls when they turn their heads quickly. If you cant see the evidence all around you then maybe its you Boris is talking about. There are people consuming the planets scarce resources who actually think wrestling is real, Diet Coke is a healthier option and Aung San Suu Kyi is the one with cashew nuts in it. Too many houses dont have bookshelves and too many that do only use them to prop up a few self-help books, a thumbed copy of 50 Shades of Grey and a couple of troll dolls. The people who live in these places only exist so those sitting around wondering why Bryce Courtenay hasnt yet bashed out his new one for Christmas have someone to look down on. Millions seriously believe the world is only a few thousand years old and the dinosaurs died out because they couldnt kneel to pray. There are those who automatically assume that a proud Muslim man must be a terrorist and there are Muslim men who believe a woman showing a bit of skin is asking to be raped. People buy motorbikes, lie on sunbeds, download Coldplay records and walk into emergency departments expecting a doctor to believe the object stuck up their behind is there because they slipped and fell on it. Boris has been admonished for what critics are calling unpleasant and careless elitism but, really, elitism is nothing more than recognising that the essence of humanity is we are all the same yet were all different. The Reserve Bank governor and the bloke hurriedly replying to a Nigerian email promising millions are both precious human beings with inherent worth and inalienable rights. You just wouldnt want them to swap jobs. The world needs the context that stupid gives. Without it there would be no knitwear for dogs, seven-day detoxes, monarchies or another season of The Bachelor. The entire late night teleshopping industry would disappear like fat from a George Foreman grill and the The Power would go broke without any membership revenue. And if it werent for the stupidity of others how would we ever recognise it in ourselves? As clever as we might like to think we are we still need something to pull us back when were about to shove a knife in lifes toaster. We share a fundamental human equality but the simple fact is we have all been given different abilities. Pointing that out isnt elitist and arguing anything else is just dumb.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 22:39:17 +0000