On Stupidity
A Feminine Force
Shipmate
I came across this quote by renowned Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, who observed that "Stupidity is the same as evil when comparing their outcomes."
This smacked me between the eyes, it's my new matra.
I would exchange "ignorance" with "stupidity" except it seems to be just a specific color of stupidity.
Do we agree with Atwood?
Discuss.
AFF
This smacked me between the eyes, it's my new matra.
I would exchange "ignorance" with "stupidity" except it seems to be just a specific color of stupidity.
Do we agree with Atwood?
Discuss.
AFF
Comments
https://bonpote.com/en/the-5-basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/
AFF
If the end is the only thing that matters (utilitarianism) and the outcome is evil then sometimes they will be the same.
But stupidity can sometimes have good outcomes.
The difference between evil and stupidity is intention. Which is a moral dilemma, not an outcomes one.
So she's mixing her categories. She's wrong.
Stupidity is just not knowing something. Wilful ignorance I think implies something about going out of your way to avoid knowing something
If one has done something stupid and it's pointed out, then they would do all they could to put things right.
If they've done something malicious, then they wanted that outcome in the first place.
I never, ever call a person stupid. I say "that was a stupid thing to do.'
There are certain sorts of stupidity of which only intelligent people are capable. (For example assuming that expertise on one area, often the natural sciences or finance, automatically transfers to other areas.)
"the engineer's disease"
Not according to the five laws of stupidity it can't.
If we accept those as the definition of stupidity.
AFF
Let's refer to the five laws of stupidity and see if we come to the same conclusion.
AFF
Yeah but it doesn't matter what your intention is if the outcome is the same as if you were just plain malicious or evil.
Which is her point.
AFF
With regards to the opening post, I don't think I agree with Atwood. I would say evil is that which has a purpose and direction, but stupidity is following that direction for some non-rational reason.
To give a pertinent example, I believe that many of the most senior figures in the American government right now are evil. But most of those that put them in office are stupid. Yet the two are not binary opposites, so one can be evil and stupid (I'm sure we can all think of examples).
Yes it does matter. Unintended stupidly can lead to someone realising their error and working to put things right.
Anyway, I feel blaming the evils of the world on the fact that one is surrounded by idiots is itself a species of stupidity.
As they say, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you then chances are you haven't understood the problem.
(*) Although I wouldn't argue with someone who said it was Stephen Moffat.
My take it on it would be that ignorance (even wilful ignorance) is curable, but that stupidity is not.
In some circumstances, ignorance is culpable, but, I would argue, stupidity is not.
Of course, even non-stupid people can do stupid things, and that too might be culpable.
I tend to think that often we are so stupid that we don't even know how stupid we are being.
Good intentions aren't enough, as they say. If one is an idiot it doesn't matter that you thought certain outcomes would be desirable. Some people seem so stupid that they don't even recognise why the outcomes are not desirable for everyone involved.
For me and in my experience it takes some considerable effort to break out from stupidity. It's a series of mental layers. First you move to one new mental plateau when you realise you were previously hideously wrong about something. Then with work you come to further understanding about how even that plateau is largely or mostly stupid and you have to strain to move further.
Understandably most people don't like to put that much effort in.
"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous."
Fuller text for the quote here.
Law number three expressly defines a stupid person as a person who causes losses to another person or group of people when he or she does not benefit and may even suffer their own losses.
Stupid people are are dangerous and harmful because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior.
I feel like ignorance is a shade of stupidity, and isn't exactly something else but like a subcategory of the Genus.
AFF
One is this repeated truism that you can't use reason and logic to get someone out of a position they didn't arrive at with reason and logic.
But then I don't think it is necessarily the stupid person who arrives at positions without using reason and logic, that sometimes reason and logic send a person to the wrong destination and so on. I have known quite a few logical people in my life who are stupid in one way or another.
I think I made that into an intellectual project because I have family who are Trumpers and I refused - for a long time - to write them off.
I have learned a lot from the experience, but it does leave me feeling kind of patronizing. It's a very dangerous exercise, especially when they're not people you're particularly close to.
