An unusual portrayal of a thoughtful, intelligent man appalled by the stupidity, conformism and arrogance of the people who habitually pass judgement upon him as he goes about his very necessary work. He rants to himself and ruminates on his disgust with the human species in general before deciding on a more targeted, fruitful, enjoyable and thoroughly violent course of action.
"I view most other people as lower lifeforms. This is not out of prejudice or out of arrogance, but out of experience. Not for a minute does this mean that I assume the worst and treat people badly from the outset. In fact, I make a point of treating people with the utmost decency, but I am not naive and I refuse to be blind or indifferent to the uncomfortable reality that most people are not intelligent, alert, thinking human beings. The intelligent, decent person is the very rare exception in the cesspit of human existence."
Warning: You might find this fiction book rather unsettling. It contains strong language and potentially offensive opinions throughout.
Please read these sample chapters, so you can decide for yourself if this is the sort of book you would enjoy reading:
An Intelligent Life
Warning: Many people would consider this book to be deeply offensive!
Preface
The narrator and central character in this book has no name, but, for the sake of convenience, let's call him Jack.
For much of this book, Jack rants and launches into one diatribe after another about the state of the world and the shitty people he meets in it. If this isn't the sort of thing you want to read, that's fine, but please don't be so fucking thick that you read this book and then complain that it's full of rants and diatribes. Yes, it is! That's the idea! This book is for people who enjoy that sort of thing.
I enjoy Jack's diatribes because, sometimes, I feel like he does. When God saw fit to make me, however, he made me remarkably sanguine. I take the same shit Jack takes, yet remain calm. Somehow it barely bothers me at all. Actually that's not quite right - it does bother me; it bothers me a great deal how shitty people are to each other and how obstinately stupid they choose to remain - I just don't take it personally.
I look around and I see a world plagued by selfish stupidity. I see it as a serious problem that needs to be dealt with, but I don't see it as a personal punishment or as a judgement on my past lives. I manage to remain largely above the worst of all the hate and anger - but I think there's a Jack inside and I wonder what it is that contains him so well.... and whether that containment is foolproof.
The central character in this book has, as you will discover, a tendency towards violence. I am drawn to Jack. I like him. I'm interested by his ideas and by the frustrations and anger that he feels. I even share his sense of satisfaction when something nasty happens to someone who has been asking for it. I don't, however, advocate any such hatred or violence. I advocate kindness in all things. I wonder, nevertheless, how long it will be before Jack's methods and solutions are the only ones we have left.
Being Right
One of the most offensive things about being intelligent is that you tend to be right an awful lot of the time. Even when you might not be provably right, no-one has the capacity to clearly demonstrate that you are wrong. You're always ahead of the game, because you have the capacity to think through your opinions and arguments and see for yourself where they might need improving before anyone else does.
Being right nearly all the time annoys the living crap out of people! One of the reasons for this is that many people nowadays seem to believe that there is some sort of United Nations-sanctioned human right that guarantees that they are allowed to be right at least as much as anybody else. No matter how ill-considered, illogical, prejudiced and downright facile their ideas and beliefs are, no-one is allowed to so much as suggest that their ideas and beliefs are any less 'right' or 'valid' than anyone else's.
"It's my opinion," they say, "and I'm entitled to it!" This is true, of course - they are entitled to their opinion (wherever they borrowed it from). This doesn't make them right, of course - the ignorant cunts! It may be their opinion, but they can still be blatantly and obviously wrong and the intelligent person has the annoying ability to be able to prove it.
It is true that there are many issues on which there appears to be no absolute, definitive proof as to what is right and wrong. Annoyingly, for most people, however, the intelligent person is still capable of proving someone wrong simply by applying some basic logic. In most cases, a little questioning and probing, and it becomes clear that the opinion held is often contradictory to various premises or assumptions that the person themselves is not only readily willing to accept, but is actually relying on as part of their own argument. The idiot in question is found to be contradicting themselves.
The uncomfortable fact is that intelligent people have a much greater 'right' than anyone else to be right - or, at least, not obviously wrong - because it is they who have put in the effort to analyse their own opinions, test them using logic and reason and adjust their arguments and opinions for any inaccuracies or inconsistencies that are found. When the discussion or argument arrives, they are simply better-equipped and better-prepared than the other people involved.
