Stupidology
When Global Conspiracy Theories Turn Out to Be an International Movement of Idiots
I can't think of anything else to say about Donald Trump. Perhaps everything had already been said when, even before his first presidency, I came across the notes of his ghostwriter Tony Schwartz. When I read that he described Trump as a kind of black hole solely interested in the public's attention, it was obvious that a Twitter king had become president—and that reality TV had conquered politics with The Apprentice. This insight was far more shocking than any suspicions I had about the candidate's personality because it made it clear that we have indeed arrived in the world of post-democracy. The largest and most successful economic power has catapulted itself into a state where we are dealing with hyperbolic truths1, that is: bullshit. This means that the shelf life of political discourse has shrunk to the blink of an eye, and in the absence of a sustainable political plan, let alone a political philosophy, we're now left with pure opportunism—a feedback loop where discourse is reduced to the level of a reality TV show. And this, I fear, isn't the privilege of the American president alone but has also taken root here at home – the President-elect of the UN General Assembly sends her regards!
Here, we encounter a problem that was first clearly identified by the French emperor's advisor, Talleyrand. When Napoleon had an opponent executed, Talleyrand coolly remarked: »Monsieur, that was worse than a crime, it was stupidity.« Dietrich Bonhoeffer made a similar point in his letters from prison:
»Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of good than malice. Evil can be protested against, exposed, and, if necessary, prevented by force. Evil always carries within itself the seeds of self-destruction, leaving at least a feeling of unease among people. We are defenseless against stupidity. Neither protests nor violence can achieve anything here; reason does not work. (...) Unlike evil, the stupid are completely satisfied with themselves; indeed, they even become dangerous because they are easily provoked into attacking. (...) The fact that stupid people are often stubborn should not obscure the reality that they are not independent. When talking to them, you can sense that you are not dealing with them personally, but rather with slogans, catchphrases, or similar concepts that have become powerful.«2
The portrait Bonhoeffer paints here is that of a party follower who, blinded by slogans, catchphrases, and ideologemes, has entered into a mode of mass existence. As a result, what Bonhoeffer calls stupidity doesn't belong in the realm of intelligence but rather in the field of psychology—he concludes that stupidity is »not essentially an intellectual defect, but a human one.«3
Considering the historical background, Bonhoeffer's moralization of stupidity, which he views as an intensification of malice and the epitome of radical evil, is entirely understandable – especially from the author's perspective. When Bonhoeffer wrote this, he was imprisoned by the Nazis and awaiting execution. However, such moralization provides little assistance in explaining how an entire society, as noted above, falls prey to this vice. With this question, Carlo M. Cipolla's hour of fame begins, as he launched the discipline of Stupidology in a text just over 11 pages long. Not only that, but it also sparked a veritable hype about it.
Long before I became aware of this essay, I knew Cipolla as a medieval economic historian, a thinker who had devoted himself with fine sensitivity to inquisitive questions: the question, as exemplar, what exactly was the nature of ghost money in the Middle Ages,4, or what was the state of literacy before the Gutenberg printing press came into being—exemplaries he cited are indelibly burned into my memory, such as the fact that a library of 14 books enjoyed nationwide fame in 14th-century Italy—and that a young lady, given the choice between receiving a corpus iuris or a husband, chose the former. Cipolla himself probably didn't realize that his satirical little book, Allegro ma non troppo, would become a bestseller (with a print run of over 300,000), as he'd only intended this (not entirely serious) text as a private publication for his friends. While the first text in which he discussed »The role of spices (especially pepper) in the economic development of the Middle Ages« was a satire on his own research practices, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, while amusing, was ultimately a thoroughly profound contribution. This is all the more true when it's remembered that Cipolla, as an acknowledged expert on the late Middle Ages, was intimately familiar with the schizophrenia of that era. In short, his five laws of stupidity are as follows:
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a particular person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under circumstances, dealing and/or associating with stupid people infallibly turns out to be a costly mistake.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
Cipolla's argument is particularly compelling because he compares foolish people to criminals. While criminals deceive others to acquire another person's property without harming society (at least from a macroeconomic perspective, as good A merely changes hands but remains intact), stupid people end up harming themselves and others. In other words, stupidity proves to be a form of socially harmful behavior – and this is all the more fatal because those affected believe they are at the height of worldly enlightenment, if not moral champions. At this point, we should ask whether Cipolla's Stupidology isn't actually the Divina commedia of a much larger, much darker social drama: namely, a society that, instead of working toward reason, indulges in catchphrases, slogans, and ideologemes whose sole purpose is to convince the speakers of their worldview's invulnerability. In this sense, Cipolla's Stupidology is merely the entrée into a world in which the do-gooders' Moral Economy has taken over – and in which, like the inscription above the gates of Dante's Inferno, the words »Abandon all hope, ye who enter here« – Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che entrate – should be emblazoned. In fact, moral grandstanding and the return of apocalyptic thinking reveal that we're dealing with a collectivized, socially accepted stupidity, a global conspiracy of idiots, if you will. And perhaps this, far more than any factual discussion, would be the only comment anyone could make about the events of our time and its protagonists: Dear God! That was worse than a crime, it was stupidity!
Translation: Hopkins Stanley & Martin Burckhardt
This expression was coined by Tony Schwartz, who, in order to get to know Trump better, requested permission to listen to him on the phone for a whole day. During this time, Tony Schwartz noticed that Trump not only showered his phone partners with the most obsequious compliments but, to put it mildly, had a highly flexible and thoroughly strategic relationship with the truth. The question was: How could this be portrayed in their joint book without resorting to such unflattering terms as ›lies‹ or ›deception‹? The term Schwartz settled on was hyperbolic truth. Nevertheless, he was unsure how Trump would react to the rhetorically embellished portrayal of his negotiating techniques. Surprisingly, Trump wasn't the least bit irritated, considering the concept of hyperbolic truth to be downright brilliant.
Bonnhoeffer, D. – Ergebung und Widerstand. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft, eds. Eberhard Betghe, Gütersloh, 1983, p. 14 ff.
Ibid., p. 15.
Cipolla, C. – Money, Prices and Civilization in the Mediterranean World, Princeton 1956.
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Perhaps the simpleton's image of this piece itself is (quite apprentice-like) little more than an attempt to seek attention? Or as Neil Postman put it, to amuse ourselves to death. And the subtitle the most stupid thing ever seen on the Globe since Caesar? If stupidity is a human “defect”, it interestingly has always been up to the self-proclaimed “intelligent” to define this defect. The Donald (who also passively never seems to miss any attention ;-) btw just openly called a Journalist a “jerk” and an “idiot”. For sure he isn't stupid. From a "rational" point of view.