Amateur anthropology is a risky game, especially among friends and family. I think I've done a decent job of it but there are hard lessons.
One of the biggest lessons for me is to stop thinking that I'm so smart. I think some people mind less the intelligence gap and more the patronizing attitude that goes with education, it's why the phrase "liberal elites" became a thing.
More specifically, one reason I can get along with people is I make a point of trying to show respect when I'm in their presence, even if I viscerally disagree or take offense at their attitude.
[And along those lines, that Bonhoeffer quote I linked above is a goldmine.]
FF also equated ignorance with stupidity. If that is true would Einstein be stupid if he does not know every day social conventions?
For me, stupidity
Is not ignorance,
Not low IQ
But a maladaptive response to reality.
By maladaptive I mean a response thar results in negative outcomes for the person in society. A maladaptive behavior, thought, or coping strategy is one that might have helped a person at some point, but now works against their well‑being, prevents healthy functioning, or creates new problems instead of solving old ones.
I linked the first article I found on the five laws. But feel free to project your political insecurities on someone who is neither American nor who lives on the North American continent. It's not personal. But if the shoe fits ...
I'm not equating ignorance and stupidity, but if you feel they are different things, I'd like to understand how they result in different outcomes, and how those outcomes might differ from those brought about by malice or evil.
AFF
Could you maybe be a bit less aggressive? You've introduced an idea, linked to an article explaining a linked but different idea and then seem to be insisting we all read and understand it in the way that you specify.
Nobody is holding you to account for images in an article you didn't write. But it's also not some wild observation that the images mean something.
In a scarcity world, which politics includes, these are real choices. I know folks in West Virginia who complain that the democrats don't invest a lot of resources in getting West Virginians to vote democrat, and my sense is that the larger party looks at their resources, look at West Virginia, and says "that's too expensive for the return on investment." And they are saying, in a sense, that West Virginians are stupid. It's too much work to persuade that many reliably red voters to change their votes. It's a tough field to work, ornery.
Even if they're not tactically mistaken, one may see why even folks of good will over there might not appreciate that attitude very much! And if anyone wants to call me out for geography, I grew up in Western Maryland, just over the river from West Virginia, and I have very strong feelings about the place. I know some folks there whose feelings about politics are...shall we say, complicated.
But I think that's a sense of stupid. "Communicating with this person simply is not worth the effort involved in educating them." Doesn't necessarily mean they can't learn, just that teaching them is going to take a lot of resources that could be put to better use.
And yeah, I don't like that attitude, not one bit. But I do recognize it.
Ignorant just means someone isn't aware of something, and you can break that down in to "willfully ignorant" and "passively ignorant." Passively ignorant can be corrected with education. Willfully ignorant is harder, because then you have to get into why said person has chosen to be ignorant, and that's often a very thorny issue.
Very well. As you wish.
AFF
I'd say that genuine ignorance is correctable. If someone does something with a bad outcome, because they genuinely don't understand that it's bad, or don't foresee the consequence, then they can learn better, they can be taught better, and then can avoid doing it the next time.
At what point does a refusal to learn become culpable? Take, for example, flat earthers (to hopefully pick something that isn't going to get too controversial or personal). Perhaps without exception, all of them are intellectually capable of observing all the evidence that the earth is round, and drawing the correct conclusion from it. They just decide not to. I don't understand someone's willingness to be stubbornly wrong like that, but I will absolutely hold anyone* responsible if they think such arrant nonsense.
*OK, anyone educated in a modern society.
I think that it's helpful to make the distinction between willful ignorance and passive ignorance, even if the outcomes of either might be equally disastrous, it assumes that passive ignorance is desirous of being corrected whereas willful ignorance is not, no matter what ensues from it.
And in this respect I think that willful ignorance is a subcategory of stupidity as defined by the third law in the article.
AFF
So if I am applying the four quadrants of the stupidity matrix, I would put flat eathers somewhere in the upper left quadrant close to the center as helpless leaning "ineffectual people". They aren't doing themselves or anyone else any favors but they don't seem to be doing themselves or others much harm either.
