Someone posted a picture of an antique tool on a Facebook group that exists to identify antique tools. I looked at the picture and identified it immediately. I used one for its intended purposes for many years. We lived completely off-grid for eighteen years and regularly used hand tools from a century ago. Sometimes when we’d go “out” and visit the towns, we’d go to the junk and thrift stores because you could find good non-electric tools there. Most people would have no idea what those items were for.
This one is kind of a callback to my column the other day about the old ice houses!
An ice pick is an easy one, but it makes the point. Who uses an ice pick for ice anymore? Used to be, every kitchen in America had a drawer with at least one ice pick in it. Ice-pick murders were regular fare in TV and Movie mysteries. Ice picks were like quicksand stories. They were everywhere in the 60s and 70s, but when I was ten years old ice picks were already on the way out. We were already making cubed ice in ice trays. Soon enough, people started buying refrigerators that made ice. Ice picks, after that, were just for stabbing holes in things.
The point is that it is pretty common for a tool that was once in ubiquitous use in America to just disappear – except for the rare ones you can find in junk stores.
We would go to Fredericksburg (back when it was fun and inexpensive) and we’d spend a day going to all the junk/antique stores. We’d find old hand tools there – sitting on a shelf instead of in the city dump – just because they looked old.
Misidentified. Buy the tool for a few bucks and what a gold mine for us!
People don’t know what these cool and awesome tools were for.
Ok, so back to the story. Here’s the way groups work. Someone starts a group to identify old tools. People join the group because they think it is cool and they might need to identify a tool sometime. More people join because they think they are detectives and that it is a guessing game. More people join because they live in a bubble and inside their bubble, they are the smart people. Surely everyone needs to know their opinion!
Anyway, someone posts a picture of a tool. There follows about 75 comments with people mostly guessing incorrectly or making jokes about what the tool is for. What the original poster doesn’t know is that the second comment got it correct, but that correct comment is soon swamped by all the other incorrect (but adamant!) guesses. Most of the guesses are not marked as guesses. There is no question mark after the comment. Later, there is an argument between people who are both equally wrong. So, it reads like this:
It’s a nail trimmer for fetal lambs!
Piston ring expander.
It’s a staple puller.
Faucet bung wrench?
My mom had one of those and she used it to hold down the bacon drip tray.
The guy who said that is cannon wick lighter is an idiot.
You’re the idiot, I saw one of those in that movie The Patriot.
…and on and on…
Seventy-one wrong answers mixed here and there with a rare correct answer, but how can someone get educated and know which one is right since all of the answers seem so certain, even though they are certainly wrong?
One signature trait of our age is a perfectly balanced blend of high ignorance and high certainty. They go hand in hand today.
As I said, when a group starts there is an intention behind it – a purpose. Soon people join the group for myriad other purposes. Eventually, the majority in the group matches the majority in society – ignorant people who are absolutely sure of themselves, or at least unafraid of using their ignorance to lead others far astray. And here’s the downside (or the even downer side)…
The people who know what they are doing – who are legitimate experts in something – those people end up going silent or leaving the group. You can’t help people when your voice is drowned out by ignorant barkers. The next level of people rises to take over. These are the people who have a passing interest or affinity for the topic, but not as much real expertise. Eventually, even these people are silenced or leave, too. They grow to the point where they, like the experts, can’t compete with the certainty of the ignorant. The mass then rises and takes control. They control every group in society, for the most part. They control committees, legislatures, and most levels of government. These are those who are fascinated by the machinations of power, but who know little. They are earnest, and often earnestly wrong, but they are too ignorant to know they are wrong. These cabals run the world today. They run the HOAs and the schools. They make decisions everywhere. This is the way groups work. They hate genius. They hate people who have real-world expertise and experience. They are the destroyers of art and commerce. They traffic in ignorant mediocrity. It happened with the Pharisees – go read it! A man came along who was an expert and they hated that man.
The ignorant write the self-help books, the tutorials, the lesson plans.
The point is that I have given you a lens through which to look at modern life. The people who want power, who rise to levels of authority, are suspect, because our age will not countenance real expertise and humble experience. There is an old joke…
A man is asked by a co-worker: “How do you always stay out of arguments with stupid people?”
Man: “I just say, ‘You’re probably right,” and leave it at that.
Co-worker: “I think that is a horrible idea.”
Man: “You’re probably right.”
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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.
