“Wisdom and knowledge is everywhere, but so is stupidity” Trudi Canavan
Strange times we live in. Someone I know well recently called me stupid because I disagreed with her (she ardently trusts the MSM). I was merely asking her to consider a different perspective that countered her well entrenched beliefs. And because I didn’t believe as she believed, she was firmly convinced that I have become stupid and must have even become delusional to not believe as she did. I didn’t argue with her, after all what’s the point of arguing with someone who refuses to even consider anything outside their own beliefs. She has her go-to sources of what she considers reliable information and refuses to consider anything else. I recognized what was happening and did not try to challenge her – there was no point! We are both well-educated people (we have lots of qualifications) so stupidity obviously has nothing to do with education.
We all do stupid things that are irresponsible and /or dangerous (especially when young) without considering the consequences, but we usually recognize the event and usually learn from it, or not, as the danger level dictates the seriousness of the outcome. One definition of experience is: ‘Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from surviving bad decisions.’ Ignorant people can be stupid but stupid people are not necessarily devoid of knowledge. Indeed, many people who have had no formal education can be very wise, and many people with PhDs can be very ignorant and stupid. You cannot reason with someone who is practicing stupidity on a daily basis in an insidious and unique way that is entrenched within their worldviews and belief systems. These people are not necessarily bad people, but their actions lead to negative consequences they may not even recognize. So let me discuss stupidity more.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Theologian who lived during the Nazi regime. He was imprisoned and executed by the Nazi’s for his outspoken thinking. He said that the thinking that created Nazi fascism came not from evil but from stupidity. You can fight against evilness because it is obvious and sows the seeds of its own design that eventually destroy it. But you cannot fight stupidity because it is never open to reason. Stupidity is not an intellectual problem but a moral one! It occurs when people refuse to question their beliefs and let manipulating others control their thinking. It more often than not occurs within tight social groups that identify rigidly with each other. So, it is seems to be more a sociological problem, not a psychological one. It is the power of true believers that use simple memes, slogans and buzzwords that reinforce their beliefs. Note how this has all played out in the striking polarization that has happened during this past two years with mainstream media (MSM) believers and alternate perspectives. True believers have surrendered their sovereignty to a belief manipulating narrative (propaganda) that seems to confirm their beliefs, and it is amazing that there is no limit of evil they will then perpetuate with moral justification. Bonhoeffer said that it is futile to try and educate a true believer who is practicing stupidity. You can only help them to develop some cognitive dissonance to get them to recognize the contradictions and errors in the narrative they are following before they will internally break out of their trancelike obedience to manipulative propaganda.
To understand stupidity further, Berkley economic historian Carlo Cipolla developed a theory of stupidity in his book, The Basic Laws of Stupidity (1976), that focuses on the destructive aspects of stupidity. He developed a four-quadrant chart with the X-axis continuum of losses to themselves to benefits to themselves. The Y-axis continuum losses to others to benefits to others.
- In the losses to themselves but benefits to others are the ‘Givers (often well-meaning but inadvertently damage themselves)’ who contribute to society even if they themselves are not thriving. People living in abusive relationships would readily fit this category, as do people who just seem helpless as they try to help but always end up suffering from unintended consequences.
- In benefits to themselves but losses to others are the ‘Bandits (self-serving)’ who survive and prosper on their own at societies expense. These are usually the criminal elements of society and range from local thugs to CEOs and corrupt boards of corporations.
- The benefit to others and themselves are the ‘Intelligent group (adaptable and critical thinkers)’ who use their experience and wisdom to create a better world. These people are a much larger group than you would realize, but they are often undermined by the last group who unfortunately tend to be the authorities controlling outcomes overall.
- The ones that who are a loss to others and themselves are the ‘Stupid (overconfident, short-sighted, and unable to see any picture but the one they perceive)’ who are unable to see the destructiveness caused by their short-sighted perspectives and inability to adapt – they are not malicious but they cannot recognize their limitations. “Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake” Cipolla.
To further explain how the stupid people can inadvertently cause chaos, the Dunning-Kruger effect explains stupidity as a form of cognitive distortion “whereby individuals with little expertise in a field tend to overestimate their skills and knowledge by mistakenly self-assessing themselves as experts in that field, while, on the other hand, truly competent people tend to belittle or underestimate their skills and their own real competence. Furthermore, incompetent people are often extremely opinionated” Dunning. Part of the problem arises when stupid people believe they know more than they do and therefore do not need much evidence to continue believing in their fixed beliefs. Indeed, they exhibit more confirmation bias instead of critical thinking. A stupid person considers themselves rational and therefore what they are thinking must be right and therefore alternative perspectives are naturally wrong. It’s all about inflexible worldviews. And stupid people may have excellent intentions, and as we all know how the road to hell is paved.
Philosopher Friedrich Schiller put it succinctly, ‘against stupidity the gods themselves fight in vain.’ As Cipolla posits, a stupid person causes damage to others while deriving no gain, or even possibly incurring losses. There is no shortage of stupid people in all areas of society and they can as readily be a working-class person, a Ph.D. or even a billionaire. To the rest of us struggling to understand or rationalize, let alone deal with stupidity, finding ways to get them to open up and just look at other perspectives is a way forward. But it cannot be done rationally. We have to show an empathic way to deal with them using an approach that that lacks rational structure or predictable movements – let’s confuse them into listening to ideas that cause dissonance. I haven’t found the research to support my observations, but a great many stupid people have an authoritarian outlook in that they trust their authorities and especially the fourth estate (MSM).
It is much more than just politics, religion, science, or even the pandemic, stupidity seems to have taken the reins of culture with this consumer mentality and infected billions. In a recent journal article, Perissi and Bardi (Systems 2021) looked at Cipolla’s work from a biophysical frame, concluding that “humans are the stupidest species in the whole ecosystem because of their tendence of overexploiting, and eventually destroying, the resources that make them live.” But, the only positive aspect about stupidity is it can be cured if you can get their attention of stupid people and introduce a nugget of real fact that causes dissonance. The fact that so many tens of millions of people have woken up to the strange Covid crapola of the last 2 years is evidence that stupidity is curable. So, what can we do?
To Be Continued …………………
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