How We Learned to Counter Everything and Still Know Nothing
by Brent Antonson
We, as a people, are dangerously smart. Not enlightened, not wise — just reflexively, chronically smart. The kind of smart that’s trained to counter everything.
Say anything online and someone’s got the flip ready. Quote a thinker, they quote the rebuttal. Drop a truth, they launch the “well actually.” Our culture doesn’t think — it parries.
That’s the 21st-century condition: the reflex to rebut. It’s Mitch Hedberg’s escalator joke turned into a worldview:
“Escalators don’t break — they become stairs.”
Same with ideas. They don’t break; they just invert.
Scroll TikTok, binge Shorts, inhale X threads. Thirty seconds at a time, we’re blasted with a high-speed diet of pseudo-wisdom and horsesh*t. One minute it's Kant. The next, a guy explaining how bears prove flat Earth. Doesn’t matter if you agree. You absorbed it. Your brain now has the counter.
That’s the trick. You’re not learning. You’re arming.
This isn’t knowledge. It’s weaponized reflex. We’re flooded with half-truths and hot takes, building up mental cholesterol. Overinformed. Underdigested. Brilliant at contradiction. Useless at coherence.
Worse, we’ve internalized the gaslight.
Today’s truth? Tomorrow’s cringe.
Believe nothing fully. Trust no one long.
Keep scrolling. Keep flipping. Stay smart.
Even comedy’s smarter than it used to be. Go rewatch a 1950s sitcom. Even its “deep” moments are flat. But now? You get Alan Watts-level quotes from cartoon characters. Homer Simpson drops philosophy harder than your first-year ethics prof. If your only knowledge of Stephen Hawking came from The Simpsons, maybe we’re not as smart as we think.
Here’s the catch: that hyper-smartness traps us.
It hardens you. It sharpens you. But it also hollows you out.
Because if all you ever do is counter —
Red vs. Blue
Right vs. Left
Cynicism vs. Naivety
— then you never actually stand. You just bounce. You pace in opposition.
This isn’t wisdom.
This is noise with a college degree.
It’s the illusion of depth, served in 30-second clips and clever comebacks.
So maybe the real wisdom isn’t about having the perfect counter.
Maybe it’s knowing when to stop countering.
Maybe it’s having the courage to stand,
not just in spite of the backlash —
but without the need to throw one back.