You’re an Ignorant Idiot by Chad C Mulligan

Title: You’re an Ignorant Idiot

Author: Chad C Mulligan 

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

The former sociologist turned iconoclastic social commentator, Chad C Mulligan, has written at least four books which are featured in Stand on Zanzibar.

You’re an Ignorant Idiot a series of pieces poking holes in “common sense” and received wisdom.

The Hipcrime Vocab a satirical collection of dictionary pseudo-definitions similar to Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary. “Hipcrime” is one of Mulligan’s neologisms; his definition in the book is: “You committed one when you opened this book. Keep it up. It’s our only hope.”

Better ? Than ?

You: Beast a “popular science” book, condensing the science of mob psychology, population pressure, and biological imperative so that readers living in the increasingly populated world can better understand their own environment.

I haven’t been able to read Stand on Zanzibar. Not because I can’t lay my hands on a copy (anyway I could get the text from Open Library if I wanted) but because after a week or so I had managed to read about 2 pages. Perhaps it’s not for me. Maybe one day I will try again.

Meanwhile, I got my information from Wikipedia, and what would I do without them? And a review in The Guardian. Apparently Chad C Mulligan appears “more often than is welcome” and he, or perhaps his collected works take up “great swathes of text”. And by the sound of things, not in a good way.

Images borrowed from the internet