The Religion Of The Ignorant

If you look carefully, you can spot a hanger-on beside almost every wealthy or famous individual. Both dress in the same way, but you can immediately tell the hanger-on. He's the one who is constantly humiliated, shouted at, who performs services, constantly praises the other party, agrees with whatever he says, and does everything he wants. The other party is praised, has all his wishes met, all his words agreed with and generally humiliates the hanger-on.

The hanger-on's most important duty is to entertain the person he is with, restore his spirits and maintain his self-confidence. That means telling that person how attractive he is when he feels himself to be ugly, cheering him up when he is downcast, laughing at his jokes, listening to his problems and coming up with solutions, and consoling him by showing the respect that nobody else truly feels for him.

These two people spend every hour of the day together. They go everywhere together, go the hairdresser and places of entertainment together, live together and even spend the nights together. When shopping, hangers-on generally wait for the other to try on clothes, help him dress, say which clothes suit him, hold his bags, answer the mobile phone for him, pass on messages, and fulfill all his wishes. After buying many things for himself, the person trying on the clothes will then buy the hanger-on a few items as recompense for all the services he has performed. The wealthy party generally picks up the tab for his hanger-on whenever they go out to eat, to the barber, or to a place of entertainment.

Another distinguishing feature of a hanger-on is that he generally stays in the home of the person he's attached to, rather than in his own. He uses the facilities provided there, wears the clothes in his friend's wardrobe, eats in that house, and orders around the serving staff as if they were his own. In order to do all this, however, he constantly flatters his friend's parents, and behaves in a very intimate manner. The parents begin to regard this individual as one of the household, in order that their child should not be left alone, accept the situation and start looking after the hanger-on. This causes them no discomfort since one of the hanger-on's main talents lies in imposing himself on others. The hanger-on is able to adapt any form of behavior to his own interests. He has a great understanding of how to be all things to all men, immediately adopting the style that someone else likes. He has no personality of his own, and being entirely without integrity, can immediately change personality in the light of the circumstances.

14- AGGRESSIVE ATTITUDES IN

IGNORANTISM

Another requirement of the Religion of the Ignorant is to have an aggressive character, because being the winning party in any conflict is a matter of prestige. Being victorious is a sign of superior intelligence, strength or character. Being defeated is a sign of weakness. Therefore, people do all they can to emerge victorious from any conflict or debate.

Conflict is also regarded as an indicator of personality. If a person can stand up for himself in the face of a situation he does not like, then this—according to Ignorantism—shows that he possesses a strong character. Thus you can witness frequent scenes of strife among people who do not live by the true religion.

One of the most obvious arenas of such conflict is in traffic. Driving for even a quarter of an hour, you can encounter hundreds of attitudes peculiar to the Religion of the Ignorant.

In traffic, people tend to disparage drivers around them and do all they can to demonstrate how little worth they attach to them. They refuse to give way to one another. If someone behind them blows the horn, they regard this as an insult and deliberately drive very slowly, in order not to be browbeaten. They criticize all the other drivers around them, and frequently make rude hand signals. Whenever you take a taxi or a bus, you can often hear them shout inside their cars, "Are you blind? Keep your eyes open! You could get a battleship through there! You're not the only one in a hurry!"