I have my own, patented system for ensuring nobody ever wins an argument against me: If someone comes up with a logical, rational point, then I acknowledge and accept it. "That's a good point," I say. I just take on board their logical point and encompass it into my own argument. In this way, no-one can 'win' an argument against me. People 'win' arguments when the other person refuses to accept a point even though it is perfectly rational and obvious.
With my way of doing things, everyone wins, because we can all benefit from having identified rational arguments, regardless of who came up with them. In practice, however, most people are fiercely reluctant to accept criticism or accept their own mistakes and the flaws in their own irrational arguments. Such people 'lose' arguments before they have even begun. They are so incredibly arrogant that, from the outset, they are set against the idea that they might be wrong in any way or that they might have anything at all to learn about anything.
Being right is the result of combining thinking ability with effort, a willingness to learn and a sound sense of principle and morality. We are not all entitled to rightness in equal measure and this really pisses a lot of people off. And yet the intelligent person has done nothing wrong. It is not wrong to think through your opinions and arguments before blurting them out, and just because most people don't do it, doesn't make it wrong! It's not wrong. Hell - never mind wrong - it isn't even illegal! Although it is staggeringly offensive - apparently!
Control
Most people feel distinctly uncomfortable when faced with an intelligent person - and one of the key reasons for their discomfort is the helplessness they feel when they are unable to control someone.
Intelligence requires a distinct capacity to think for yourself. As an intelligent person, your ideas and opinions will have a rational basis built upon sound principles. The opinions of other people will influence you only in so much as they contain well-reasoned, rational thoughts - you are not one to pick up an idea merely because it is popular. Independence of mind, however, is something that makes other people feel most uncomfortable.
The thing is that most people are used to having control over other people. By signalling various degrees of approval or disapproval, they can influence the opinions (voiced and otherwise) and behaviour of those people in their peer group. This sense of control affirms their importance within the peer group. Some members of a group may exert more control than others, but all are reassured that others are, to some extent, seeking their approval in some way. This reassures them about their position and status and helps them to feel comfortable.
Similarly, they show deference to the social group as a whole by allowing others to gain some degree of control over them. By demonstrating their own need to be approved of by other members of their peer group, as well as offering ready approval of others, they, in turn, help others to feel comfortable and feel they have a place within their social grouping. This manipulation and openness to manipulation marks each individual off as a member of the group; of the community of peers. It's all so very, very lovely!
It was also a system used extensively in Nazi Germany. Imagine this pretty little scene from pre-war Germany: "Jews are very nice..." (Signals of disapproval!!) "....er.. .. I mean...nice people ...to murder. Oh yes, and I can show you how good a Nazi I am by showing that I hate Jews even more than you do." And so the conversation continues until strong bonds of friendship and mutual appreciation form. How lovely indeed!
By definition, however, the intelligent, decent person doesn't behave in this way. When he expresses his opinions and ideas, the peer group he is talking amongst start to notice that these opinions are affected not at all by their increasingly desperate and forthright signals of disapproval - or even approval! The intelligent, decent person generally goes right ahead and says what he believes to be right, based on intelligent analysis and moral principles.
People are perplexed by such independently-minded, intelligent people. They cannot understand them. In particular, they have no experience of what it is like to be immune to social pressure.
Quickly following on from this initial perplexity, they get annoyed and upset. It upsets them that they have no means of control over such a person. Furthermore, this person, it seems, is being disrespectful to them by having the temerity to question their bullshit opinions.
As far as the group is concerned, the point of conversation is mutual back-slapping - to try to make each other feel good and to make everyone feel that their views are valued (even when they are not thought through or are merely the products of some selfish bigotry) and that they are all valued and accepted members of the group.
For the intelligent person, a conversation should be a learning experience, enabling each person to learn from the good ideas and criticisms of others - but this sort of thing is, of course, deeply frowned upon in polite society.
You're not playing by the rules! You're not playing to the crowd! You're not open to manipulation! In short; you're not wanted! You're just not enough of a brainless cunt to be acceptable to normal, 'polite' society! Most of all, people will hate you because you are not susceptible to the pathetic social pressures that they meekly enslave themselves to every hour of every day.
- - - End of Sample - - -
I hope you enjoyed it and would like to read more!
