We have our job cut out then. Neutralise idiocy. I challenge the forward looking #EndSARS group to factor this into their algorithmic calculations for social development and economic transformation. Stick to your commitment to Truth, remembering always the old wise saying: All truth passes through three stages — First it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed and third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the preferred choice of the world (less Trump’s America) for the position of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general. My hope is that Donald Trump will lose the forthcoming U.S. presidential elections on November 3 and Okonjo-Iweala will keep her date with destiny on November 9 as the first African and first woman to mount the WTO saddle as chief executive.
Apologists of America’s arrogant posture in world affairs argue that the rejection of Okonjo-Iweala (who carries both Nigerian and U.S. passports) by the U.S., is in line with that country’s economic interests and that those of us who are blowing her trumpet are ignorant of the ways of the world. I confess that I am not an American lapdog. I don’t see why I should be a trumpeter of America’s so-called interest when African interests are involved. I make no apologies for supporting my African sister.
America’s relationship with the rest of the world in the last four years (almost) has been — let’s be generous — ponderous. From the lofty pedestal of a country, which approximated the United Nations writ small, the U.S. has been brought to its knees by several diseases, including open racism, ethnic baiting, economic exclusivity and the incompetent handling of the COVID 19 scourge.
America was known for exporting democracy. If the whole world was one country, the U.S. was the acclaimed capital. Although it had a big stick, which it could wield, America achieved the best results when it worked by consensus, rallying the world around its point of view. Now, America alienates the rest of the world in a newfound illogic of unilateralism.
Within America itself, the goose and the gander are treated differently. Black Americans regularly have to deal with job discrimination, bank discrimination, and housing discrimination. Yet, they are expected to see this as the “Land of the Free”. In his book, The Hypocrisy Of Democracy: How The American Dream Became The African American Nightmare, Rashaad Singleton explains how African Americans can no longer lie to themselves and to each other for the sake of appeasing their white peers. I agree with his contention that African Americans ought to embrace scholarship, knowledge of self, and mastering of group economics, just as American Jews did.
But America’s greatest problem, in my humble opinion, is its president’s blurring of the boundary between truth and falsehood, and indeed, between right and wrong. The Washington Post claims that as of August 27, the tally of errant claims by the president stood at 22,247 claims in 1,316 days. That must be a world record.
Trump reminds me of Manu Bhattathiri’s short story, “A True Liar”, which tells the story of Velu, a man who lied when awake and told the truth in his sleep. Because with Mr. Trump you never know when life is imitating art or vice versa, perhaps we can better deconstruct Trumpism by understanding the logic of Velu.
In Nigeria, we have more than our fair share of truth benders. People who have no respect for morality. Identity thieves who steal the voices of other people to say what they, in their characteristic cowardice, are mortally afraid of personally verbalising. They populate the social media. Some specialise in hate vending, while others try out their inventiveness with the creation of alternative reality.
“Lie was, to Velu, an art. An exalted process of convincing someone about something that wasn’t; a creation above and different from the truth, which, to him, was dull, boring, a given….As Velu sometimes said to his only friends down at the barber shop, ‘What is there in the truth, anyway? It is a given. It doesn’t demand from your intelligence. Any idiot can tell the truth as it is. It is there in spite of you, the teller.’
“But the lie is all up to you,” Velu would tell them. “It is more personal, it is yours. You imagine it, carefully create it, until you believe in it, and then you make someone else believe in it, immediately establishing your superiority over him, because he now thinks what you want him to think. His reality is what you have painted for him. When you tell the truth you are just a messenger carrying what is given to you, but when you lie, you are a creator, a god, even. In your believers you have created followers of a different reality, one of your own making.”
In Nigeria, we have more than our fair share of truth benders. People who have no respect for morality. Identity thieves who steal the voices of other people to say what they, in their characteristic cowardice, are mortally afraid of personally verbalising. They populate the social media. Some specialise in hate vending, while others try out their inventiveness with the creation of alternative reality. In spite of the evil causes to which these sick fellows have put the social media, we all know that there is more good to be derived from a positive use of the media than the irritation of these fabulists and hate mongers.
The widely acclaimed #EndSARS protest, which showed that we are not as far behind in the use of cyber tools for developmental purposes as previously thought, ended on a sad note with the introduction of the army by the government and the wholesale sponsorship of violent thugs and arsonists by the dark forces of society. Now fat lies are being constantly employed to muddy the waters so as to blur the lines between truth and falsehood.
Sadly, we have now come to the realisation that whereas the young people in the #EndSARS movement are forward-looking cyber warriors, our decision makers and security operatives have a lot of catching up to do. When matters degenerate to the extent where armed soldiers are confronting unarmed protesters, the deployment of half-truths and outright lies in aid of entrenched positions becomes the vogue.
For whatever it is worth, there is a lesson to be learnt by the #EndSARS, the federal and state governments, politicians, peace builders and public commentators. That lesson is to be found in Carlo Cipolla’s Five Laws of Stupidity, which you can ignore only at your peril.
Whatever you do, wherever you are, whoever you are, just remember: Stupidity is humanity’s greatest existential threat. There are no defences against stupidity. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by its burden of idiots, is if the non-stupid work much more harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.
● We are all surrounded by more idiots than we ever imagined. To gauge intelligence on the basis of education level, job or social status is to be stupid too;
● Stupidity cuts across gender, race, nationality, education level and income. There are stupid professors, generals, economists and lawyers. Every nation has a large pool of really stupid people in the public space;
● A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person(s) or group of persons, while deriving no gain. Stupidity is not motivated by greed;
● Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. So, they forget that to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake;
● A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. Declining societies have the same percentage of stupid people as successful ones.
Whatever you do, wherever you are, whoever you are, just remember: Stupidity is humanity’s greatest existential threat. There are no defences against stupidity. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by its burden of idiots, is if the non-stupid work much more harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren. There are as many idiots online, as there are on the streets, creating strife, robbing us of goodwill and ruining our economy.
We have our job cut out then. Neutralise idiocy. I challenge the forward looking #EndSARS group to factor this into their algorithmic calculations for social development and economic transformation. Stick to your commitment to Truth, remembering always the old wise saying: All truth passes through three stages — First it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed and third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Wole Olaoye can be reached through wole.olaoye@gmail.com.
