He that dwells next door to a cripple will learn to halt

Have you ever heard of that old proverb? In simple words, bad company brings bad habit… who goes with the stupid, will becomes stupid. Indeed, agreeing with the bottom line of the proverb, my question is, why does it never apply the other way around? Dumb people in company of clever people don’t actually become clever!? It is more likely that one gets influenced by drinkers, drug addicts, criminals, etc… Are we that good in absorbing and sifting the bad content in every given random situation? The answer possibly lies in a sort of short short-cut that we use to overcome our fears, dreams, worries and our innate pain of living as a modern human being. We may reach a confused scenario of what is beyond “influence”; with the media for instance or by whatever it works for a daily “group-selection” (but wrongly interpreted). We watch and catch erroneous example of values and virtues, by people who are projecting an apparent successful image of themselves based on materialistic achievements instead of humanistic accomplishments. So what is the upside down thing here?