Choosing to be Dumb
There’s a line that has lingered in popular culture for decades, delivered with quiet authority by Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” It sounds almost throwaway at first glance, like something simple enough to shrug off, yet it carries a depth of meaning that becomes more unsettling the longer you sit with it. Because what it really suggests is that stupidity is not a fixed state. It is not something you are born with or condemned to forever. It is something you enact. It is something you choose, repeatedly, often without realizing it. And that’s where things begin to get uncomfortable. We live in a time where information is more accessible than at any point in human history. Knowledge sits in our pockets, waiting to be accessed, explored, challenged, and understood. Yet, paradoxically, we also live in an era where deliberate ignorance has become fashionable. Not accidental ignorance, not a lack of opportunity, but a conscious turning away from learning. A refusal to enga...