My Desire to Explore the Parameters underneath the Insult and Emotional Reactivity
“Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain.” Friedrich Schiller
Must we continually batter each other with such a vague and emotionally charged term as stupidity? It seems to be invoked when we feel alarm and want to bludgeon someone else’s point of view and appear smugly superior. (i.e. all of us at one time or another about some subject(s)). Yet, this wide-open mine field of generality: comprised of anger, hate, or fear-filled epithets, has a visceral validity and marks a real condition common to the human animal; a lack of critical thinking about where, when and what? But like notions of God, Love, Need, and Power, the variability of definition is wildly divergent. And for practical use, misunderstood, which is potentially toxic because these notions are seldom adequately defined.
“The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.” Milan Kundera – Author – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Is stupidity a behavior or an attitude?
Italian Economist Carlo Cipolla sought to explore the behavioral aspect defining 4 Types of people, contrasting how intelligent agents produce and how stupid ones and incur costs. His 5 Laws outline center on the premise that “always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.” Yet, one of Cipolla’s axiom’s that has bearing, more today than ever was this: “the stupid person always costs others at least as much if not more, than themselves.” With humility and honesty, I would have to add that we often overestimate our own knowledge far too frequently (a part of the Dunning-Krueger Hypothesis.) Life has taught me much about my own missteps, and I hope now I am a better dancer, not merely a more practiced fool. I do not wish to cause others harm due to my errors.
Many philosophers, and modern theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred under the Nazi regime, have employed the word stupidity with great emotional appeal describing the many frightening aspects of human nature that allowed Hitler to arise. Yet still he didn’t precisely define it in his discourse. We assume (always a hazardous swamp to tread) that stupidity is synonymous with a lack of general intelligence rather than a set of complicated defensive postures that, too often, people fall into when overwhelmed. Yet his assessment of the effects of stupidity on both individuals, and their society, serve as grim warnings about this aspect of human obduracy. I agree and identify with many of his conclusions, including in his contrasting it to malice. He also cites some pertinent cause and effect relationships in its presence, but still presumes no set definition, but details some outcomes many of us would ascribe to stupidity as a root cause. Yet, his description does seem to link malice to evil. And in my watching the passion play of the modern world since the resurgence of authoritarian personalities dressed up as nationalists and free-market profiteers, it seems to me that acting with stupidity is predicated upon the fear of knowing a truth that might disprove one’s beliefs.
First, a general consensus. When we issue the insult “you are stupid” it might be we seek to demean another’s intelligence (as if any of us were so omniscient as to know every possible idea) let alone be cognitive learning specialists in the area of psychological measurement. The vast majority of us are not! We sling the insult along with the mystical notion of “common sense.” A concept that is utterly reductionistic since every culture has different norms, practices, degrees of technological skills, let alone geographic interactions. And everyone has different experiences! (Try using ocean metaphors with a Bedouin or heat wave analogies to a Laplander or Inuit – well maybe now with climate change?!)
Common knowledge is what societies may claim they wish to disseminate and instill based upon educational goals; but that is an active intervention and not some inheritance of unspecified social norms that “everybody knows.” Or worse still “everyone should know.” It is a form of presuming someone is guilty without any chance of innocent misunderstanding or difference in interpretation. Oh my God! (Perhaps I’ll write an Essay on my version of the Higher Power). Since if we are being honest with our species’ tendency for Solipsism, Confirmation Bias, and Herd Mentality, we realize that every idea we have in our minds is a combination of parts: derived from family imprints, cultural narratives, personal experience, general knowledge, and unique perception of language, emotional prejudices let alone further colored by one’s genetics, and thus brain capacity.
Thus, we’ve just outlined an algorithm of great breadth and complexity that makes any comparison of what is “smart”, “stupid”, let alone “right and wrong” a subjective splash into an ocean of ideas all churned in various currents of mixed depths, directions and pressures.
