THE GRAND DESIGN AND THE DAY OF THE CRETIN.

By Nii B. Andrews.

For the last ten months, I have been in Tema. It has been the longest uninterrupted stretch that I have spent here in the last 12 years. 

And boy, never have I seen, encountered, heard and experienced at first hand such monumental ignorance and plain crassness.

Sadly, it often comes puffed and badly dressed up; often noisy and boisterous, often titled – honorable, doctor, professor, chief and the latest flavor de jure, prophet/pastor; now it even produces extra legal violence and recurrent subversion of progressive societal norms.

The over riding attitude is an aversion to facts; an anti-scientific stance; a parochial, rustic, provincial, close minded perspective; a distinct lack of urbaneness and finesse; a penchant for bullying, baseness and the lowest common denominator; an Ahenfie mentality.

MYSTIC AFRICAN WOMAN IN SPIRIT AND FORM, SERIES #3; Cecilia Lamptey-Botchway; Oil, Acrylic on Canvas; 30” by 22”, 2019. Signed and dated.

Theirs is “a war against facts, a flight from reason motivated by a cult of incuriosity. It is culturally corrosive but politically expedient”, and certainly only viable in the short term.

Our public educational system is terrible, period. It is piss-poor and produces cretins.

Hence there is a huge deficit in the things that education provides, such as: the ability to think, to distinguish the truth from the lie, to process and evaluate the information that we are given.

Enlightenment is about debating or discussing ideas and options. 

But when we have to argue on basic facts, progress is dead; crooks and their enablers are in control. 

There is no point in debating options when there is total divergence on the assessment of the current situation. 

Washington DC, Senate chamber, January 6, 2021.

One example, that has stuck with me will suffice: the CEO of an institution who nonchalantly arrives 55 minutes late with his team to a scheduled morning business meeting and does not even bother to proffer a credible excuse; he is wearing a purple long sleeved shirt with an ivory flying tie over charcoal pants.

When reminded that the meeting was scheduled for earlier, he then proceeds to chide the speaker for being aggressive……meeehn!

The result is a society with a complete lack of understanding and appreciation of the Grand Design which is writ large in nature. 

Science has as its main objective the understanding of nature. When we practice good science we are rewarded by sharing in nature’s secrets; the spinoff is technology that leads to progress and development.

BLOOM: Denzel Oduro, digital print, 2020.

Please remind me of the last technological advance that was initiated from here.

All scientific and artistic practice are a powerful and valid expression of our underlying humanity and the former especially of our human curiosity.

Since the deaths of close to 2 million people in 12 months from COVID-19, a tremendous global scientific effort has produced several vaccines to assist in controlling the disease. 

In the interim, the ubiquitous purveyors of mis and dis information from our part of the world are still unrelenting while living in the midst of medieval sanitation, erratic water and electricity supply and a total absence of the modicum of any worthwhile planning.

While the means to eradicate malaria have been applied successfully in parts of Africa, we in ghana are still reeling from it without even acknowledging the carnage particularly among children…and cholera, TB, typhoid…need we continue?

OUR DYING CORRAL REEFS, Felicia Murray. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/nov/21/artists-reinvent-the-mask-in-pictures

Do we even care? 

Are we capable of thinking or willing to think scientifically?

Do we understand and appreciate the Grand Design?

A truly independent, free-thinking, liberated person will fully embrace and seek to apply the seven Liberal Arts aka the liberating arts.

For to be free, in order to develop to your full potential – which is part of the Grand Design – you need to understand the universe in a certain way.

A new year has started and from all indications the scene while looking out, reading and listening from my lair looks like business as usual.

The same puffery, banal acts and pronouncements; the same acolytes and proselytisers of mediocrity; NOTHING is analyzed, understood and given its highest interpretation as an integral part of the Grand Design.

10 thoughts on “THE GRAND DESIGN AND THE DAY OF THE CRETIN.”

  1. MYSTIC AFRICAN WOMAN IN SPIRIT AND FORM, SERIES #3 is just wonderful. We need more mystical women in the world!

    The link of the guardian is wonderful too.

    I agree, we need a grand design but as covid rightly pointed out — the world is far from sharing that vision cohesively.

    We see greed and power get in the way in so many ways. I had thought covid was going to lead to an awakening but I am afraid it is not and worse, it is used as a tool for even shadier agendas…..

    I guess this is a time where artists are needed more than ever and yet….culture is the first to suffer these days.

  2. Interesting write-up. you definitely don’t mince your words. 😀😀😀

    You say it like it is.

  3. Brilliant essay, Nii. You’ve captured the malaise of our home base in exquisite detail. It is depressing. Take care.

  4. You are so right!

    As for this…you have captured enough!

    I am surprised that the magnitude of covid hasn’t created the reality we so desperately need for progress.. thanx for sharing..you have expanded my vocabulary this morning..some words that need a dictionary.. blessed day….Jummah Mubarak.

  5. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
    Loaded with wisdom.
    Thanx very much.

  6. “Puffery ” , ” Mediocrity ”
    I agree with all that and more😀
    Did we discover Kwashiokor?😜

  7. 👍🏾. Perhaps you may want to elaborate on the Grand design in a future post though.

    On our educational standards, they are agreably dismal. The East and South Africans now command the english language.

    And what was the relevance of the raid from rioters in Washington Capitol?

  8. “… a lack of understanding of and appreciation for the Grand Design”
    Bam!!! (As they say) 💥🔥⚡💯 The importance of the intangibles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *