Some people!

Sometimes it amazes me how stupid people are. Well, maybe that's being harsh, even for me. Perhaps it would be better to say "uneducated" instead of stupid. Or perhaps "unwilling to become educated."

Take today, for example. As I was sitting in line to buy this week's parking pass, a person in front of me had to be told how to fill out a check. He didn't know that on one line you write the words of the dollar amount, and in the box you write the numbers of the dollar amount. I wonder if he knew where to sign. Now if I'm honest, this isn't really a case of being stupid. But by the time somebody is in college, they should have taken it upon themselves to learn how to write a check, especially if, say, they have a checkbook. But in the land of debit cards and online shopping, I guess that isn't necessary anymore.

Second case. In my philosophy class, we occasionally have to participate in an online discussion board though Blackboard (I think we've done this three times). On of the previous discussions that we had was on whether or not there all theories of social and political arrangement involve some assumption of the moral equality of all people. This would be because every theory (except ones that any rational person would automatically discount) involve some sort of equality, or some thing that ought to be distributed equally (for Nozick, this is libertarian property rights, for Rawls this is equal liberty and initial distribution of primary goods).

Anyways, we have this online discussion, and I'd say about 90% of my classmates object to moral equality because "people don't have the same views on morality." Perhaps it isn't clear because I haven't quoted the entire introduction to the discussion, but this is obviously not what "moral equality" means in this case, which is even more obvious if you read our required reading for the discussion (of course I realized hardly anybody actually read it).

So about two or three people make a post about relativist morality, when I make my post. I nicely (at least in my opinion) that almost everybody missed the point, and proceed to explain what the conversation should actually be about, pointing out that I think the moral equality of human beings is based on a shared rationality (although sometimes I have to be in doubt of this). But it doesn't matter! First of all, somebody disagrees with me (silly person!), and everybody still continues to discuss whether or not all people hold the same morals (the answer is a resounding 'no').

But then, in class, our professor points out that "almost everybody missed the point," and refers to my post about the true topic we were supposed to be discussing. But it doesn't matter again! People are still posting (required participation that they didn't realize before, so they're trying to make up some points) and still talking about the lack of universal morals. I just don't get it. Can somebody please explain to me how people can be so stupid, for lack of a better word?

I'm trying not to be harsh, but it's rather difficult when the correct topic has been pointed out not once, but twice, and is still posted for them to read. And I don't want to hear that it's because they're undergrads, or young, because I'm really not that different a student from when I was younger and an undergrad, and I would have gotten the point then. Plus, most of these people are still older than me!