The art of war teaches that the key to victory is knowing the enemy. Quite naturally, because the wise of this world have always tried to comprehend the essence of their own sworn enemy - stupidity. To do this, as it turned out, is not an easy task: nimble and slippery, she slips out of the most tenacious hands and does not want to give away her secrets. In order to properly anatomize this insidious creature, it is necessary with a firm hand to make a neat cut with a scalpel from the opposite end, that is, from the side of the mind. Only by examining the very mechanism of which it is a defect in the application, we can shed light on the nature of stupidity.
Thought at its core has a striking resemblance to the process of assimilating food. Once in our body, the latter is broken down by it to the smallest bricks, after which our body uses the obtained material in its own construction and restoration projects. Equally, the human mind, perceiving information, deconstructs it to its constituent elements and traces the internal connections between them - it carries out analysis. At the same time, the brain forges new connections both between the received information blocks and combining them with already existing information, forming new knowledge - a synthesis takes place. It is then analyzed again in the context of the broader data system, the measure of its agreement with them is checked, after which it can be discarded or, on the contrary, temporarily accepted.
The application of the mind is, therefore, a continuous fiery tango of analytical and synthetic processes, and therefore it is the volume of ability and habit to them that is the measure of the mind. Analysis and synthesis, however, are far from homogeneous: as experience shows, they proceed in different spheres and modes, the ability to each of which is different for people. For this reason, we are often confronted not with intelligence or stupidity as such, but with their different options and combinations, with people who are smart and stupid at the same time, but in different areas of application of the ability to judge.
So, for philosophical thinking, macroanalysis is paramount - the study of connections and verification of correspondences in the extremely wide context of our experience, the simultaneous review of a huge set of large information blocks and the relationships between them. You can compare it with trying to look around, keep in mind and trace the structure of the entire universe - the universe of our experience. The scale of the task is such that we are forced to abstract from the details and notice in this process only the most frequently repeated and largest objects, as well as the connections between them, but only in this way are we able to break through to the most general questions.
Mathematical and natural-scientific thinking, on the contrary, depend more on microanalysis - they need to study in great detail a separate sphere or, more often, a layer of experience. Although a person's ability for both operations can be well developed, most often the nature does not show such generosity. This explains the long-noticed fact of the notorious stupidity of smart people, the childish naivety of many scientists in matters of life as such, in philosophy and psychology. On the other hand, it becomes clear that there is no paradox in the fact that many brilliant thinkers and creators were either insufficiently capable of natural-mathematical sciences or were simply hopeless in them (for example, Carl Gustav Jung).
Analytical and synthetic abilities have many modes and types in addition to those listed above, but their discussion is not of interest for the topic under discussion. It is important to clearly understand here that although the application of the mind is reduced to the same processes, they occur in a person with different efficiency in different planes and scales. It is often possible to observe how a person who has penetrated deeply into the secrets of nature turns out to be blind to what is happening in his own soul and the souls of his neighbors and does not know how to arrange his life at all. Having achieved so much in one creative field reveals helplessness or mediocrity outside of it.
The habit of perceiving the ability to judge as a monolith is one of the persistent illusions that have let humanity down more than once. For thousands of years, people have turned successful and victorious generals into state leaders only to discover with amazement their complete inability to lead society. Brilliant military strategies were expected from successful administrators and subtle politicians - and again in vain, they suffered one defeat after another. Equally, it was often believed that physicists and mathematicians would endow us with valuable life advice, and philosophers would reveal the secrets of power over matter. Thus, mankind often makes the mistake of the door and turns to the carpenter instead of the jeweler (and vice versa) on the sole basis that both, in essence, work with their hands. The tendency to knock down intelligence, talent and success in a bunch is not only observed in such sublime areas,but it is also clearly visible in the attention with which mankind today listens to the "expert" opinions of athletes and movie stars on science, politics, economics and philosophy. Contrary to popular wisdom, an intelligent person is not at all smart in everything, just as a talented person is not talented in everything.
One of the first titans of thought who learned the hard way that he was not smart and talented in everything was Plato - a brilliant thinker and a key figure in all Western philosophy. For many years, nursing the concept of an ideal state, at the age of 38-39 years, at the invitation of a friend, he went to Syracuse to become a statesman, educator and adviser to the young ruler Dionysius the Elder. Finally, it would seem, his bright mind can be applied in practice and begin to build a new reality according to beautiful blueprints. The enterprise, however, turned out to be not just a failure, but a tragedy. For about a year in Syracuse, Plato got so tired of Vladyka that, by his order, he was expelled from Sicily and sold into slavery (the original order was to kill him, but the executor did not dare to do it),from which he was later redeemed by the disciples. Plato, however, was not timid and did not admit defeat: twice more he came to Syracuse (already to Dionysius the Younger) with the same goal - and again unsuccessfully, although without such dramatic consequences.
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Two reasons for stupidity
Every individual is characterized by a combination of abilities, each of which is at a certain stage of development and can be strengthened or suppressed. This movement is carried out within the framework established by nature that determines our physical, mental and other capabilities. This inevitable limitation, however, should not be too burdensome for a person, because he, being far from the limits of his bodily abilities, is even more distant from the exhaustion of the potential of his own mind.
The real reason for the stupidity that we encounter every day does not lie in the stinginess of nature, which has not endowed people with sufficient computing power. It consists in the fact that a person is separated from his higher capabilities, is not used to and does not know how to apply the ability to judge actively and creatively. Instead of independent analysis and synthesis, which constitute the natural application of the mind, inert thinking comes to the fore through the model, through the prism of internalized stereotypes and algorithms. The intellect of a fool can be compared to an organism that, instead of deconstructing and creatively transforming food in the process of self-creation, would use it ready-made - here it glues a leaf of lettuce, here - a slice of bacon, and here a chicken leg fits well. It's monstrousa surrealistic spectacle is the inner world of a near-minded individual, filled with undigested and therefore alien structures.
