Ignorance and Prejudice

I always have to wonder why people insist on embracing their own ignorance, disguised in their own mind as "superior" intelligence. I've watched it over and over again and it never ceases to be frustrating to not only me, but others around them. That sort of false intelligence is usually accompanied by an ego the size of Texas, which makes it even more difficult to deal with them.

These are the people who are always right, even when they're really not. They refuse to listen to anyone else because their opinions are the only ones that ever matter. The things they don't know are covered by bullying and cruelty (and very often prejudice with racial/gender-inappropriate comments thinly disguised as a sense of "humor") in order to intimidate others into just going along without objection or being able to point out their errors.

It's a sad state when it happens in the workplace, because if it happens to be present in the people in charge, it becomes in them what can really only be described as professional jealousy. The moment someone in the office comes up with an idea that works better, that jealousy raises its ugly head. The ideal workplace (in both culture and professionalism... and therefore success) is one that believes in hiring people that really do know more than you do. One person's ideas without any kind of supplementation of other minds and ideas results in stagnation and producing the same old thing over and over again. When your entire portfolio starts to look like every other piece, no matter how professionally executed it may be, that failure is evident.

Brainstorming is a multi-person exercise, not a single idea without discussion. The most brilliant ideas in advertising didn't come from one person existing in a vacuum. They came from tossing out ideas and figuring out which ones would actually hold up.

There has to be trust and respect among the creative staff and management and not just one person dictating every idea because of the fear of exposing their ignorance. Unfortunately, this kind of "hiding" behind it only makes it that much more obvious to everyone else.

If anyone has any suggestions for dealing with it in other ways than simply leaving that kind of no-win environment, I'm certainly all ears.