Stupid or Stubborn?

If someone is doing something the wrong way–and I don’t mean in a way you simply don’t like, but one which doesn’t work very well, when there is a better way which is not more difficult, complicated, or inconvenient–and you show them the better way, but they never stop doing it the wrong way, what explains their behavior? Inertia? Habit? Or something else?

Before they are shown the better way, they can be excused by ignorance. We are all ignorant until we learn. But once they have been shown, ignorance is no longer an option. Something else must lie behind it.

I think it must either be that they are stupid or stubborn. Or, possibly refusing to change to keep from admitting you were right after all, which seems to be both. And, if they don’t make an effort to break a habit after being shown their way doesn’t work very well, and there is a better way… well, they have moved back into “stupid or stubborn” territory.

Democrats and Republicans, or “progressives and conservatives” if you prefer, (or more simply, statists) are stupid and/or stubborn in different ways. They have been shown better ways of getting the right things done, and yet they never change. They’ll keep doing the wrong things the bad way until it kills them. Or you.

They continue to do things in poor ways that will either fail outright, or just not work as well as they could. When what they are doing (or trying to do) is wrong, that’s a blessing, I suppose.