Elbo's Clues For A More Unified Future

Honestly, the cultural and political warfare in this country has me a little concerned. The divisions that exist may have always existed, it's just that someone, something lately has taken a hot-chartreuse highlighter to it, just to make sure that everyone is blinded by it.

Well, I don't think this is going to turn around, at least not by just letting it ferment.

So I have decided to put forth some conversational tips, some little helpful hints that should make it a hell of a lot easier for us poor shlubs to find that common ground and hopefully make us realize that warring with each other over seriously stupid shit is what is taking our eyes and our mind off of the real issues we face.

A word of warning: I will be presenting these things in a vernacular that some people may find coarse. Vulgar. Offensive. But rest assured that the words I choose, I choose carefully. If you feel your brain sizzle, pay it no mind. It just means I'm getting through to you.


For today's installment, I've decided to focus on the friction between intellectuals and anti-intellectuals. When you get one of each of these in a room together, it's pretty much guaranteed that whatever conversation does transpire will devolve into a verbal explosion of Pompeiian proportions, that is, if they find a topic to discuss at all. Today's coin flip is... tails... so the anti-intellectuals get first attention.


Tip For The Anti-Intellectual

You know, intellectuals are getting a little sick and tired of getting precisely dick in respect. Always being accused of being aloof and using big words and so forth. Well, Mr. and Mrs. anti-intellectual, all these little trinkets and baubles and electronic toys, your cellphones, that cable you're addicted to, that computer you're viewing this with, would not exist without the brainiacs.

Intelligent and creative people who don't toe the intellectual low bar, who think outside the realm of the now to see the future, who have the skills to realize that future are a big reason why you have the things you have and live in the world you do. And trust me, if you thought back to the good ole days and what you'd have to do without, you'll invariably not have it any other way than right here, right now.

That car you drive, the television you watch, the computer you type miserable anti-intellectual screeds upon, even the light bulbs that keep you from tripping over the cat when it's late all would not be, were it not for people who were driven by their own creativity and intellect.

So the next time you find yourself getting pissy about the "intellectual elite" and how everything would be so great if everyone thought the same way and used small words and had small ideas and was just simply happy to just sit in the barcalounger letting the cable ooze all over them, just don't, OK? Show some respect to people whose endeavors have made your life easier.

Tip For The Intellectual

Do you ever get tired of looking down your nose at people who are less intelligent than you? Not everyone gives a flat shit about Existential Pseudogravitas in a Kantian Dialectic (yes, dipshit, I did make it up... this is what you SOUND LIKE TO OTHER PEOPLE), and not everyone should. Not everyone can or WANTS to go to college, so you'll pardon them if they haven't studied the intricacies of quantum fucking mechanics or chaos fucking theory. We accept the fact that there are absolutely worthwhile people who are quite content to work with their hands, and who think that a fine days work can be expressed in sweat off their brows and calluses on their fingers.

You seem to view the manual labors of life as fodder for lesser men and women.

I'd like to see you fit pipe. I'd like to see if you can get to your job of pontificating about the poignancy of Dadaism without someone occasionally repairing that road you're traveling on. I'd like you to see you drive your own garbage, including the leftover Thai food you left on the bottom shelf of the fridge for two-and-a-half years, to a dump ten miles out of your way twice a week... in your brand new sports car.

Without the skills, know-how, and labors of those people you look down upon, your basement would be underwater at the first leaky coupling without a plumber, your house would boil in the summer and freeze in the winter without the HVAC guy, and that sumptuous interior of that sports car would have the intoxicating aroma of rotted banana peels, three-day-old flounder, and damp coffee grounds.

So the next time you find yourself getting pissy about the "rabble" and how everything would be so great if everyone thought the same way and used big words and had big ideas and was just simply happy to just sit in the study reading Heidegger, just don't, OK? Show some respect to people whose endeavors have made your life easier.