We are creatures of Emotion. Emotion is our animal mechanism igniting fear and alerting us to potential danger. Unlike our historical species’ biological design, one which has not changed in roughly 300,000 years, by the reconning of anthropologist, anatomists, and cognitive scientists; we seldom face other predators like lions and tigers and bears, (oh my!) anymore; but vastly more overwhelming existential but creeping threats like economic displacement by technology, or resource depletion or destruction, neither of which are Natural causes, but from other humans! We are in a constant state of heightened vigilance (i.e. stress) which leads us to various degrees of avoidance, denial, or reactive aggression. These are NOT stupid perse’, they are merely our biological presets trying to adapt and cope with overwhelmingly unfathomable environmental stressors that seem so unpredictable and ever-present that our species has developed a psychological coping mechanism to try to sort and manage the sheer magnitude of threats. Our frontal lobes, neo-cortex, amygdala, and reticular activating system of our brains have wired a complicated pattern of filters and strategies we can call an Ego.
Sigmund Freud, the Father of Modern Psychology, first employed the term as Ego, (from the Greek word meaning ‘self or person,’) as our main interface with the world. But the way I use it incorporates the other two less adaptive aspects of his theory; the ID – our collective animal reactive nature (Reactive safety-pleasure seeking Child) and the Super Ego our collective socialized and hierarchical system of conformity for herd management (Restrictive Authoritarian Parent). My version of Ego combines all three of these into our personality’s’ sensory and self-defense systems. Biologically, it is a highly intelligent adaptation for a deeply cognitive species: Homo-Sapien Sapiens (the aware ape). But as individuals we often choose only selective attention and awareness, both in the face of danger but more worrisome when coddled in the passivity of groupthink. And that can be stupid! We give over our individual power to scrutinize, analyze, or sound alarm when in the clutches of our identified in-group, i.e. herd behavior. We are afraid of the consequences of some form of group punishment like banishment or perhaps even reprisal like violence. Social ‘norms’ contain and convey the potential costs of such a risk. No wonder many of us passively conform. Many against one…many seem to win!
In high emotion we fall back into Ego, and let loose the word Stupid, we are most likely (and perhaps ironically) showing our own version of stupidity based upon the way we employ the term; like tribal membership, or more self-referentially: confirmation bias. In slang terms, we believe our own bullshit.
My endeavor here is to reveal my Ego’s need to be a bit more precise about a set of standards which defines Stupidity, in my mind, and for my usage. My desire to be ethical and use the term correctly requires this scrutiny from me. And, in doing so, review the important terms that Bonhoeffer mentioned: Malice and Evil. Not as supernatural attributes but as features of Homo Sapiens consciousness, warped to such a degree that we prey upon each other and systematically degrade our environment to the point of self-destruction. And that, like it or not, by all methods of measurement is where we are now! A collective state of stupidity.
Define Intelligence and Separate it from Knowledge.
Innate intelligence has 3 components operating in various degrees of acuity: observational awareness (astute notice and attention), curiosity (investigating, analysis, and threat assessment), and problem-solving abilities (calculation, strategizing, resource acquisition, and deployment). These three notions in themselves have much research and debate behind them trying to find a common ground of meaning (a sign of real intelligence, BTW). These are a function of our individual brains’ wiring and ability to generate electrical signals and make associations that have been hardwired genetically into our species. (The aware Ape rationalizes; as our design portends, using our available intelligence.) When fear is running high, available intelligence decreases reverting to the animal reactions of flight, fight, or freeze. The inverse relationship is well established both historically and experimentally. Fear decreases, awareness, curiosity, and problem-solving abilities increase.
Knowledge is literally learned, not innate. It is more about what the mind, and mental processing, is capable of, rather than functioning the brain itself. Knowledge is taught from one generation to another, called education and modeling; and from one individual or source to another. These can of course be formal or informal in setting and transmission. People also learn from books and other self-help methods that can convey facts, processes, and word labels. Yet, one’s ability to self-teach is a mark of some form of intelligence. (See Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory). As is creativity.
