Randy Newman didn’t mean that LSU grads “went in dumb, come out dumb too”…he meant they began college as relatively ignorant freshmen and by the time they’d graduated four years later hadn’t much broadened their knowledge base or enriched their minds or immersed themselves in the output of great philosophers, historians, poets, politicians, playwrights, filmmakers, musicians, biographers or cultural trailblazers of whatever stripe…so in love with thinking, feeling and behaving like good ole yokels that they were kinda proud of it.
But songwriters are generally obliged to boil it all down to basics, of course, and so that lyric from “Rednecks” reads like it reads, and I chuckle every time I hear or read it.
And yet putdown-wise, I regard “dumb” in the same light as “ugly” — fundamentally cruel terms because they allude to fixed afflictions, like blindness or dwarfism or some other deformity, that a person can’t do much about. I’ve never once described anyone as being physically ugly and I never will, although I’ve alluded many times to certain persons coming from a spiritually or emotionally ugly place (certain HE comment-threaders come to mind in this regard…repeat offenders like Glenn Kenny and several others I’ve deep-sixed over the years…ditto a few toxic film critics and columnists I’ve run into over the years).
And yet what most of us mean when we say “dumb” or “dumbass” or “dumbshit” is “ignorant”, which is to say a person who’s not only under-educated but hasn’t the slightest interest in trying to remedy this situation. I’ve been accused of ignorance many times in my life, and quite often accurately. But more often than not or at least a fair amount of times I’ve not only taken this criticism to heart but have, ahem, tried to do something about it.
It’s easier today to eliminate ignorance than at any previous time in human history…the joy of encountering new information or discovering fresh knowledge is one of the most sublime and simple pleasures within reach, and it’s all on your phone.
But the more I read and learn and contemplate the sprawling toxic wilderness out there, the more I’m reminded that honorary enrollment at Louisiana State University is something we’re all kinda sorta stuck with.
