With so much swirling around us, it’s often hard to get a comprehensive understanding of what’s really going on. So I appreciate writers who give a name to what’s going on. Lance Morrow did that for me in a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
“We live in the golden age of stupidity. It is everywhere. President Biden’s conduct of the withdrawal from Afghanistan will be remembered as a defining stupidity of our time—one of many. The refusal of tens of millions of people to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus will be analyzed as a textbook case of stupidity en masse. Stupid is as stupid does, or, in the case of vaccination, as it doesn’t do. Stupidity and irresponsibility are evil twins. The slow motion zombies’ assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a fitting stupid finale to the Trump years, which offered dueling stupidities: Buy one, get one free. The political parties became locked in a four-year drama of hysteria and mutually demeaning abuse.” And on and on the editorial goes.
If everything out there is stupid, do we get it in the church? After Jesus had fed the 4000, the disciples “began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve’ ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ And he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’” (Mark 8:16-21).
Socrates made a career trying to find someone who really knew the truth. For that he was put to death. Martin Luther: “Arrogance cannot be avoided nor can true hope be present, unless the judgment of damnation is feared in every work” (Heidelberg Disputation, 11). Mr. Morrow’s conclusion: “At the Tower of Babel, the Lord—whatever his reasons—confounded the languages of the peoples of the world. I suspect he has found he can achieve the same effect by making everyone stupid.” (WSJ, August 30; A17). It all tells me we have only one hope.
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