GUEST BLOG FROM MAGS-- INSTITUTIONALIZED STUPIDITY

I teach. Right now, I teach a class on Bioethics. It is always a challenge to get students to accept that we are a racist sexist nation and that those values live on in institutionalized form throughout our nation.

Getting students to see why it is important to note who has access to power is a thankless job here in white bread rural America, even though they are beginning to feel that certainly they no longer have the access they once enjoyed; at least that seems to be what is filtering down from the parents.

My students are college students of a specific variety. They are High School students who are enrolled in a college level class that is held in their High School. If any of you remembers, High School was not a particularly enlightened time in your past, and you might have experienced, as I did, a bit of justified anger when you learned the real history of these United States of America as you completed your college education. To be quite frank, a sense of betrayal seemed normal among my peers.

These kids are pre-betrayal, they are still hard on women and racial minorities, they do not understand ethnicity and they are, for the most part, “born again” Christians. There is something pretty daunting about teaching the concepts of racism and sexism to a classroom of students who have never financially supported themselves, are not yet sexually active in the adult sense, and who have few if any people who are brown skinned among them. They do not have children, and they are still at the point in their lives where it is easy to believe all the patriotic and conformist crap they have been fed is fact. Why not? There is little in their lives to suggest otherwise.

However, no matter how closed their eyes are, it is evident in this world that economic and social controls exist and shore up one another. As the global community grows and the numbers of American jobs decline, many white folks find themselves in the position of their racial and ethnic brothers and sisters, without economic power. No one seems to care, and rural and urban whites are hearing the same tired accusations that minorities have heard for a long time….you need to make better choices, you need more education, you need to have a better work ethic….foreign workers do not need breaks or healthcare, what is your problem?

It takes no imagination at all to see that once we lose economic power we also lose political power. We start being the charity case. Lobbyists of large corporations seize even more control as we lose our ability to matter to a system in flux and on the move to greener pastures.

And, so it goes. Our political system is designed to maintain equilibrium. It is designed to keep order above all, peaceful transfer of power and all that jazz. Business as usual, bi-partisanship, the rhetoric is all about not rocking the boat, and the rules too.

George Bush thrives in this atmosphere. When he first seized office we were immediately reminded of civility after his appointment. (And, even now, I will be taken to task by my own for phrasing it in just that way.) When he lied us into Iraq, we were reminded of patriotism and that to be anti-George was tantamount to being anti-America. When our jobs flooded overseas, we were reminded of the global economic well-being of that great religion, Capitalism, and how it furthered democracy. Even as George stumbled and fumbled, we were reminded of our place by the media, by our Democratic Party leaders, by the rabid religiously insane, the GOP, and that bastion of truth and power, the White House.

We called, we wrote letters to the editor, we signed petition after petition, we marched, we discussed, we turned out in record numbers, and we raised more grassroots money than ever before. We funded new progressive organizations. We were right on the left in principle, morally and ethically, and every other way, but it matters little.

We were chided by our own leaders and ridiculed by those of the opposition. Even now, as Americans seem to be waking and shaking off the effects of their Bush hangover, those who hold the reigns, no matter how loosely or incompetently are still the voices of authority we hear on our television newscasts and in the public forum. The “establishment” as it were, is still just that, the establishment. By default, they win.

What we have now is a situation in which the least educated, the least knowledgeable, the least experienced make our decisions regarding reproduction, our environment, and our foreign policy based upon religious whims and fantasy, or upon the bottom line. Those whose experience and understanding is the most narrow and the most partisan, those steeped in ignorance are calling the shots, and heaven help you….cause there must be one…..if you dare to challenge the stupid.

And, so it goes. We have not only institutionalized racism and sexism by denying access, but now we have institutionalized stupidity. We have made it protected….nay, the desired state of being in our country.

I understand sexism because I am a woman. I understand how it works, and I understand that it is back with a vengeance. I see racism rearing its ugly head in ways we never thought we would see again. We thought we could stop using the words sexism and racism. It was not polite….not relevant anymore.

George Bush remains in office because we have put a fence around him with our institutions while claiming those very institutions will save us from such a fate. George Bush remains in office because we have allowed stupidity and ignorance to become a preferred approach to matters of state, and we have waived aside intelligent debate, problem solving, and statesmanship. George Bush remains no matter how stupidly he or his staff acts. No matter how idiotic the excuse, we are trained to buy into it. We are trained to not name it or publicly recognize it as stupidity. We are nothing if not an orderly people, civil. And, we prove it by allowing the least qualified among us to steer the ship of state.
We have institutionalized the current state of affairs. Our party leaders are intentionally weeding out the populist candidates, and opting for those who will only boost numbers and present little challenge the way things are. As real patriots rise again and again with the courage to speak, the majority backs away. Better silent, than sorry. Better the people bear the brunt, than the politician lose his job. Better we allow George’s phony PR to trump policy and reality.

I am not sure where it will stop, but I am damn certain that I do not one day want to walk into a classroom wondering how to get across to students that once we were encouraged to be smart and we required competence from our leaders. We required accountability and we disliked stupidity. We saw ourselves as better than that. I am sure I worry for nothing. By then, stupidity and ignorance will be enforced by law, no one like myself will be welcome in any classroom.

-Mags