It’s practically guaranteed that we now have extra stupid people on the planet than ever earlier than. After all, we may be tempted to suppose; simply have a look at what number of of them disagree with my politics. However this unprecedented stupidity is primarily, if not totally, a function of an unprecedentedly giant global population. The extra important matter has much less to do with quantity of stupidity than with its quality: of all of the types it could take, which does essentially the most damage? Robert Greene, writer of The 48 Legal guidelines of Power and The Legal guidelines of Human Nature, handlees that question in the clip above from an interview with podsolider Chris Williamson.
“What makes people stupid,” Greene explains, “is their certainty that they’ve all of the solutions.” The fundamental concept might sound familiar, since we’ve previously featured right here on Open Culture the related phenomenon of the Dunning-Kruger impact. In some sense, stupid people who know they’re stupid aren’t actually stupid, or at the least not hurtfully so.
True to kind, Greene makes a classical reference: Athens’ leaders went into the Peloponnesian Battle certain of victory, when it actually introduced concerning the finish of the Athenian golden age. “People who’re certain of issues are very stupid,” he says, “and after they have power, they’re very, very dangerous,” perhaps extra so than these we’d name evil.
This brings to thoughts the oft-quoted principle referred to as Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately defined by stupidity.” However even in otherclever intelligent individuals, a tendency towards premature certainty can induce that stupidity. Wagerter, in Greene’s view, to cultivate what John Keats, impressed by Shakespeare, known as “negative capability”: the power to “maintain two ideas in your head on the identical time, two ideas that apparently contradict every other.” We would consider, for example, entertaining the concepts of our aforemalestioned political enemies — not fully settle foring them, thoughts you, but additionally not fully settle foring our personal. It could, at the least, prevent the onset of stupidity, a condition that’s clearly difficult to remedy.
Related content:
Why Incompetent People Suppose They’re Competent: The Dunning-Kruger Impact, Defined
Based mostly in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His initiatives embody the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the guide The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social webwork formerly referred to as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