We think in imagery but share it with language. Without language as the shared cognitive meaning domains (think dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia), knowledge would be almost impossible to transfer, even between highly intelligent persons. Words are the aural conveyance upon which we transmit abstract ideas and designs; thought-forms called concepts and constructs. They are the bridge builders of relationships and relationships are the structures of social groups like family, tribes, societies, language groups, religious beliefs, and cultural associations. One key aspect of stupidity in action is to mistakenly believe that what I say, “everybody should understand”. It is not only arrogant but represents the worst kind of ignorance. One that reveals a lack of compassion and empathy. It is when the natural state of solipsism (seeing primarily from one’s own point of view) but to declare it “right”, is then narcissism. That is dangerous!
The 20 Key Components of Practiced Stupidity
- Inattentive to one’s immediate environment – Ignoring or denying the obvious circumstances. A failure to notice conditions, cues or threats can makes one stupid by conditioned acceptance. Numb and dumb is a slang way of saying people fail to bring attention to each moment. Evaluating what might be present, let alone different, in a given environment.
- Rigidity – Unalterable adherence to a position is not the same as allegiance to a principle or value. Stupidity often reveals itself in a repetition of so-called beliefs (today we’d call them meme’s, slogans, or talking points) which go no further in describing a principle or value; it just declares it is defending one. A genuinely stupid person is one who is unwilling to change their opinion when new facts, processes, or knowledge are made clear to them. This is the tactic of the Fascist or authoritarian mindset which does not think for itself, it merely echoes and repeats what it hears from those more powerful members of their identified tribe. Stupidity is a mark of inflexibility to reason and not an association with moral relativity. Change is the hallmark of maturity. Maturity is the moving to a more inclusive, factual, and balanced way of dealing with reality. A child wants to make reality bend to their will. Being a “grown-up” in this definition, only refers to having a fully developed physical body, and not an automatic grasp of mature adulthood which requires dealing with life as it-is, not how we declare it to be from some belief system or Ego defense posturing.
- An inability to form a coherent argument (set of reasons connected to widely observed facts or commonly used terms) is not automatically a sign of stupidity. However, demanding that my truth = fact is one sign of the emotionally reactive and defensiveness. It is the basis of name calling and illogic which is a red flag noting the presence of stupidity. What, to me, makes one Stupid, is not recognizing one’s own fear and hostility operating in claiming oneself to be “right;” usually absolutely so! Especially when a person can offer no coherent reasoning to why they hold an opinion nor how it factually invalidates the views of another person. “It just is, because I said so.”
- A strongly identified Ego need to be right(eous), rather than a desire, or priority, to find a solution. – The first is nothing more than Narcissism protecting a fragile hold on reality or a desperate and dangerous animal willing to destroy competitors. Finding solutions is the adult realization that cooperation, not conflagration, is the best way to preserve the most and possibly create something better; or at least mitigate disaster rather than exacerbate it. Without the ability to find a way to reach another person on common ground, all you will have is a battle ground and common destruction.
- Reductionism and Oversimplification – Stupidity depends on shallow or ill-defined ideas, romantic narratives, victim mentality, and need to avoid the difficulties within the complexities of modern life. Currently, we see this playing out in most people’s reported overwhelm with the notion of concurrent systems “polycrisis.” It is a huge and diverse multilevel number of systems (institutions and processes) interacting and clashing in human consciousness, all at the same time! Examples would be: Climate Change, human overpopulation, mass species extinction, technological change affecting economic structures and the elimination of human jobs/incomes i.e. AI and automation) the growing polarization between factions: political parties and nation groups, all because of grossly inequitable control of wealth and resources.
- Undereducated or Indoctrinated: But Indoctrinated people are always willfully ignorant, an associated condition of acting with stupidity. In other words, a fallback ethos is: ‘don’t consider it valid if it doesn’t agree with my notion or side.’ In either of these cases, a person is likely to accept generalities that would otherwise be discredited with thorough, structured tutelage in methods of critical analysis and of knowledge of worldly methods of manipulation. But, misinformation and more deliberately propaganda, in all subjects and forms, relies upon a commonly held precepts that are poorly defined. Propaganda is effective because of this aspect.
