False Sense of Intelligence
by Jason Katzwinkel
Stroke an ego and something is going to come out. Occasionally, the result of manhandling one's own image of self is a brain child, but usually it ends up as nothing more than a mundane ejaculation creating a stain that no one but the one who created it can see, though he's sure that the rest of the world can see it as plain as a nose on a face. If you look hard enough, you can see this brain spunk everywhere, a thin film of gooze that sheets the world, making it all the more slippery. It's not all over the place by accident. Those stains are placed there, with much consideration, because these stains are meant to be seen, shot all over the place as often as possible by the dogs of Pavlov who know that the more spunk they make, the more stroking they get. And, of course, it's the stroking that's important.
Everyone in this world knows that to create something of beauty and genius is to gain and gather all the praise and attention you can handle. Can everyone create something of beauty or genius? No. Then there'd be no standard by which to measure and all things beautiful and intelligent would be rendered mundane and ho-hum. Does everyone want the fame and praise that comes along with such a creation? Yes. But, hey, what're ya gonna do?
Well, the logical course of action is to do whatever needs to be done to create the thing of beauty that will bring you the recognition you so very desperately crave. Hmm. How does one go about creating a thing of genius? Of course! You look at something someone else has done, something that has made someone else loved, revered and admired. You look at that, examine how it was done and steal the style or intent without actually reproducing the same thing. That way you'll have your own illegitimate brainchild.
Now, you know very well that you don't have the talent or knowledge of your protégé, but that's fine. No one in this slack-jawed, half-asleep world knows what's really behind the thing of beauty. Those animals cannot see the genius behind the creation, so while you cannot actually and truly reproduce the genius necessary, you can create a false sense of intelligence.
"A false sense of intelligence? What the hell is that?"
That, you see, is one of the greatest shams of the modern art world. A false sense of intelligence. It comes about like this: A person of true intelligence, an honest-to-God genius, creates a thing-of-beauty and it is held in awe by the world. Now, the world cannot understand half of what the thing-of-beauty is about because it was created by a genius and many of the brilliant nuances in this thing-of-beauty fly over the heads of the general populace. The world sees these things-of-beauty time and time again, and each time parts of the message are lost in ignorance, so the world begins to think, "I cannot understand this, so it must be a work of genius. This is art." Once that odd belief was rooted into the consciousness of the world, the false sense of intelligence was born. Birthed by someone who decided that he didn't need to be a genius to create things-of-beauty. Just an artist. An artist is someone who creates art and art is something that cannot be understood by the world; therefore, the role of an artist is to create things that cannot be understood by the world. This person creates something, some random who-knows-what, and, of course, it is not understood by the world. The world looks on it as art and the creator as the artist who must be – since he created this thing that is beyond the comprehension of the public – a genius when, in fact, the only intelligent thing the person did was trick the world into thinking he was intelligent. So by creating something that looks like it has some message but cannot be understood (because there is nothing there to understand), the "artist" has created a false sense of intelligence.
And the trick caught on. It became very popular. Just stroke your own ego and your brain will spew something up and create a stain. And thestain will get noticed by your pointing it out to everyone who steps near it. The stain will be taken note of and your ego will once again be stroked and you can jisz all over the place from that point on, covering your little portion of the world with your own brain spunk.
Copyright © 1999 by Jason Katzwinkel