American society is now facing a choice between capitalist democracy (if Democrats win) and fascist democracy (if Trump wins). Whichever side wins, both capitalists and fascists —as advertisers do — count on one cardinal weakness that is abundant everywhere in America: citizen stupidity.

The Atlantic’s Brian Klass says, “As modern humans, we have access to more knowledge than anyone, ever. Even the poorest (have) more quality information available to them today than the richest scholar from bygone eras.”

With such abundant information available, why is there so much stupidity in America? Or, is it ignorance we have? When ignorance and stupidity collide, which side wins? Obviously, ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing and we need to resolve this odd contradiction. For a handy way to tell the two apart, to start our thinking on the subject, imagine you are telling people around you that Canada has a better healthcare system. Hearing this, an ignorant person wants to know how Canada’s system is better than America’s; a stupid person asks you why you don’t move there.

Both ignorance and stupidity are about lacking in some knowledge. But what kind of knowledge is lacking? In ignorance, you lack knowledge about “things” in our natural world, as everything in nature, including the human body, is a thing. In stupidity, you lack knowledge (also called wisdom, consciousness, or truth) about “people” in our social world in which people relate to people, not things. We use things, but relate to people.

Under normal circumstances, we overcome our ignorance by gaining new knowledge. Stupidity about people has little or nothing to do with how much, or how little, actual knowledge you have: It’s your attitude toward them that makes you stupid. Of course, ignorance is overcome directly by formal education and other forms of knowledge-gathering. But stupidity cannot be overcome by formal education or knowledge-gathering. If you are stupid in your attitude toward other people, even five Ph.D. degrees from Harvard could not help you. You will still be stupid and, very likely, you will die stupid. As a general rule, losers at a trivia contest are ignorant; losers in social relations are stupid.

We often call the latter-type a “stupid idiot.” But calling a stupid person a “stupid idiot” is largely redundant. Somehow, idiocy goes only with stupidity, not ignorance, as we rarely call an ignorant person “an ignorant idiot.”

Ignorance is simply a state of not having enough knowledge or information about a particular issue. It is an objective state of knowledge, or lack thereof, that can be objectively and materially observed, tested and measured. Hence the ignorant person is always encouraged, either within himself or by outsiders, to seek the necessary, objective and factual knowledge to overcome his ignorance. Teachers love ignorant students who are a pleasure to teach as they tend to be seekers of knowledge. No one is more eager to learn than an ignorant person who recognizes his own ignorance.

Stupidity originates from what one thinks about oneself in relation to other people. So, the stupid person always concludes that he is superior to all other persons around him. Donald Trump is universally recognized as an “idiot,” per BBC and Google, but, because of the way he thinks about other human beings in general and those around him in particular, whom he regards as no more than functional tools or domesticated animals.

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Unlike ignorance whose defect can be corrected by appropriate knowledge, stupidity has no handy remedy because, in a strict sense, stupidity has little to do with knowledge. It is a voluntary choice one makes and not even the best teacher can help solve stupidity. You can expect an ignorant person to improve himself, but never a stupid person who is infinitely happy with the state of his stupidity and idiocy. That’s why the universal consensus is that Donald Trump and most of his followers are unteachable and their vision of America’s future is so dark and hopeless.

An ignorant person overcomes his ignorance by adding knowledge. But a stupid person can overcome his stupidity only by completely tearing his whole being apart and rebuilding it from scratch. When this happens, it is so rare that we refer to such a transformation of life as a “conversion,” “epiphany,” or “amazing grace of God,” by which a person’s whole persona goes through a radical otherworldly alteration. But, the light, as in “Enlightenment,” so rarely shines on a “stupid idiot” that our modern psychology has no idea how that happens. Psychologists know how to create idiots but not how to cure them. In the meantime in America, in spite of all that abundant knowledge we have available to us, we remain relentlessly stupid and idiotic. Among the 38 most-advanced OECD nations, for example, Americans rank the lowest in “problem-solving” skills.

Thanks to Trump, we have now added political power to stupidity and made things infinitely more dangerous and miserable for America’s future. Just imagine how many of our senators, congressmen, governors, Supreme Court justices, and so on will be stupid idiots. They may not be a governing majority yet, but they will be soon.

Obviously, stupidity is poised to triumph over ignorance.

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.