To know or not to know . . .IDK

I recently watched a documentary about stupidity and the lack of any formal or scientific studies done to determine the extent of it in our society. The movie starts out by asking "people on the street" to describe this commonly used word and others that we direct at one another occasionally. Oddly enough, none of the impromptu interviews produced an answer. The story then provides the origins of such words as; idiot, imbecile and moron (which originated in Vineland, New Jersey), which is interesting, but not the focus of the film. The meat of the story is why people seemingly reject intellectual pursuits, while embracing mind-numbing programming on TV action movies based on comic books and all of the nonsensical clips on the internet. While, determining the nature of stupidity might seem a trivial pursuit, even stupid one, the point the filmmakers are trying to make isn't. A simple explanation would be that, if we unlock stupidity, we might be able to unlock intelligence, which is more important now than any time in mankind's past. If you are a George W. Bush fan, you'll want to stop the film at 55 minutes, which asserts that this former president and his administration believed that Americans were stupid and needed their guidance. Although I am not a fan of Bush Jr., I thought this segment detracted from the film, but that's my opinion. Overall, the film actually addresses a topic that needs to breach, but it does not dig deep enough. I think that a film called "Idiocracy" did a better job of spotlighting the problem with the path that we are all on . . . And it's funny.