Advances In Stupidity

Or rather, the lack of advances. David Krakauer of the Santa Fe Institute has written a good summary of the state of our knowledge of stupidity (1) (2). It's a reasonably complete outline of our understanding, at least as far as I can tell. I find Krakauer's article a little disappointing because he didn't turn up any existing work that I hadn't already read, and that means there has been little effort expended or progress made. Despite my own efforts, I remain ignorant of the true and complete nature of stupidity, and therefore uncertain how to deal with it.

Krakauer cites a couple of the classic examples of stupid behavior in hard scientists: Percival Lowell with his stupid Martian canals, and Linus Pauling's stupid rejection of quasi-crystals. I was expecting a paragraph on Leo Kronecker and Georg Cantor, but maybe Krakauer finds that one too specialized.

Krakauer notes a few literary contributions to the study of stupidity. Swift and Pynchon, naturally. Literary treatments of stupidity are unlikely to yield any useful understanding, I think. Authors of fiction can get away with anything. Even if one can figure out what's being said, it still could be bogus.

I was also hoping that Krakauer might turn up a new-to-me authority on the topic, but he sticks with the big three. Robert Musil wrote his address On Stupidity in 1937 (3). It was the first 20th-century attempt at an analysis — one has to go back to Hegel to find anything earlier. I won't call Musil's address serious scholarship; he wrote it as an amusing after-dinner talk. (Germans. Go figure.) Nevertheless, Musil made real progress by noting the distinction between ignorance and stupidity. Musil's address is several times the length of Krakauer's article. You might find it worth reading, although I struggled with it.

Of course, the morally authoritative work on the topic is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's short chapter On Folly, written in 1943, I think (4). I can't excuse a failure to read Bonhoeffer for anyone interested in either the causes or effects of stupidity, so I won't comment further. I note only that the 21st-century translation uses the word "stupidity," while the earlier one says "folly." Bonhoeffer wrote "dummheit" in 1943. I'm not sure what this means, but with so little knowledge to latch onto, I treat it as significant.

Krakauer gives a nod to Erasmus, of course. His is the earliest writing (the year 1511) on the topic that I'm aware of (5). Erasmus made the case that folly is the engine of human progress. I think it's satire, but so well done that I can't be sure.

No modern essay on stupidity would be complete without citing Cipolla's Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (6). It's difficult to characterize Cipolla. He begins in an almost lighthearted manner, but the reader will be convinced by the end. That little book just might be the best summation of the topic we have. It is certainly the most practical. It is admirably concise, and I recommend it highly.

Krakauer does not state a definition of stupidity. He talks around it a little, exploring the relation between intelligence (another thing he doesn't define) and stupidity. Everyone seems to agree that stupidity is at least somewhat orthogonal to intelligence. The closest Krakauer gets is this recitation of the heart of our knowledge of stupidity:

Stupidity is not what remains when intelligence is subtracted, it is an active mechanism with its own logic, its own dynamics, and a capacity for unbounded growth parasitic on ingenuity. In a world obsessed with ever more powerful cognitive technologies, understanding stupidity is not merely an academic exercise, it might prove to be the most intelligent thing we do.

Since you've read this far, I hate to leave you with nothing but more reading. Here are my definitions, since the academic types either won't commit or are just being stupid: Intelligence is the faculty of prediction. Stupidity (or folly) is selective ignorance of reality in defense of a belief. Both of these are traits, and both are skills.

Krakauer's article is here, in Nautilus. It's a short read and worth one's time, despite the fact that it does not quite deliver what its title promises.

1. David C. Krakauer, What Makes Humans Stupid,

   nautil.us

   Open link

2. "Good" as in "excellent/good/fair/poor"
3. Robert Musil, Precision and Soul, 1937, translated by Pike and Luft, University of Chicago Press, 1978
4. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, After Ten Years, 1943, Touchstone edition by Simon and Schuster, 1997
5. Sorry, no citation for Erasmus. He's not hard to find. You're on your own for Hegel too.
6. Carlo M. Cipolla, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, 1988, Doubleday, 2011