Intelligence, always with the programme. Always sniffing the air to work out what’s trending. What the new thing is. What view we’re supposed to have. What we’re supposed to agree with now.
Intelligence, anticipating the way the world is going. Future trends. The changing consensus. Working out what’s required. The new effort to be made. The new normal. How to fall in line, this time.
Intelligence, totally programmable. Falling in line, in advance. Looking out for new orders to obey. For new opportunities for subservience. For subordination.
Intelligence, essentially opportunistic. Always ahead of the curve. Ultraconventional, in essence. Ready to do what it’s supposed to. Willing to be hijacked. To be piloted remotely by the social engineers. By behavioural psychologists.
Stupidity, on the other hand … is incapable of opportunism. Isn’t even thinking of itself. Of its own interests.
We were never intelligent. Never clever. That’s what saved us, Livia said. Intelligence is entirely obedient. Cleverness is essentially opportunistic. It’s all about malleability. Conforming to the latest message. Doing the latest thing
The strength of idiocy, on the other hand, is that it can only be itself. That it’s always stuck on its own rail. Following its own stupid path. Away from groupthink! Away from the usual.
Intelligence is markedly social, Livia said. It’s about conformity. About fitting in.
Better, thickness. Better, stupidity. Better, obstinacy. Better, slowness. Better, mild retardation.
Better, obliviousness. Better, muddle. Better, stuckness. Better, not to know what’s going on.
Better, to be stunned. Better, dazedness. Better, the lag-behind. Better stuckness in the idiotic mire …
Intelligence is never appalled, Livia said. Intelligence is never horrified. Intelligence is always looking to adapt. Intelligence always wants to fit in.
What’s the Grundstimmung of intelligence? Livia asked, rhetorically. Keenness. The desire to what it’s told. Like some dog, all keen, panting. Tongue hanging out! Ready to chase off after something it’s supposed to.
Intelligence is accommodation. Is fitting in. Intelligence is the pipeline from the future that our rulers want. The future Organisational Management wants to beam in. Intelligence is the conduit, essentially.
Better, stupidity. Better, obliviousness. Better, just scratching your head. When you’re not the channel for anything. When no signal’s reaching you. When your density is too great. When you’re too oblivious for anything to come through.
A density. A thickness of mood. That makes everything slow.
Like some kind of prism. A medium through which things cannot pass. Deflection – infinite slowing down. So that everything gets lost. So that signal gives way to noise.
A drawling. A dazedness.
A massif of stupidity. A great block of idiocy. A great think lump.
The gravity of thickness. Infinite weight. Where can escape its event horizon. Where no thought can escape the gravity well of idiocy.
Our personality disorders. Our malfunctioning.
Work in Progress 