The March of the Stupids
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2007
1
14
18
Trip End
Aug 25, 2008
Seoul,
Korea Rep.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Within the grand march of stupidity there are many smaller marches and movements. They can start with the most trivially stupid acts.
In this case the stupid act was to feed cow to a cow. There were already life-threateningly stupid cows, but it was the feeding of stupid cow brain - mashed up brain, but brain none the less - to happy, healthy cows that started the stupid cow epidemic.
big flag little man
Once the stupid cow epidemic had started a lot of poor, stupid cows had to be burned.
In 2003 a stupid cow from Canada was found in America (one of three ever found there), causing Japan and Korea to boycott American beef. Asia was safe from stupidity, it seemed, and the matter was quickly forgotten. American people continued to eat beef, and none of them showed Bovine Stupidity in Excess (BSE).
Four years later there was an election in Korea. In the later years of his term, the outgoing president was seen as increasingly stupid, and there had been a move to impeach him. It was felt that he was plunging Korea back into stupidity, through decisions like the deployment of forces in Iraq.
It was not popular election; voter turn-out was very low. Those that did vote largely voted against the stupidity of the last president, electing the opposition's candidate, Lee Myung-bak, by a landslide (almost 50% of the vote). It was the biggest winning margin since democracy came to Korea. Mr. Lee had convinced many voters that when it came to economics, he was not stupid.
Some of his ideas, though, did seem stupid to many people. Like carving a canal to link Seoul to Busan, or lifting the ban on imported American beef.
It can take years for the symptoms of BSE to manifest. It is an awful disease, causing degeneration of the brain and spinal cord, which is why those poor stupid cows on the videos couldn't stand up
message for Mr. Lee
. There is nothing stupid about wanting to avoid the disease. However, the World Organisation for Animal Health considered America a BSE-controlled country (which means BSE is under control, not out of control), and no one in America seemed affected by cow stupidity.Mr. Lee thought he was being smart, but many Korean people were concerned that he was opening the way for stupidity to enter their country. That had just voted it out, but now here it was in another form. Was their president stupid? The question was shouted louder and louder.
What makes stupidity so insidious is that it can develop spontaneously. It doesn't need to be consumed. It doesn't even need to be transmitted. The march of the stupids is a part of human history, a part we can never completely protect against. We cannot boycott our stupidity.
Almost thirty years earlier Koreans had taken to the streets, also shouting loudly. The dictatorship of the time had very stupidly decided to repress, and sometimes torture or kill its own people. The people in the streets were shouting for democracy, for an end to tyranny. Twenty years ago their shouts were heard, and democracy came to Korea
people of all ages have a beef with beef
. Stupidity had been overcome yet again.When it was feared that Mr. Lee was leading the country into stupidity, many people remembered that time twenty years ago when they fought to expel stupidity from their country. They invoked this memory on its twentieth anniversary, and lit candles, and marched through the streets.
Twenty years ago they had assembled on the streets to bring democracy to their country. This time, though, they were assembling to oust their democratically elected president. It was a stupid analogy to invoke. Those protesting against Mr. Lee congregated at Cheonggyecheon stream, which Mr. Lee had overseen the redevelopment of. It was the scene of his most intelligent victory. It was a stupid incongruity; now they were throwing water balloons at murals of him, and chanting against him, and waving flags of every imaginable political agenda.
Some very stupid myths began to circulate through the country's media. Some claimed that Korean people were more disposed to BSE than other ethnic groups. They confused BSE with BME (Believing the Media Entirely). Other rumours claimed that BSE had caused the rise in instances of Alzheimer's disease in America, which was a stupid assertion with no scientific basis, but none the less it started a BME epidemic
protesting at Cheonggyecheon
.When he saw how many people were marching against him, Mr. Lee did something stupid, something that the stupid dictator twenty years ago might have done. He deployed riot police and water cannons. He began monitoring and editing media representations of himself. He didn't want anyone to make him look stupid.
Some particularly stupid people in the peaceful crowd decided that candles were boring, and became violent. Some particularly stupid riot police - already angered by what they considered a stupid decision to conscript them - found that their protective shields could be used as weapons too. They started hitting people with them. They thought it was smart to target vulnerable people. The crowd thought this was stupid and were reminded of the stupidity of the dictatorship. They became angrier and angrier.
Photos and videos appeared on the internet. The government couldn't prevent this. Most of them showed the police being stupid. A few of them showed people doing stupid things like inciting the police.
People were arrested
some gay people are scared of American beef too
. Mr. Lee really didn't want anyone saying that he was stupid. It was too late, though. Most of the crowd was saying that Mr. Lee was stupid. They were also saying that America was stupid. They thought America was stupid for interfering in their country, for dividing it into north and south sixty years ago, for supporting the stupid dictator and for their continued military presence in Korea.Some of the people were just afraid of foreign things. It was a stupid attitude, but that believed that all stupidity originated outside of Korea. They feared American beef would make them stupid, just by entering their country, even though only consumption of the brain or spinal cord of BSE-infected cows could spread the disease.
Mr. Lee didn't want to look stupid but he had made some very stupid decisions. A lot of people were worried about foreign stupidity epidemics but they allowed this fear to reach stupid levels. A lot of consumers were scared they would catch stupidity but they could have prevented this in the supermarket instead of in the streets. The American beef industry was stupid for not having more rigorous health checks to assuage fears in the first place. Korean media was stupid for circulating obvious fallacies. Some police were stupid for attacking protestors. Some protestors were stupid for attacking police. The dictator twenty years ago was stupid. American interventionism was stupid. Feeding cow to cows was stupid. The president before Mr. Lee was stupid. Three poor, dead American or Canadian cows were stupid.
When the first new American beef reached Korea it was checked carefully and sold by a few vendors. People ate it and so far no one has become stupid as a result. The stupidity that had infected everyone was not caused by those poor stupid cows. It lies within all people, and inevitably rises up from time to time. When many people turn stupid together, terrible things can happen.
Just as stupidity can grow up spontaneously, though, reason can prevail in a room or street full of stupids. It is the great hope and wonder of human history that even the most terrible march of the stupids will eventually dissipate as people recover their senses and find reason again. We find ourselves, we scratch our heads, feel embarrassed, and wonder what on earth came over us. We plan to be more careful, more rational in the future, but there are always new outbreaks of stupidity. It is almost as if we enjoy these moments of stupidity.
It is almost as if we need them.
