Stupidity Has Never Had It So Good

Why intelligent people stop thinking, and how to spot it

There has probably never been a better time to be intelligent.

More people are educated than ever before. More information is available to us than at any point in history. Almost every fact known to humanity can be summoned within seconds. We have universities, experts, researchers, analysts, consultants, podcasts, fact-checkers and now artificial intelligence.

And yet stupidity seems to be doing remarkably well.

Stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence. An intelligent person can be stupid. An educated person can be stupid. A professor, scientist, business leader, bureaucrat or politician can be stupid. In fact, intelligent people sometimes practise stupidity with considerable sophistication.

This is what makes Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s idea of stupidity so interesting. Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who resisted the Nazi regime. At the end of 1942, he wrote a set of reflections known as After Ten Years. He was arrested in April 1943 and executed in April 1945. The reflections were later published in Letters and Papers from Prison. Bonhoeffer was trying to understand how Germany, one of Europe’s most educated societies, had allowed itself to descend into totalitarianism.

His conclusion was, Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.

By stupidity, Bonhoeffer did not mean low intelligence. He was not talking about the person who struggles with mathematics or cannot remember historical dates.

Bonhoeffer’s stupidity was different. It appeared when people gave up the responsibility of thinking for themselves. An intelligent human being can remain intelligent in every practical sense while gradually surrendering independent judgment. That is the stupidity worth worrying about.

When we stop thinking for ourselves

Modern life requires us to rely on other people.

None of us can personally verify whether an aircraft is safe, whether a medicine works, whether the bridge we are crossing is structurally sound or whether the number appearing in the bank account really represents money somewhere.

Civilisation depends on trust. The problem starts when we outsource not just knowledge but judgment.

Philosopher Robert Howell in his 2014 paper Google Morals, Virtue, and the Asymmetry of Deference questioned, if someone or something else always tells us what the right decision is, what happens to our own capacity for moral judgment? The question has become much more interesting since 2014.

We now ask technology what to eat, where to travel, which shares to buy, whether to change jobs and how to deal with our relationships. Increasingly, we ask it to help us decide what to think.

There is nothing wrong with seeking advice. The problem starts when advice replaces thought.

The same thing happens without technology.

I saw it on television.

Everyone knows that.

The experts have said so.

This is what people like us believe.

None of these statements is necessarily foolish.

But they can become convenient ways of avoiding the next question.

Why do I believe it?

There is an important difference between trusting expertise and surrendering judgment.

I may know very little about epidemiology, nuclear physics or monetary policy. I therefore need experts. But I still must decide which experts are credible, what evidence they offer, whether there is disagreement among them and where the limits of their knowledge lie.

The stupid alternative is much easier.

Pick an authority. Adopt the conclusion. Stop thinking.

Ignorance with confidence

Ignorance is normal. I know almost nothing about hundreds of subjects. So do you.

The more dangerous condition begins when we do not want to know.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates describes those who believed themselves to be wise often knew far less. The dangerous form of ignorance begins when we do not want to know. We see plenty of that around us.

Someone dismisses a book without reading it because they know what sort of person wrote it.

A report is rejected because of the institution that produced it. Research supporting our position is immediately important; research challenging it develops methodological problems.

A complicated issue involving history, economics, technology and human behaviour can now be settled by a forty-second video.

The problem is no longer lack of access to information. The information is there. The refusal is the interesting part.

Chris Ranalli uses the idea of epistemic insulation in his work on indoctrination. Certain beliefs become protected from serious challenge because the belief system itself provides reasons to reject criticism. The belief becomes increasingly difficult to question because every challenge is converted into further proof.

Smart people can be very stupid

In 1937, Musil delivered his lecture On Stupidity in Vienna. He distinguished ordinary limitations of intellect from a much more interesting form of stupidity found among people who were otherwise capable, educated and intelligent.

The intelligent stupid person has all the equipment needed to think well.

He simply uses it to defend what he has already decided to believe.

A clever person is better at finding arguments for his position. He is better at explaining away contradictory evidence. He has a larger vocabulary. He can find impressive references. He can build an argument so elaborate that everyone forgets what the original question was.

Most organisations have met this person.

Universities certainly have.

Companies have him.

Political parties have him.

Governments have him.

He can explain why a programme that nobody wants is strategically important, why falling revenue is evidence of repositioning, why an initiative that missed every target has generated valuable learnings, and why another three years are required before results should reasonably be expected.

This is where education ceases to be protection against stupidity.

The learned fool is not new

In the Dasbodh, Samarth Ramdas describes the पढतमूर्ख — the learned fool. This is not the uneducated fool. Samarth Ramdas is interested in the more intriguing specimen: somebody who has learnt a great deal without acquiring the judgment that learning was supposed to produce.

The padhatmurkha criticises a text without properly examining the whole of it. He notices faults in others but cannot recognise the same faults in himself. He speaks with authority he does not possess. He can listen endlessly to instruction without correcting his own faults.

When expertise travels too far

Nathan Ballantyne offers another useful concept: epistemic trespassing.

An epistemic trespasser has real expertise in one field and begins making confident judgments in another field where that expertise does not necessarily apply.

The problem is common because genuine expertise produces confidence.

A brilliant surgeon is rightly confident about surgery. A successful entrepreneur may know a great deal about business. A famous economist may understand economics exceptionally well. The difficulty starts when success in one field produces the feeling that one’s judgment must be equally good everywhere.

