It appears from an article written by Azorín in connection with a book
of mine, that, to my way of thinking, there are two enormities which are
incredible and intolerable. They are cruelty and stupidity.
Civilized man has no choice but to despise these manifestations of
primitive, brute existence.
We may be able to tolerate stupidity and lack of comprehension when they
are simple and wholly natural, but what of an utter obtuseness of
understanding which dresses itself up and becomes rhetorical? Can
anything be more disagreeable?
When a fly devours the pollen greedily from the pyrethrum, which, as we
know, will prove fatal to him, it becomes clear at once that flies have
no more innate sagacity than men. When we listen to a conservative
orator defending the past with salvos of rhetorical fireworks, we are
overwhelmed by a realization of the complete odiousness of ornamental
stupidity.
With cruelty it is much the same. The habits of the sphex surprise while
bull fights disgust us. The more cruelty and stupidity are dressed up,
the more hateful they become.