“Against stupidity we are defenseless.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I miss serendipity. The Al Gore rhythms (that is how it is spelled, right?) feed me much the same crap I saw before. Once you click on a link you are doomed to the Internet equivalent of Groundhog Day. I want to see something new and different, not another English bulldog clip, even if they are damn cute.
One of the fun aspects of doing searches on your own, instead of using a librarian or an LLM, is the odd article or topic that shows up out of right field that leads to going down an interesting rat hole.
Those off the wall, unexpected articles are now rare as most of the big sites keep you in self selected silos. I do not want this kind random weird site, although some come close.
Years ago, I stumbled across agnotology, the study of ignorance. The patron Saint of RFK Jr. Or maybe that is Saint Upid.
And speaking of St. Upid, a video popped up in my feeds that, as best I can tell, had nothing to do with prior clicks and the Al Gore rhythms. A little sweet serendipity.
Did you know that stupidity is a philosophical concept? With a philosophical definition? And stupidity is more common than evil and far worse? Well, I didn’t. And since I journeyed down this rat hole, I thought I would drag you along with me.
On Stupidity was written in 1943 while the author, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was awaiting execution for participating in the assassination attempt on Hitler. He was hung in 1945. As Samual Johnson noted, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
I can only imagine how focused he was as he wrote the essay.
Bonhoeffer was concerned with why his fellow Germans went along with Hitler. Because they were stupid, not evil.
Stupidity here is not low IQ, LLM defined, or self-defined or ignorance.
As Bonhoeffer noted
There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.
Stupidity is part being human, a moral and sociological condition that has three components
Surrender of Independence: The core of stupidity is a voluntary abdication of one’s own critical thinking, a willingness to surrender one’s inner freedom.
“…under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.”
Group Conformity: This surrender is often driven by a desire to belong, to conform to a group, ideology, or leader.
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.”
Resistance to Facts: The stupid person actively resists facts and arguments that contradict their pre-conceived notions. They are immune to reason.
” The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.”
Stupidity, he argues, is more dangerous than evil, as evil often has the seeds of its own end.
What is the cure for stupidity? Liberation of the mind with questioning and critical thinking, although Bonhoeffer notes,
It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from peoples’ stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.
Fortunately, this definition of stupidity is only of historical interest. We live in a post-stupid society and the above worries no longer apply to current mores.
You only need to look at the Internet, the Congress or the CDC to realize how far as a society we have moved on from stupidity. Certainly those in power do not promote stupidity. Such an approach would be catastrophic to the health and well-being of the nation. It would allow dangerous pseudoscience to spread through the body politic like, well, I don’t want to have this essay devolve into Godwin’s Law. Next thing you would know, we would have a measles outbreak or the idea that RSV was produced in a lab to infect people.
Why are we protected from stupidity? Because we are a highly literate society, filled with citizens who can and do spend their time reading. Reading is perhaps the only way to comprehend complex information and to understand the whys and wherefores of other people and ideas, people and ideas different from themselves. Imagine a different society other than the one we are fortunate to live in.
Imagine the consequences to critical thinking,
If people spent 4 plus hours a day doom scrolling on the phone?
If basic literacy was falling and more than 1 in 4 U.S. adults read at the lowest literacy level, up from about 1 in 5 in 2017?
If college freshman were unable to read and had never read an entire book?
If only 30% of Gen Alpha fourth graders read proficiently as of 2024?
If people relied on LLMs instead of their brain?
If having a library card was a reason to dump your girl friend?
If using large words was considered ableist? What would become of Mary Poppins?
If people lost the ability to recognize sarcasm and satire?
Such a population would be stupid beyond comprehension. How would they understand complex information underlying health care much less become health care providers? It would be a world of chiropractors, acupuncturists and naturopaths.
At least I am glad I do not live in such a society and can rest easy knowing that the future for my children is in good hands and will not have to sell their children to the rich for food.