sometimes idiots like to accuse other people — ironically, competent people — of being idiots. in a way, it’s their defense mechanism.
in other cases, smart people — wonks — like to accuse other people — idiots and other wonks — of being idiots. likewise, it’s their defense mechanism.
both accusations look the same and result in the same conclusion, yet they stem from different root causes.
in the first case, idiots are not intelligent enough or — in some cases –knowledgable enough — to understand what’s going on in any given context or situation. they react for any number of reasons, but often out of pride. pride — in this case, the christianic sin of pride — prevents them from admitting their position and station in life. yet, it’s not always pride that does so. any number of emotions, such as fear and anger, can also trigger their reactions.
in the second case, wonks misunderstand the world around them, usually because of signal processing, pattern recognition, recollection failures or communication errors. they often become such experts in their own subject (or — frustratingly — more than one) that they fail to recognize that they are making the fundamental attribution error (see: sociology). instead of blaming the actual cause or even the root cause, they find it easier to blame the most conveniently located sentient being for all and every issue. in — more often than not — rare cases, the person on the receiving end of the attack could actually lack intelligence or knowledge.
in my life, there are a countless examples of both cases. both frustrate me unerringly. it seems that for each situation i need a different coping mechanism. sometimes the attack is light, sometimes it’s heavy. i am myself guilty of the attack on occasion. i have become more aware of others and myself as time goes on. this is the curse of experience. the true test of wisdom is having enough coping mechanisms and the situational knowledge of when to deploy. in other words, i am in the third domain and trying to find a way to move to the fourth.
i’ll continue working on it.
as a postscript, i’d like to summarize the domains in this post for posterity. the theme or motif of this post seems to be conscious awareness, so i will call this the domains of awareness. as always, the null domain does not count as a domain, but here it is the complete lack of conscious awareness: infants, developing infants, fetuses, embryos, etc. the first domain encompasses toddlers, children and pre-teens; or in other words, beginners, padawans, novices, whatever. the second domain is pre-teens and anyone who is an intermediate — knowledgeable without experience. the third domain is experienced people who lack wisdom. the fourth domain is wise people. and of course the fifth domain, as always, in somewhat undefined, somewhat unknowable, and perhaps unattainable. i will speculate that the fifth domain is transcendence or post-humanism.