POPULAR WISDOM

Always question popular wisdom. It turns out that the term is somewhat misleading. Oh, it's popular alright, in the sense that it's widely accepted. It's the wisdom part that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Like drinking all that water we American people have become accustomed to in our Quixotic quest to live forever (not going to happen, by the way), imagining we are doing something right and good for ourselves. Turns out there's really no discernible health benefit at all to carrying around 2 liter bottles of water like we all live in the Gobi Desert. In fact some authorities are saying too much water is harmful to our health, washing essential vitamins and nutrients from our systems. One can only hope these scientists discover similar findings about all the manic exercising people seem to be doing lately.

It's hard to say how some things become part of the fabric of popular wisdom, especially things like paying a couple of dollars for a bottle for water when it's always been readily available and free. It seems someone just has to say something loud enough and long enough and people think it's a good thing. The notion that we are all infected with various ailments not diagnosed by medical doctors seems to be pretty entrenched, along with the notion that buying some expensive pill will remedy the situation and we can all be happy and carefree once again. Placebos for imagined ailments. Not exactly a new idea but sill a very profitable proposition for giant drug companies. And it beats riding around the countryside with a horse and wagon selling snake oil to farmers, people who carried pitchforks and always seemed to have a shotgun handy.

And how about the notion that violence solves nothing? What could be further from the truth? While it's not the recommended course of action in most areas of life, it sure comes in handy from time to time and often decides an issue quite effectively indeed. For example, what stopped Hitler from exterminating all the Jews instead of 6 million of them? That's right, violence on a grand scale. What is football but controlled violence? And nobody gets to be the Heavyweight Champion of the World without beating the holy hell out of the former Heavyweight Champion of the World. That announcer guy Michael Buffer doesn't dramatically announce before a title fight "Let's get ready to negotiate!"

So you question these things. Indeed some bits of popular wisdom do stand up to scrutiny. There really isn't any plausible reason for running with scissors. Unless of course they introduce the Scissor Race in the Olympics, which would seem rather silly but no sillier than Synchronized Swimming. Or how about that winter sport where you ski around in the woods firing a rifle? Now there's a sport that flies in the face of any sort of wisdom, popular or otherwise. If you did that outside of Olympic competition you'd be hunted down and slain by the authorities for terrorizing regular skiers, and rightfully so. You wonder where these people train for that competition, if only to cross off that location for that ski vacation you always dreamed of for you and your family. Nothing ruins a good family outing like little Billy getting shot with a high-powered rifle.

But I digress. What were we talking about? Popular Wisdom, right, all the accepted notions that we take for granted but really shouldn't. At one time popular wisdom recommended bleeding sick people to rid them of "ill humours" or "vapours." And always popular wisdom included the assumption that one type of people or another were inferior beings, and everybody knows where that train is headed. Christopher Columbus had so much contempt for popular wisdom that he risked falling off the edge of a flat earth to sail to Cuba for a good cigar, or whatever the hell he was looking for. He probably noticed that nobody ever explained exactly what you would fall on or into if you fell off the edge of the earth. Or perhaps he just wanted to get away from the quacks who wanted to drain half his blood to cure a head cold.