There are two main reasons for stupidity, that is, the alienation of a person from a healthy capacity for judgment - external and internal. On the one hand, social reality does not encourage free-thinking, since it consists of many actors acting in their own interests and competing for power over minds, and therefore their behavior. The world around us is full of those who are not only helpful, but even aggressively and persistently ready to think for us. From childhood to the last breath, ready-made patterns of thinking and behavior are continuously installed in us, as if discouraging any real need to invent something ourselves - after all, everything has already been said, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. If large power formations want to see us as a buyer, worker, voter, soldier or believer,then individual individuals are always very willing to exercise in manipulation, planting certain ideas and desires in their neighbors.
On the other hand, we so easily succumb to stupidity because we avoid the creative discomfort inherent in thought work. When a physically unprepared person begins to play sports, it often happens that every workout is painful for him, because any overcoming of his own limitations is accompanied by stress, a kind of natural exhaust from internal combustion engines. As the body adapts, this stress - although it does not go anywhere - begins to bring less discomfort and more joy, multiplied by the results obtained. Intellectual exercises differ from physical exercises in that if you indulge in them seriously, the degree of painful tension they cause is a hundred times higher, and the adaptation threshold is located much further. Yet in this field, too, man eventually comes to a point where the creative discomfort of thought work begins to bring more and more satisfaction - a complex form of happiness riddled with small pulsating clots of pain - like a climber climbing a peak. Reaching this point, embarking on the path of movement towards it, when everything around carefully assures that there is no need for this is not an easy task. It is not surprising then that in a world suffering from obesity and bodily weakness, almost everyone is struck by various forms of intellectual dystrophy, because it takes a lot more effort to fight it.to embark on the path of movement towards it, when everything around carefully assures that there is no need for this is not an easy task. It is not surprising then that in a world suffering from obesity and bodily weakness, almost everyone is struck by various forms of intellectual dystrophy, because it takes a lot more effort to fight it.to embark on the path of movement towards it, when everything around carefully assures that there is no need for this is not an easy task. It is not surprising then that in a world suffering from obesity and bodily weakness, almost everyone is struck by various forms of intellectual dystrophy, because it takes a lot more effort to fight it.
Having outlined the nature and causes of stupidity, it is necessary to at least take a quick look at the inherent consequences and identifying signs that are present in different people to different degrees.
1. Existential inferiority
Since the thinking of a stupid person is carried out with the help of ideas, algorithms and stereotypes swallowed up in whole pieces, he does not have an individuality in the strict sense of the word, he as such does not yet exist and never existed. Separated from the ability to judge by his inertia and the ideological screen loaded into it, he has an external priority of determination - his inner life (and therefore external) is a projection of alien principles, subordinated not to his own higher interests, but to someone else's.
2. Vulnerability to manipulation and conformity
The underdevelopment of analytical and synthetic abilities, the habit of external determination make such an individual an easy prey for any agent of influence, dictator or charlatan - or just a float driven by the stream of everyday life and adapting to its flow.
3. Inertia and inertia
The suppressed ability to actively and creatively transform the content of one's mind and information flow is exactly what makes a stupid individual such, therefore, his indispensable companion is the obscurity of beliefs and views. Most of them, once adopted into service, remain with him for a long time or forever and only another clever manipulator can change them.
4. Immunity to rational discourse
For this reason, changing the point of view of a stupid person within the framework of a rational dialogue is a task close to impossibility. The fact is that he does not have a point of view as such, only mechanical (that is, dead, not assimilated by the body and not transformed) stereotypes, which were assimilated in a practically intact form. The proposed alternative position is powerless already because in order to see its superiority over the existing views, it is required to conduct a comparative analysis of them, the ability to which is atrophied.
5. Selective perception and tendency to confirm their point of view
When faced with a rational discourse, a stupid person hides behind an impenetrable wall of cultural and ideological codes parasitizing on him and fires off ready-made theses from its parapet. From the surrounding world, he perceives only those facts that confirm the position he shares. He is deaf to the fact that he does not fit into the picture of the world he carries, or he denies the very existence of such circumstances.
6. Self-blindness: the Dunning-Kruger effect
Finally, a fool who is incapable of analyzing the external remains in the same complete ignorance of himself - and in the first place does not notice his own stupidity. The blindness caused by the suppression of the ability to judge, prevents him from seeing the very fact of his own blindness, or at least realizing its true extent. This long-known phenomenon in a narrower context was studied by D. Dunning and K. Kruger, who drew attention to how people with low qualifications cannot understand how low qualifications they have precisely because of their low qualifications.
Foolishness, therefore, represents a person's alienation from the higher possibilities of his own judgment, just as weakness is isolation from the higher possibilities of his own body. In order not to fall victim to it or to escape from its stifling embrace, a double action is necessary, but one in its essence. First, you need to open your own soul to creative discomfort and understand that it is not only natural, but also good. In the sacred pain of mental work, both the person himself and everything great that he manages to create is born. If we are firm on this path, the claws of painful tension will gradually unclench and the spirit will more and more generously indulge us with positive emotions. Secondly, developing the ability for independent analysis and synthesis, we must turn it into an antivirus,deconstructing alien influences acting on us and programs already deeply seated within us, otherwise, instead of living our own life, we will feed parasitic organisms.
© Oleg Tsendrovsky
