Living in a global village of idiots

Recently I watched the NFB animated short version of Village of Idiots, based on a Jewish folktale. It’s a very amusing and existential story centered around a fellow named Shmendrik, whose whole view and experience of the world centers around his village called Chelm. Chelm was called the “village of idiots” by outsiders, but the Rabbi said they were a village of geniuses. Shmendrik isn’t so convinced of Chelm wisdom and he leaves for Warsaw, hoping to grow in knowledge. However on the way to Warsaw Shmendrik gets confused about the direction he’s traveling and, walking back the way he came, comes across a village just like Chelm! Everything and everyone was exactly like the first Chelm, including a house and family just like his old one – minus another Shmendrik. So, Shmendrik moves in and becomes the father and husband to this identical family. Shmendrik believes this is all the hand of God, but worries the other Shmendrik will return. But Shmendrik theorizes that the other Shmendrik is living with his wife and children (the adulterous dog, may he contract the Tzar’s disease), so he need not worry. But why not go back to the old Chelm? Good question! The Talmud teaches that the world is the same everywhere you go. Maybe the world is one big Chelm! Everywhere you go, it’s all the same place. So, practically, it’s no use to go back to where you already are.

So how do we know that the world around us is real, or a copy of something else? A lot of our perspective comes from our limited experiences, so we see the world not for what it is but for who we are. Having lived all our lives in Chelm, we need to expand our horizons, encounter new things (like going to Warsaw) but we just can’t seem to get there. We walk around as in a dream, just like Shmendrik did when he came to the “second” Chelm, unable to comprehend what we see. What we believe keeps us from accepting what our senses tell us is real. The old adage “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it must be a duck!” just doesn’t seem to apply. We may refer to our religion, believing that the hand (or maybe the elbow as Shmendrik ponders) of God is in all this. After all, the Talmud tells us that the world is all the same. Why wouldn’t the world be one big Chelm? We may use reason to answer our questions, like where is the other Shmendrik? Well, reason tells us that the adulterous dog is in the other Chelm! But our reasoning is still based on who we are, and if we’re honest we will admit we all live in a global village of idiots. It’s hard for us to think outside of the box and realize that the world is more than we just know. So we prefer to be practical instead; if it works fine for us then life as we know it must be real. But we have no other Chelm to go to and see if life works for the other Shmendrik, who has somehow vanished! We also have no reason to go find the other Chelm, because life in this Chelm works just fine. So, cow for cow, tree for tree and house for house we see that the world is all the same. If only before falling asleep by the road we had put both our boots in the direction of where we were going, instead of pointing one to where we came and the other where we’re headed, we’d make it to the big city and find the knowledge we’re looking for. In the end we’re just not skeptical enough of our own wisdom…