A Plea for a Science of Asininity

Mr. Ed has been called upon already, so it only makes sense--or at least pleases me--to call upon his cousin of sorts, Francis the Talking Mule.  I believe Francis came first.  Whatever god or demon it is that inspires us to make talking animals stars of books, movies, television and other forms of media and entertainments must have convinced us to use Francis before Ed, as Francis it seems was a product of the imagination of Americans in the 1940s and 1950s, and Ed of the 1960s.  And so Francis, paired with human stars like Mickey Rooney (above) and Donald O'Connor, would appear as, somehow, in the Army or the Navy, the Armed Forces being more popular or at least comfortably present to the mind in those decades than they were in the 1960s.  It's difficult to picture Mr. Ed as either on duty in Vietnam or marching on the Pentagon or protesting at Kent State or in Grant Park.

Now though this post has as its purpose a call for the study of asininity, Francis isn't entirely apropos as that word derives from "asinine" which in turn comes from the Latin asinus, meaning ass.  Strictly speaking, as a search of the sometimes useful Internet will reveal, a mule isn't an ass.  Donkeys are asses.  Mules are hybrids.  Breed a male donkey and a female horse and you get a mule.  Stubbornness is characteristic of the asinine, and both donkeys and mules are considered stubborn animals.  Because Asininity is the subject of this post, and I could think of no talking donkey that isn't a cartoon, I settle for a mule as my muse.

More than once in this blog, I've lamented over the vastness of our stupidity, taking us as a group. Well, as a species I suppose I should say.  I've speculated that stupidity is particularly widespread now, when it can be expressed immediately and transmitted instantly to others.  In other words, stupidity, now, can be flaunted globally.  Instead of isolated pockets of stupidity which could exist in isolation years ago, stupidity has spread like a virus throughout the world, via the Internet.

But I've come to wonder whether "stupidity"is an adequate word to describe what is being flaunted.  For we're not merely stupid anymore.  We're content to be stupid.  We may even be proud of our stupidity.  In a sense, we know we're stupid, or being stupid, but are stubborn in our stupidity.  We resist all attempts to enlighten and inform us.  They even make us angry.  Confronted with those efforts, we resist them just as much as we resent them.  

So, I think "asininity" better describes us.  The more we're told we're wrong and are challenged to provide support for what we think, or are shown evidence contrary to it, the more we insist we're right, and the less open to persuasion we become.  We're mulish.

An Internet search reveals that there already has been some study of stupidity, by psychologists in any case.  However, the types of stupidity that have been identified seem unintentional.  Asininity, I would say, combines with stupidity and ignorance an intent to be stupid and ignorant.  Of course, we would never acknowledge that we are stupid or ignorant, and so it could be argued that we're not intentionally so, but the intent arises on when our stupidity and ignorance are challenged in some sense.  Perhaps it's more a question of reckless disregard of evidence or argument contrary to our beliefs, but reckless disregard is a kind of intent, borrowing from the law, or at least equivalent to it in terms of liability.

Being a phenomenon, asininity should be subject to study and investigation.  It's certainly should be analyzed, as the stubborn persistence in stupidity and ignorance is worse even than those characteristic themselves, and more damaging.  It makes possible unending witlessness, the bovine acceptance of certain propositions as in effect invincible.  In essence, the end of the possibility of progress.

Perhaps causes of this condition can be identified.  The symptoms seem clear enough, as they're rampant in our society.  It's true such a study may be fruitless.  It's likely any cure would be through education, and asininity is prevalent, it would seem, in school boards here in our Glorious Union, and is being encouraged.  But even so, knowledge is more often good than bad.