(Sigh)
The key problem with banality is that it prevents people from thinking.
They plug in their bromides and platitudes and they sit back and think they’re clever, but really, it’s a substitute for thinking; it’s just quoting something somebody else has said, without examination.
For instance, somebody said today, of Jerry Lewis, “The French love him! Need I say more?”
We’re supposed to reply, “Yes, that says it all.”
Today we have specific reason to be upset with Jerry Lewis, his absolutely hateful comments on the Syrian refugees.
But “The French love him! Need I say more?” is a substitute for thinking.
Yeah, people have spent years making jokes about the boundless esteem French cineastes (once) had for the sometimes rancid works of Jerry Lewis.
But what is the thesis of “The French love him! Need I say more?”
That the French loving something is now automatically a sign that it’s worthless?
That the French have never contributed anything of value to world culture?
That it makes sense to despise something on the grounds that the French like it?
“Need I say more?” can cover any one of these things, all of which are clearly counter-factual.
The people who gave us Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas honestly have nothing to apologize for, on that score; nor do we, the people who made Kim Kardassian famous, have any grounds for superiority.
And that’s not even the point, here. The point is that the banal and the unexamined is no path to wisdom. “God never gives us anything we can’t handle” is banal and unexamined. “We need a President who’s not a politician” is banal and unexamined. Hell, “Batman can always defeat Superman, given enough prep time,” is banal and unexamined. What they all have in common is that they’re all borrowed wisdom, which the speaker has heard elsewhere and now parrots back, without testing for sense.
The banal and the unexamined are nothing but a large part of why the human race gets into so much trouble, so many times.
We accept this borrowed wisdom and then we don’t question it. Rather, we chant it, distorting it to the point where, yes, the mere love the French have for Jerry Lewis becomes a solipsism: well, of course he sucks! The French love him! It trumps common sense, and demonstrable knowledge.
Think.
Please.
Think.
You’ll be surprised at the places it takes you.
Comment By: David Vineyard
December 30th, 2015 at 4:26 pm
The only thing I ever agreed with Ayn Rand about is that evil is more often banal than proactive — more often the result of small men doing small things and not great villainy.
Comment By: Camilla Cracchiolo
December 30th, 2015 at 8:24 pm
Excellent article.