It's a very peculiar point of view but I don't see them causing losses to themselves and others with their particular view of reality.
AFF
The topic of the thread is on how one defines stupidity. FF made the equivalence that ignorance was stupidity. I asked if Einstein could be considered stupid if he did not know social conventions.* Then I gave my definition of what stupidity is to me.
Did not think I would evoke a personal attack.
*There is a story Einstein began eating the bread plate of the person sitting next to him. When the host gently pointed it out, he laughed and said:
“I always forget these rituals. I hope the bread doesn’t mind.”
It was not stupidity—just a mind tuned to cosmic questions rather than table choreography.
My bad. My stupidity, even. Sometimes reading for comprehension escapes me. But I can't escape the negative outcomes my stupidity sets in motion.
Which commandment was it? Engage brain before engaging mouth.
I beg your pardon.
AFF
Well I think the model proposes that negative outcomes are ones that result in loss to the parties involved.
Sometimes a loss isn't a bad thing.
But I think that a net loss to what we regard as something that is good is an undesirable outcome.
AFF
Apology accepted. I also have trouble reading for comprehension. In particular, when it comes to a long discourse, I will tend to focus maybe on the last paragraph and miss the point entirely.
I have noticed that intelligence is often rather subjective to system. You see this a lot when people who think economically run into people who think ecologically.
"You're destroying our environment!" "You're ruining our business!"
Neither is wrong, both are incredibly stupid to the other's way of thinking.
Right. So when stupidity is measured as being something which causes problems for others without benefit to oneself they are looking at it from two different ends of the same glass.
People who think like economists look at environmentalists as being people who want to deprive society of something good - products we need for our current standard of living, money etc. - and since the environmentalist would be equally disadvantaged by the cessation of the economic activity, this looks "stupid".
People who think like environmentalists look at economically-minded people and view them as destructive of the very foundation of our existence on the planet, and see them by their activity as wishing to deprive themselves and everyone eventually of life and health and so are therefore "stupid".
Although the cure is to unite the intelligence that is present in both populations in order to come up with better ways of creating the kind of life of health and comfort we enjoy.
AFF
(as AFF link) is in accord with the example of Christ. 'Helpless' seems closer to both Christ and the prophets.
One way to consider the OP is seeing it as Margaret Atwood doing us all a favour, in making morality redundant. It's one less thing to worry about. If the outcomes are the same, we can stop worrying about whether what we're about to do is stupid or morally wrong, and just think about the possible outcomes.
In relation to whether intent matters, I think it's an assumption that a person who stupidly causes loss or damage inevitably feels compelled to make compensation.
That's why I find it safer to assume that we're all acting irrationally. We would all benefit from getting in touch with our inner idiot.
Ah - I've had to remind myself what this means in your worldview.
Not necessarily. You could look at the outcome in terms of continued existence of the species - which is in itself neither good nor bad. (I think Cipolla's graph / matrix leans in this direction.)
'The engineer's disease" is a strange phrase in this context (to me). As a professional engineer, if not a highly intelligent one, I am acutely aware of my lack of knowledge and expertise in other, and even related fields, and don't assume that being an engineer gives me any right to pretend otherwise. Is awareness of a lack of knowledge wilful ignorance?
Some people are more afraid of appearing stupid than appearing evil or bad.
The "antihero" or in the case of the matrix, the "bandit" is an archetype that many people resonate with and they are less inclined to care about social ostracization when labelled with variants such as "the rebel" the "self made man" or "the outcast/underdog". According to the matrix, at least we can understand the motives for such behaviour, even if we don't approve of them.
But nobody cuts you slack if you act a "fool" or "idiot". There's something we perceive as incurable or irredeemable about that label. Forgiveness for this type of behaviour has to be truly unconditional because we can't grasp any rationale that might justify those decisions.
