Pet Peeves

It seems customary in our day to do group activities everytime a new group is formed: a freshman class, teamwork conferences at work, etc. Similar behavior takes place when two strangers meet randomly in order to get to know each other better. One of the topics that enevitably comes up in conversation is pet peeves. Usually I just make something up but in the past couple of days, I've realized I actually have an answer. Well, more like a combination answer...thingy. Anyway my biggest pet peeve is ignorance/stupidity.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions about me being terrible, insensitive, or intolerant let me explain. The American Heritage Dictionary defines ignorance as the condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed. And stupidity is defined as a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience by WordNet. One can't blame someone for simply not knowing something; no one is born knowing everything and indeed no one dies that way either. However, if you do have access to certain information and either don't seek it out or can't figure it out because of some reason other than legitimate learning disabilities and the like, you are to blame and you anger me.

As an example, in fact the one that inspired this rant, I was watching Fight Club the other night when a stupid and ignorant person approached and started bashing the movie and in turn, me for watching it. They came in during one of the fight scenes and started yelling about how "that kind of ignorant thuggery is immoral". Ironic that they used that word - ignorant. We got into a very brief argument about the meaning of the movie and how the fighting is merely the vehicle which delivers meaning to the audience. Unfortunatley before I could really get into the meaning, I was shut down and told to turn it off because, again, it was immoral. Frustrated, I finally just asked if they had even seen the movie. Not at all suprising at this point, the answer was no. Now, I'm not claiming that this is the movie of the century or anything but it is a very good movie and indeed the fighting is no more than a tool. I will defend it to a certain extent but if someone doesn't like it, I can't help that. However, if you bash it and me for watching it and have never seen it yourself and get that angry about it, you're a damn fool.

Baically ignorance and stupidity fuel anger and violence and I have no tolerance for it. Perhaps "pet peeve" is too mild a description...