I thought I was so damn smart, being
from the big city and all. But then one day I found myself sitting behind a
cow. It’s a long story. Suffice it to say I was on a writing assignment which
took me to a dairy farm. I was sitting behind a cow in its stall. To my left
and right there was an endless line of cow asses sticking out of stalls, as far
as the naked eye could see.
Suddenly, I heard a whoosh. And
gushing out of the ass of the cow in the stall directly to my left was a
mudslide of shit, enough to fill a bucket. I instantly realized that at any
moment the ass of the cow in front of me could similarly erupt, in which case
gallons of shit would land in my lap.
So what did I do? I backed up
until I was out of range. And I felt as if I had just learned a profound lesson
about human existence. But I never figured out exactly what that lesson was until I
recently met a man who spends much of his day worshiping a praising a Supreme
Entity.
The man said the secret to his happiness,
and to all human happiness, is to recognize the infallibility of this Entity
and to surrender to its power. The Supreme Entity will ultimately judge us all
in the end and its judgment is never wrong. Those that accept and obey its edicts
and pronouncement and follow its path will be rewarded. Those that scoff will
be punished. Thus, there is no such thing as injustice. The Supreme Entity always
gives us what we deserve
This man, of course, is a
libertarian. And the Supreme entity he so passionately worships is the Free
Market, whatever in the hell that is. And listening to him going on made me
realize that the valuable lesson I learned from nearly being shat upon by a cow
was the difference between ignorance and naiveté.
To me, naiveté implies innocence.
You do or say or believe something stupid because you don’t know any better. I
was naïve about cows. I’d never been that close to a cow in its pre-slaughtered
stage. Once I gained a deeper understanding of what cows are and how they
function by witnessing how robustly they take a shit, I adjusted my
behavior and worldview accordingly. Had I refused to acccept this new perspective, I would have been shat upon.
But ignorance to me is naiveté
plus willful self-deception. The root of the word is ignore. You continue to do or say or
believe something stupid despite all the evidence to the contrary. Some
people are so ignorant they must take a daily personal vow: “I do solemnly
swear to ignore the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” They must
fervently pray first thing each morning: “Please give me the strength to
dismiss everything that threatens to alter my perception of reality.”
It’s so bloody obvious that in
this libertarian man’s utopia, the only change cripples could ever hope for is
spare change. If this man spent much time at all hanging around cripples he’d
see that pretty fast. But I’m sure he
knows that avoiding cripples is one of the keys to maintaining his ignorance.
Maybe he’ll see the light if he
becomes a cripple and he gets shat upon.