Well and in this case I don't think we can wholly dispense with ethics, because people without an internalized desire to operate in the world as a "white hat" , who don't care if they wear the "black hat" occasionally or permanently, they won't feel the inclination to make amends.
Amen and amen. There is much to be said for doing this kind of "shadow work". This aspect of us loves to act as the trickster, and loves to operate when our attention is not fully fixed on the matter at hand. When we're distracted by some kind of internal narrative that's when it jumps into the driver's seat.
Yes. It's a tightrope, all the time, and the safety net is far enough down there to make any kind of landing painful.
AFF
I certainly acknowledge "not all engineers". The phrase is an acknowledgement that, either because of a quirk of temperament that attracts some people to engineering or because of something about how engineering deals with problems, some engineers are particularly prone among STEM-qualified people to believing conspiracy theories and other anti-science nonsense (lists of claimed scientists who deny climate change tended to feature a lot of engineers alongside [oil industry] geologists).
I'm also very used to being in the wrong. My memory is, and always has been dodgy. So I preface much of what I say with "I could be wrong" or "I could be misremembering". So part of my identity in the 'stupid' bracket. But I'm always willing and more than able to learn - and I'm excellent in a crisis.
Maybe the current political climate in the US is colouring your thinking? You seem to be putting people into two categories when they are wrong - either 'stupid' or 'evil'.
But people are far, far more complicated and nuanced than that. Doing stupid things is human. But so is doing wonderful, kind and creative things. Few people - bar psychopaths - are so clearly one sided as you seem to think.
Cultural tradition plays a part - "Acting the fool" is deeply rooted in British humour, often used to bridge social gaps or to make individuals more approachable
Irony and self depreciation - Brits often "take the micky" out of themselves or others, using irony and sarcasm as a way to bond. Acknowledging their own folly or acting like a "loser" is often seen as endearing rather than embarrassing.
Teasing/banter and being self-deprecating is a form of social bonding that shows affection, which differs from the American tendency to use compliments for goodwill. Compliments here are often seen as suspicious.
The British often celebrate characters who are awkward or "pathetic," as seen in comedy staples like Fawlty Towers or The Office (UK), where the main character is often really stupid - and much loved.
It's certainly true that some engineers may feel they have to protect their jobs in the oil and other industries by staying silent when their employers make trump-like claims, but in the time I've worked in engineering, I've rarely encountered anything but respect for science, and sometimes humility in the face of it. There have been one or two religious zealots, and one highly respected civil engineer in the north who was a fervent believer in the Loch Ness monster, but he was a good engineer. You really can't function as an engineer without respect for science. Even now, the work of Galileo and Newton, to mention only the most obvious, is the basis of everything we do. Are there stupid engineers? Are there idiots practising as engineers? I'd be an idiot to say 'no', but stupidity and idiocy make it rather difficult to obtain professional qualifications.
I think if you read the definition if stupidity proposed by Cipolla and paraphrased by Atwood, it's more about how you act than how you think.
It's about acting in a manner that does harm or creates loss or problems for others, while failing to render any benefit to, or even harming, oneself.
I'm not American but I can certainly see how politicians not just in America but in other parts of the globe, have acted, and are acting "stupidly" according to this definition.
The quadrant is divided into four parts>
win/win actions are undertaken by people who are classified as "intelligent" and you don't have to be a Mensa member to qualify here.
win/lose actions are undertaken by people who are smart enough to act in their own interests regardless if that results in others' loss. Cipolla refers to them as "bandits".
lose/win actions are undertaken by people who negotiate for or expect a reciprocal benefit for themselves but who do not receive it and are classified in the model as "the abused".
lose/lose actions are undertaken by people who create problems and loss for others while doing harm or creating loss for onself. Those are classified as "stupid".
Atwood simply observes that the outcomes created by stupidity are indistinguishable from those created by malice or evil.
AFF
Given that stupidity here is a translation of his original Italian stupidità, I find myself wondering if contextually something is lost in translation.
That is very possible. I hadn't considered that.
If it's not stupidity as you understand it what would you call it? I mean cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, what would we call that?
AFF