Is It Time To Teach Cynicism In Schools?
I’m not a natural cynic, it may surprise you to learn. I tend to see the good side of people; I tend to assume that the people I deal with are honest, fair and decent people. But equally I’m cautious. I’m aware that many people aren’t honest, and therefore I’m not likely to assume that people just want my bank account details in order to funnel money into my bank account.
But it appears that this level of world-weary cynicism (damn, what a giveaway!) is just not filtering through to everyone.
Firstly, there was the story of the bizarre spam on AccessifyForum, where someone claiming to be looking for work seemed to think it necessary to post his name, address, national insurance number, full bank account details and mother’s maiden name online.
Of course, it could also have been a deliberate deception, but it’s frighteningly possible that could just simply be that some people are that stupid.
Similarly, two British students have been arrested in Ghana, for allegedly attempting to smuggle £300,000 of cocaine. However, they contend that they are innocent because nobody told them the bags contained cocaine.
There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags and told us … it was an empty bag.
We never thought anything bad was inside … and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy … at the airport.
It was basically like a set-up. They didn’t tell us nothing, we didn’t think nothing, ‘cos basically we are innocent.
One of the girls, quoted on BBC News
Right: let’s get this clear. Someone offers to pay for your trip to Ghana, and all you have to do is … ahem … take a bag — which they say is empty — and take it back to London, where someone will specifically be waiting for said empty bag at the airport.
None of that seemed suspicious to you in any way whatsoever?
Thoughts like “so why would anyone be specifically waiting for an empty laptop case?”, or “why are they offering us £3000 to carry laptop cases when they would be much cheaper to send by freight” or “that’s funny, last time I looked, you could buy laptop cases in London too…” didn’t spring to mind?
Of course, to my mind there’s a significant difference between not wondering about these things at all (it means you’re stupid) and having these concerns but for one reason or another deciding not to act on them. It also appears that these girls didn’t tell their parents they were going to Ghana, they told them they were going on a school trip to France.
Oh dear.
Or there’s the case where the teenagers who are away with their parents give some of their friends the keys to the house and invite them to use the house while they are away. They then seem to be surprised when there the obligatory teenage party is held and the party results in £15,000 damage.
Where’s the surprise there? I’ve been to teenage parties in my time, I know what happens. Stuff gets broken. Peanuts get trodden into the carpet. Teenagers have never been reknowned for having an over-developed sense of responsibility.
Of course, it’s thanks to these people, with their under-developed common sense, that we have to be told that bags of peanuts “contain nuts” or that when you buy a cup of coffee from a fast food outlet you are told “warning: contents may be hot”.
Surely if people are allowed to be innocent of a crime simply on the grounds of stupidity, or an inability to spot concerns that the rest of us would have picked up on immediately, then these people ought to be locked up anyway, in the interests of public safety?
After all, if I was to feel that it was perfectly okay to drive my car into my neighbour’s front room, he’d probably complain (and quite rightly, too). He’d probably also think that I deserved to be prosecuted for deliberately doing this. It would be unfair to prosecute me if I was so stupid that I thought it was a perfectly sensible act, but — and here’s the crux — he has a right to be protected from anyone that daft.
Anyone who doesn’t have enough common sense to realise that an act like that is illegal should be prevented from having the tools to allow them to carry out an act like that. If you are too stupid to drive, you shouldn’t be allowed to. That is what the driving test is for.
But should we not also be attempting to ensure that someone daft enough to carry home ‘a couple of empty cases’ which turn out to have a street value of some £300,000 shouldn’t be allowed to go abroad and use their passports without competent adult supervision?
Hello. I am 
…neither should they be allowed to breed, thereby reducing the possibility of this happening in the future.
sometimes i despair at the “life skills” that are being taught in schools today to the detriment of stuff like science and p.e.
but if kids in todays world haven’t developed common sense of their own and their parents haven’t bothered teaching them any then obviously it’s the governments fault and needs to be taught in schools…….,
maybes lack of common sense can be diagnosed as a disability? then doctors could prescribe chaining the buggers to the bannister for everyone’s safety