Ballantyne’s warning is not an argument against interdisciplinary thinking. Experts should cross boundaries. The problem is crossing them without being equally learned about it.

We see the phenomenon every day.

A scientist becomes an authority on geopolitics.

An actor becomes an authority on public health.

A business leader becomes an authority on education.

A professor of one subject comments with complete certainty on six others.

Sometimes they are right.

The problem is not that they speak.

It is that the confidence level remains unchanged.

A useful question is therefore not simply, is this person intelligent? It is, Intelligent about what?

What power does to judgment

Strong systems of power reward conformity.

Political parties have party lines. Companies have approved narratives. Universities have fashionable ideas. Professional communities have assumptions that respectable members are expected to understand.

Once these expectations become strong enough, independent thinking becomes expensive.

This is where institutions begin producing stupidity even when they are full of intelligent people.

A board may approve something because everyone assumes somebody else has examined it properly. A committee can reach a decision that few members would have made alone. An organisation can continue with a failing strategy because questioning the strategy would also mean questioning the people who designed it.

One of the most dangerous sentences in institutional life is, everyone is aligned.

Sometimes that means everyone agrees.

Sometimes it means everyone has learnt that disagreement is inconvenient.

When truth becomes optional

Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit is particularly useful in understanding modern public life.

Frankfurt distinguishes the liar from the bullshitter.

The liar knows that truth matters. He tries to hide it.

The bullshitter has a simpler approach. He is not especially concerned whether what he says is true or false. He is interested in whether it works.

Does it impress?

Does it persuade?

Does it get applause?

Does it get shared?

Does it get him through the meeting?

Truth becomes incidental.

This makes bullshit unusually well suited to social media, politics, advertising and management presentations.

A lie has a disadvantage. It can be disproved.

Bullshit can simply move to the next subject.

In his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell showed how vague and inflated language makes bad thinking easier. We have become very good at it.

People are not fired. Organisations are “rightsized.”

Projects do not fail. They generate “learnings.”

Costs are not cut. Resources are “optimised.”

A disastrous decision becomes a “bold experiment.”

A decline becomes a “period of consolidation.”

And when something has gone badly enough, it becomes a “transformational journey.”

The humour hides a serious problem. If language is constantly used to soften reality, eventually reality becomes harder to discuss. If nothing is ever described as failure, nobody has to admit having failed. Then the same mistake can be repeated with a better argument.

A Stupid Person May Be Among You

How does one recognise the Bonhoeffer variety of stupid person?

They may not look stupid. Quite often they look impressive. They may have degrees, titles, followers, excellent spectacles and remarkably firm views on wide ranging subjects.

So how do you recognise one? Not by intelligence. Not by education. Certainly not by confidence.

The stupid person is usually very sure. Experts may hesitate. They may say the evidence is mixed, or that the answer depends on several factors. The stupid person knows it for sure.

Evidence is useful as long as it agrees with him. If it does, it is proof. If it does not, the source is biased, the sample is weak, the funding is suspect or the whole system is compromised.

A stupid person has an efficient way of judging arguments. First find out who said it.

If it came from the right person, there must be some wisdom in it.

If it came from the wrong person, there must be something wrong with it.

This saves the trouble of examining the argument itself.

The convictions of a stupid person can also be surprisingly flexible. When their group changes position, they often do too.

They are also remarkably well informed about subjects they have never studied. The range is impressive.

Disagreement can be risky with a stupid person. Question the argument and, within a few minutes, you may discover that the problem is no longer the argument. The problem is you.

You are biased. Ignorant. Compromised. Perhaps dangerous.

By now, someone may have come to your mind. Perhaps several people. Think hard …

Who around me is stupid?

We are usually much better at spotting stupidity in people we disagree with.

Our own side has principles.

The other side has propaganda.

Our people have context.

Their people have excuses.

We are independent thinkers.

They are biased.

One more question is worth asking:

Where do I become stupid?

Bonhoeffer’s warning is finally quite simple. Intelligence is not enough. Education is not enough. Information is not enough.

The real test is whether we can still think for ourselves when the answer may upset our beliefs or our own opinion of ourselves.

That is harder than it sounds.

Which may be why stupidity continues to do so well.

References 

1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. “After Ten Years: A Reckoning Made at New Year 1943.” In Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 8, edited by John W. de Gruchy.
2. Howell, Robert J. “Google Morals, Virtue, and the Asymmetry of Deference.” Noûs, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2014, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2012.00873.x.
3. “Apology.” Translated by G. M. A. Grube, in Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, with D. S. Hutchinson, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
4. Ranalli, Chris. “Closed-Minded Belief and Indoctrination.” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2022, DOI: 10.5406/21521123.59.1.05.
5. Musil, Robert. “On Stupidity.” In Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses, edited and translated by Burton Pike and David S. Luft, University of Chicago Press, 1990.
6. Samarth Ramdas. Dasbodh, (Murkhalakshana), “Padhatmurkha Lakshana” (Characteristics of the Learned Fool).
7. Ballantyne, Nathan. “Epistemic Trespassing.” Mind, Vol. 128, No. 510, April 2019, DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzx042.
8. Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press, 2005. Originally published as an essay in Raritan in 1986.
9. Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Horizon, Vol. 13, No. 76, April 1946, pp. 252–265.