IT PAYS TO BE IGNORANT

 

When I was young, there was a theme song on a radio game show that went like this:

 

It pays to be ignorant,

To be dumb, to be dim,

To be ignorant.

It pays to be ignorant,

Just like me.

 

Well, this still holds true, but with a slight twist. Alcoholic Ted Williams was gifted with a smooth deep voice. Through the Internet, someone brought him to public attention and, within a few short days, this shaggy drunk became a world wide celebrity. In no time at all, he was famous and getting job offers and his glorious voice is being aired on commercials and on television talk shows. He is a hero. People are pulling for him to succeed. I am quite certain he will succeed in slipping back into his darkness.

 

But people who have worked hard all their lives, talented people, sober people? They stand on long lines in the rain and snow waiting for an audition or an unemployment check. Why?

 

Because the media loves delinquents, criminals, the bizarre, the sensational, the gaudy, the outrageous. Put the raw flesh of a dead animal on your body and you are a star.

 

It pays to be bad. It pays to be ugly. It pays to be outrageous.

 

In western society, it pays to be ignorant.