Dumb People Who Act Dumb

You know what really grinds my gears?

There are people out in the world that choose to act dumb, despite being somewhat smart, and they develop this persona for society to see.

I guess I am really asking why? Why do people want to act dumber than they really are? Personally, I want to appear smarter to people than I really am, because I find that intelligence is a desirable character trait. So does society consider acting dumb a desirable trait?

I am choosing to focus on high school students, although I could talk forever about dumb celebrities (Paris Hilton). As an observant high school student, I watch people all day long that make most people wonder why are they in high school? You see, I have a philosophy about all students: All students are capable of learning to their full potential; nobody is born stupid. However, for those students that don't do well in school and do not try to get help throughout the year to better themselves actually try to not do well. Some may say that they are setting themselves up for failure, but I believe that some students actually try so hard to fail, that if they applied the same effort to succeeding, then they would receive great grades.

For the student that gets C in his or her classes, but tries his or her hardest everyday to do well is not at all stupid. I believe that these students that actually try deserve A's and B's, especially when considering other students that completely fail a class because they don't do anything to try to bring up their grade (until the last day of the semester). To go along with my philosophy, I believe that you have to put more effort into failing a class and less effort in passing. What really grinds my gears is that those kids that receive F's in their classes are okay with their grade.

Really? And how is that F a positive thing? It surely doesn't help out yourself or anybody else.

As society continues to sensationalize celebrities that appear to do nothing for all of their wealth, high school students begin to believe that they too can do nothing and still succeed in life. This is a major fallacy, for even those celebrities have had to work very hard for their success.

So after going off on a tangent there, allow me to go back to my original thesis. Some people feel that failure is an okay thing, and they act on this impulse and it develops into their ego. They take their ego, and they let everybody else know it. In my opinion, society is becoming more accepting of failure and acting dumb, which is certainly very bad. But who do we blame? We can blame the parents, celebrities, or the kids themselves. I would rather blame the education in America for being too soft on these kids and letting them get away with a slap on the wrist. Education should reward the good and punish the bad; however I believe that American education does pretty much the exact opposite.

So again, after going on a second tangent, people that act dumb really grind my gears, especially when, in my honest opinion, people are not inherently dumb.

And to repeat, that is what grinds my gears.

Cameron