User:Conventional Wisdom

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[edit] Background

Conventional Wisdom was born fully-formed and clad in armor like a less anthropomorphized Minerva. Everywhere there was truth that existed ouside of the comfortable range of thought, Conventional Wisdom was there to thwart its dissemination, to protect the mind from what it cannot easily understand. It nurtured pride and mental laziness, all that contributed to the inertia of the mind. For the first ten thousand years of existance Conventional Wisdom was there, squelching creativity of thought. It's widespread due to the fact that Conventional Wisdom is viral in nature, hijacking brains, burrowing into the cortex, until Conventional Wisdom becomes indistinguishable from truth, until the mind itself becomes diseased. Then, when the cerebrum is lame, it will itself produce the imformation spores, which, if unguarded against, will pervert others, geometrically increasing it's presence. In this way, it resembles its cousin rumor, save that rumor is rarely as fully embedded as Conventional Wisdom, nor is it as crippling.

[edit] Modern Incarnation

Conventional Wisdom is no less present today than it was in the superstition-saturated beliefs of the Middle Ages. However today there exists a Wikipedia user, masquerading under the same name, who is actually sworn to eradicate this disease whereever it may dwell. In adopting the same name, he hopes to use the very tactics of the enemy to undermine it's efforts, that is:

a) The illusion of ubiquity and thus support: an appeal to the crowd mentality ingrained as it is in humans. It should be noted that while Conventional Wisdom in the old sense used this appeal to destroy the thinking mind while Conventional Wisdom (henceforth reffered to as simply the User) in the modern incarnation uses this aspect of it's name to further independent thought i.e. for good.

b) The labeling of wisdom which excels knowledge and borders on the religious. Because of the vauge nature of "wisdom" it is difficult to refute or even to identify it's presence. The User however uses his mythos as irony.

In this way the User actually opposes it's namesake.