- Illegitimate Appeal to Authority and shrugging personal ownership of statements – Citing “big shots” or experts that supposedly would support your position or you cite as the legitimacy of your ideas because they are smart and powerful. ‘The Fuhrer’ said many things that gave people permission to carry out atrocities upon one another. Authority of power and authority of knowledge are as different as elephants and elephantiasis. Oh, they sound similar, but how they function in the world, one a disease and the other a necessary part of an ecosystem, is the root of the problem and even expressed in this analogy. (“Well, evolution is just a theory.”)
- Disregard of Bias – Unearned Privilege and Unacknowledged Disparities: Solipsism is not Evil, it is merely a lack of outside perspectives and empathy for painful circumstances that might not be your own. But the notion that one’s own perspective is the only one, and thus right, allows for many errors in: fact, reasoning, and moral stance. The US social narrative likes to promote the completely false idea of itself as a “classless” society and that with enough “hard work” anyone can make good. Disgustingly a cynical lie promoted by a privileged class to keep working classes feeling perhaps some motivation to achieve, but usually keep them in groveling in subservience to outrun wallowing in shame. Here is where not understanding one’s actual place in an economic world, and advantages of group associations, mistaking it as your personal value, allows for extreme self-delusion. The white male incel community in this, and other countries, fancy themselves as innately entitled to the same benefits that money does buy for wealthier males of the same skin color. It is not difficult to track how a simple leap in il-logic it is to make skin-color (so-called race) into the easy to identify characteristic to focus one’s malice toward.
- Close Mindedness, Smugness and Dunning-Krueger Effect – If you’re not familiar with this concept, it tracks the colloquial fact that stupid-people are often the ones that are the most sure they are right and don’t accept new input. Such a closed-system is impervious to reasoned argument as Bonhoeffer suggested. People who claim a group loyalty: nation-state, race, religion, some vague notion like “the lost cause” or “2nd amendment” (insert any rallying cry here), are most identified, and thereby attached, to a narrow focus and dependence, e.g. “whites only.” Philosopher Betrand Russel phrased the dilemma this way. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
- Assuming the Victim Mantle and Blaming instead of Looking for Resolution – Poor Me or Us – without justification or measurable evidence. Psychological powerlessness is a state that can raise fear and allow it to boil into hatred. Feelings of being persecuted, simply because one feels powerless to confront some idea, circumstance or loss is what spirals thoughts into defenses and actions into attacks. Victims unwilling to confront that helpless feeling, become whining, resentful and then projecting hatred. They choose a target, a scapegoat, and then are transformed into the righteous perpetrator. This is one of the underlying tactics of the authoritarian power seeker; manipulate people to feel they are entitled to become attackers under the provocation of them being victims. Circular reasoning and cultivated malice. Hatred is always a bottomless well of permitted atrocity.
- The Need for Immediate Feedback and an inability to contemplate. Instant Gratification and Convenience are two of the dumbing factors that have rendered humans to mere rats pressing a bar for immediate confirmation of their beliefs. Doing so quells any fear of not being in control and erasing their certainty. Convenience is a comfortable thing. It reduces the work of having to explore other ideas or opinions. But the effect of which promotes an amnesia of the manual skills and practical knowledge once needed to do that work. Our manual/conscientious knowledge devolves as technological convenience advances. What takes its place is a rising tendency to commit waste: of ideas, resources, possibilities, and opportunities. And we don’t ever realize it!
- Emotional Illiteracy and Lack of Empathy – If a person can’t identify states of emotion accurately, such as admitting to fear, they will pretentiously erect/cling to some so-called principle to defend to make themselves sound more legitimate for their reactiveness. (See Rigidity and Undereducated). I personally believe that our social elevation of intellect and our deliberate attempts to hide our vulnerability from attack, make self-censorship and dissociation the number one disease hindering our transformation from a Homo Sapien into an actual humane being.
