As I anticipate objections to this title, let me immediately point out two things: first, the answer to the question is “Yes, we are!”, well, kind of. But you need not feel attacked as I’m not shaping this piece specifically to target anyone in particular. However, if you still think that there’s no valid reason to ask questions with such strong derogatory and judgmental overtones, and in light of the first point that definitely makes it worse, then — and this will be my second point — let me at once ask you, most esteemed reader, to forgive me. Perhaps such words like “unwise” or “imprudent” would have been better than “stupid”. Maybe. However, allow me to make a case for it.
It is hard to put up with a rude person, and you’ll acknowledge this fact if you’ve ever had to deal with such at any point in your life. But at the same time, you’ll also probably agree that every now and then, and even through their usual unkind words, they’ll say something so true you’ll have no choice other than to admit they’re doing you a favor by being candid. As much as this is a hard pill to swallow at first, it will toughen you up, give you a thicker skin and make you better overall — even as you’ll be right to continue to not condone rudeness in general. I tried to follow my own advice as I picked up the book “Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” by the late Italian economic historian Carlo M. Cipolla, and I was ready to consider myself ‘stupid’ — provided of course that good, clear and logical arguments are presented.
Laws of Stupidity#
According to Cipolla, there are four kinds of people: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit and the stupid. I was fascinated by the “bandit” type (defined as the person who causes losses to other people for his own gain) as well as the “stupid” person (defined as one who causes losses to his victims in addition to himself). Cipolla asserts that, since people do not normally act consistently, you’ll be able to find all these traits simultaneously in one person and it’ll still make sense. The only exception to this rule is the “stupid” person who shows “a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all fields of human endeavor”; meaning, only the ‘stupid’ person will be consistent in his behavior (i.e. stupidity).
You’ll rightly ask yourself why the stupid person does what he does and wonder why he is always working against himself? It doesn’t make any sense. Perhaps it’s ignorance, naïveté, lack of education, simple-mindedness or lack of experience. However, Cipolla discards the lack of education as a valid explanation for stupidity. He insists that this has nothing to do with the level of education because, according to him, scholars and people with PhDs can be just as stupid as the rest of us. Moreover, Cipolla is adamant that there are no reasons whatsoever that can explain stupidity. No one will ever understand a stupid person because there’s no rationale behind his behavior (hence the stupidity), and this person will be very dangerous due to the fact that the stupidity in question lacks of any sort of rational structure and is unpredictable in principle. How can anyone shield themselves against this?
We may be able to understand the “bandit” at least since all he wants is “a plus on his account” despite the amount of damage and harm he needs to inflict to get his way. Even if the “bandit” burns down a forest, and causes catastrophic damage for very little gain, at least, there’s still in him a logic to follow. But the “stupid” person is a mystery to himself and to the one who observes him.
Cipolla avoids illustrations in his book and leaves it up to the readers to apply the principles he teaches as they see fit. If you try to categorize this work, it seems to be satire at first glance, but after few paragraphs, and as Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out in the foreword of the book, you’re almost “certain it must be a serious work of scholarship in economic analysis”. Regardless of its genre, the book has all characteristics of good satire, i.e. its sharp observations leave the reader in serious thought.
Who’s the Bandit?#
Personally, I wondered at first if this “bandit” type of person really exists. Can anyone really inflict harm and cause losses to others without incurring any himself? Isn’t it a ‘stupid’ thought to ever think to yourself: “I can get away with it”? As Jordan Peterson often puts it, no one is able to simply mess with the ‘fabric of reality’ and go unscathed. Reality is too big of a ‘reality’ for anyone to toy with — pardon the tautology. There must be an attitude of respect or if you will, “fear”, for things that are bigger than us. If you do not “fear God”, then, according to Scripture, you’re a fool. (Looking at the word “fool” from the Holy Bible, suddenly the word ‘stupid’ doesn’t look that bad in comparison now, does it?)
Can anyone open their car’s bonnet and ever say, “This pipe doesn’t seem to be of any use, so I’ll just cut it out”? Will it end well for that person who thinks himself smarter than the car makers? Can any “plus” on his account, however momentary, be really considered a plus in light of impending disaster?
What will happen if, going beyond what Cipolla says, we add ‘time’ to the equation? What I mean is that I may be desperate for a ‘plus on my account’ and I may count my ‘banditry’ to have been beneficial to myself (and to everyone else’s calculations) only to have the passing of time reveal to me, and to my dismay, that I miscalculated and that my account had been negative all along. How much time will it take the student who always cheats on his exams to turn the ill-gotten good grades into complete loss and regret? Can someone really live long enough without the consequences of their actions ever catching up with them?
Perhaps our view of time is also truncated and we, in practice, discard ‘eternity’. Isn’t that why we have the impression that some people seem to ‘get away with it’? Unfortunately, eternity doesn’t just cease to exist just because we ignore it. Jesus once asked “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul”? Even with countless similar warnings, we still want “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” right now regardless of their impact on our future. Why does it seem that these warnings are ineffective? Imagine placing a huge danger sign somewhere and then observing that no one is actually disturbed by it as they all proceed unbothered straight to their destruction? That would be witnessing absurdity in live action!
To some degree, I agree with Cipolla on this point: you’ll never understand ‘stupidity’. No rhythm or reason backs the thoughts of the fool. They’re ever destroying themselves. They’re ever in a repetitive cycle of ‘betraying themselves for nothing’. “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” (Proverbs 26:11). And lest we forget, fools are not “out there”, we are them; constantly thinking we can outsmart the God who created us.
As we think about what our lives are about and what it is that drives us and whether or not our cause is worth living for (or if it’s stupid), let’s consider the voice of one of the kings of Israel, a man of “unsurpassed wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 1:16) . There were no riches this king had not enjoyed, no beauty he hadn’t seen, no work he hadn’t done, no knowledge he hadn’t acquired; yet in all this, he constantly complained about the vanity of it all. According to him, his life was as stupid as “chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:12-17). Won’t it be for our good to heed of his advice, and not secretly count ourselves smarter than him?
The (only) Path to Wisdom#
Who then is ‘the intelligent’? Who then is the one who gains ultimately? Who then is ‘the wise’ in this life? The Apostle Paul joins the old wise king of Ecclesiastes in recounting the utter stupidity of his previous life choices. Whatever he used to count as gain has now shown itself to be complete loss now that he’s found “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”. This is the only remedy for our stupidity — the true knowledge of God. But how can this be?
If you’re determined to live wisely, numerous prolific and intelligent philosophers left countless books to help the rest of us who are cognitively challenged. For Paul though, it’s not a particular (tedious) philosophy that we need to follow; it’s not an abstract or well organized thought that we need, but it’s a person we need to know — the son of God. That doesn’t sound so smart now, does it? Without going into much detail on how he lays it all out, I’ll only point out that Paul upholds that “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile” (1 Corinthians 3:20). No one is inherently smart, and according to our creator, stupidity is especially pervasive in those we consider smart.
Let me put it this way: if all we’re accustomed to is some kind of wisdom which turns out to be stupidity and foolishness, doesn’t it follow that we won’t even be able to smell true wisdom even if it was right in front of us? Paul simply instructs us not to trust our broken senses (that are bent to make his ‘wise’ message look stupid). Our creator’s true wisdom and power is at work in his Son and in the ‘message of the cross’ to expose and shame and save us from the truly and absolute rubbish ways that we mistake for wisdom. I’ll let him have the last word:
Where is the one who is wise?… Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?… It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demands signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:20-25