- Unwillingness to question one’s own assumptions and beliefs. – Attachment to a specific set of associations is key both human social order and a stable personal psyche. Yet, most of us have faced some in-group indoctrination which declares its assumptions sacrosanct and unassailable. Not for any reason of soundness or rigor but fear of being ostracized by peers or social hierarchy.
- Inability or Unwillingness to conduct research and evaluate other arguments. – Healthy skepticism is a means of confronting doubt. Many feel fear when they doubt; emotional insecurity arises and one’s confidence in themselves is minimized within but they fake steadiness. This produces a state of cognitive dissonance and a display of pretention and posturing. All of which are emotionally costly and agitating because a fearful Ego is expending more energy to pretend. Every animal has some form masquerading for advantage or defense.
- Ignoring Science, Biology or Our Innate Animal Tendencies – Almost all religions have as some premise a spiritual duty to deny or decry one’s animal nature. Thus, those who most ardently adhere to a spiritual doctrine, no matter how elegant or humane it might sound, may be inherently in denial of the natural forces of biology that are at the foundation of life itself. “The Lord commands” or “It is the will of Allah” are but a couple of familiar religious declarations that signal a righteously stupid person being willing to demand the subjugation of another. But a second tier of this are those who rally to that call like a stampeding herd crushing everything in its path; mob-mentality. When rejection of this malignancy becomes extreme, you get Epstein.
- Imbalanced Communications – Either an unwillingness to assert, keep quiet, passive or never ask, or an overwhelming desire to accuse, blame and vilify…without coherent evidence, clearly established facts, or underlying motive explained. Stupid people seldom ask a question because they inherently believe they already know the answer: theirs! Statements and declarations are used instead of query or probing or investigation into an idea. Seldom does a stupid person pose a genuine question that seeks new, and possibly challenging information. Can be great con artists.
- Selective Reasoning – Avoiding Realities One Doesn’t Like, But still Exist. – We live in a time where this aspect of the Sapien conditioning is running rampant. We have so many artifices (memes) to recite or believe that we seldom need to go outside the “comfort zone” of our own database. It is only until we are thrown, often precariously into circumstances where our assumptions utterly fail that we are “made free” of our cherished self-delusions.
- Blurring the Lines in Definition or Offering No Definition at All: The current favorite term vilified with no clear definition is “WOKE.” Another historic term of abuse is freedom. Freedom from something? Freedom to do something? Freedom to act? Freedom to abstain from acting? What is it? To maintain acting stupidly, one only need take a position on something they don’t understand a common definition. Or, more rigorously challenging to their thinking, have to actively define something for themselves that is congruent with reality. A dog is a dog, a wolf is a wolf.
- Claiming Moral Stances without Consistency on their Standards – Hypocrisy is a staple of the stupid person and consistently can be seen in the shallowness of many of one’s assertion from such a stance. Shame, as an emotion, and hiding from the effects of it upon one’s own psyche compel a person to toward duplicity. For many a pious person, they will run full blazes and declare they “have been forgiven and saved” by whatever deity they attribute. But the Faustian exchange is not to increase compassion or empathy for other transgressors, but to cast them as “perpetrator/sinners” who deserve persecution and whatever displaced self-hatred one can unload upon others. It seldom occurs to them as cognitive dissonance rises to an inner roar, that they live a duplicitous lie themselves. One of the foundation “sins” of mankind is self-deception.
- Repeating the Same Pattern, Phrases, or Habits in spite of them resulting in unwanted consequences. Stupidity is like an addiction. And the person who might legitimately be called “stupid” or an imbecile may be only an idiot (Idio in Latin means ‘one thing’). An actual idiot need not be uneducated nor unintelligent (though either is likely); instead they are conditioned to a single notion or idea and repeat it habitually failing to adapt to feedback from the environment. A truly stupid person, doubles-down on the habit, belief, or behaviors no matter what the feedback. These further fuels frustration which leads to hostility and/or psychological collapse. The fabled “self-fulfilling prophecy” is an example of stupidity ruling the day by unaltered actions. Notice, this is also the common definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results. Stupidity is not escaping errors or mistakes, perse’. It is the tendency to repeat a type of Error in almost a predictable fashion and still remain unrecognized by the stupid person.
- Errors of Inattention
- Errors of Judgment (Unaccounted for Bias)
- Errors of Ignorance
- Errors of Estimation of Miscalculation
- Errors of Fantasy
- Errors of Hubris
- Errors of Recognition
- Errors of Categorization
As you review this list, I am humble enough to own that these are only my opinions, expressed in whatever clumsy grammar you might assess or accuse. I am not asserting Cosmic Truth, Moral Superiority, Intellectual Genius, nor intending to declare this THE definitive list about the nature of such an insidious and degenerative condition that stupidity is. Stupidity’s frustration leads to the malice which spawns Evil by its own hypocrisy and blindness. “Stupid is as stupid does,” Mrs. Gump teaches her cognitively challenged son Forrest, but he still “got it.” He had enough self-awareness and received enough love to develop trust in a simple principle: deliberately inflicting pain is morally wrong! The movie Forrest Gump shows how many willfully-ignorant, snobbish people Forrest dealt with; even though he was the cognitively challenged person portrayed as the mentally retarded (I know, outdated and pejorative term, but relevant then). Its citation here is illustrative of how arrogance and superiority are fertile ground for stupidity to take hold and grow the weeds of self-righteousness and bigotry. Then stupidity degrades thought into emotional malice, which then morphs and unleashes the evil which willfully inflicts pain on some person or group or species or movement or ideal, “because they are inferior”. Ironically, many who will claim “God’s empowered permission for justice” are choosing a blasphemy, as defined in the highest versions of every known religious canon, but they do it with relish in the dark joy of psychotic meltdown.
In a final attempt to encompass the larger issue, I don’t believe stupidity is necessarily a mental health issue or social malady alone, although they can produce the former and result in the latter. We can see both now with the rise of Conspiracy Theory (at least those without anything but inferred connections and false facts). Instead, I am asserting a wider, and albeit for many intellectually inclined, the tepid notion of transcendental potential. We are in a spiritual miasma. An overarching call to the collective consciousness of the human race to rise above the dictates of its native animal programming in its Homo Sapien defaults and achieve its next level of evolution or face its own collapse into extinction.
Such is the choice each of 8 billion persons will have to make, in large majorities, and fast! Otherwise, actual Nature, will run over our unruly human nature.
In terms of recent cultural metaphors, we are the Terminators, and we are the Force; both the Light and Dark Sides. Do you choose to be an automaton and bystander? Or act as a Jedi? BTW, sadly, the Sith are winning.
You choose…while you still can.
Additional Notes on Common Stupid actions
Stupid people put emotional preferences and nostalgia in the place of facts and truths.
Stupid people accept information from allies at face value, like family, friends, or people they envy or idolize. On the other end, they hold in doubt and or dismissal information from those they dislike. They confuse allegiance as loyalty for and agreement as integrity.
Overgeneralization is the tendency to believe “one size fits all”. Metaphorically, social attributes are seen as now, always was, and always will be.
Use: https://sproutsschools.com/cipollas-5-laws-of-human-stupidity/
The Factors of Stupidity
- The willingness to outright dismiss or deny new facts.
- The inability to see patterns.
- Confusion between knowledge and beliefs.
- Unwillingness to consider historical precedence.
- Tendency to need one layer of simplistic narrative rather than investigate a deeper one.
- Need for immediate gratification.
- Desire to be someone other than who they are.
- Yet, a willingness to excuse their own behavior as “it’s just who I am” or “that’s just me.”
- Acceptance of clique and fashion over substantive thought or actual personal preference.
- Would rather stay with what they believe and think themselves right, than admit to something that proves them wrong yet work on their behalf.
- Belief that authorities they like are infallible and sources they do not like are lies and liars.