Stupidity, I am sorry to say, is no joke, as it is portrayed
on stage, screen and TV. It is the second worst crime against humanity and a
very close runner-up to evil. It is neither necessarily heedless (it can be the
very best and most considered that some persons can manage) nor headless (as it
lodges snugly under many a cranium). It can crop up even in the oldest and
wisest, perhaps most strikingly there.
It has many forms. It boasts in equal profusion crimes of
omission and of commission. It can pop up in the most unexpected places, such
as the philosopher who on an icy day steps out without his overcoat, or the
accomplished cook who gets burned more than once. It can make heroism look
stupid—rightly so—in those brave in a bad cause or heroic in a foolish war. How
right Brecht, who was often wrong, was when he wrote, “Happy is the nation that
has no need for a hero.”
Take the populations of the mightiest nations and ask
yourself how many of those billions are immune from stupidity within or without.
In the absence of statistics, I would venture an educated guess: close to zero
per cent if you include minor or infrequent stupidities. As I suggested, it is
protean in form, and ubiquitous in habitat. It includes even seemingly dutiful
attempts at avoidance, as in those who year in, year out seek out psychotherapy
that does them no good. As Karl Kraus remarked: “Psychiatry is the disease of which it
pretends to be the cure.” Nevertheless, one must admit that, used in
moderation, it can be beneficial.
What makes stupidity especially sinister is that, like
certain forms of cancer and other illnesses, it is impossible to diagnose
before it is too late. With the passage of time, one may even look back benignly
on earlier years’ stupidities. Yet how effective is recognition when it comes
to reparation? It neither redeems past stupidity, nor resists the future kind.
In any case, does being wise about some things protect from
being stupid about others? When it was finally realized that the earth is not
flat and that the sun does not revolve around it, did mankind in other matters
become smarter or better? Of course people are no longer burned at the stake as
in Galileo’s time, but where is the improvement in so many other respects?
Granted, some stupidities are harmless or even useful. It is
good that Erasmus was able to come out with his satire “In Praise of Folly.” But
then look at the cost of not one but two atom bombs to end the war against
Japan. They did, however, generate one harmless dumbness. The charming British
actress, Sara Miles, had such loathing of anything Japanese that only the most
desperate effort could prevail upon her to play a scene with a Japanese actor
in a movie. “O.K.,” she finally relented, “I will do one scene with you. But I’ll
never forgive what you people did to us at Hiroshima.”
It is especially easy to be stupid, or at any rate ignorant,
about many things in our era of science and technology. I myself couldn’t
explain even why, when I press on a switch and, lo, there is light. My only
consolation is that , reciprocally, most scientists or technocrats have not
read Proust. And even if they have, what could they glean from it?
Stupidity, by the way, doesn’t have to be gigantic in order
to matter. To be sure it can be enormous, as when Lloyd George and Haig and the
rest of them caused innumerable inexcusable casualties in World War One. This
was caused by that very arrogance, that stubbornness that causes our much
humbler stupidities. Great ones depend on great power. But the principle is
essentially the same. Which of us hasn’t through stupidity lost a friend, a
lover, a spouse?
You cannot tell me that Andreas Lubitz, the wretch who
intentionally ran that German plane into a French Alp, killing also 149
innocent others, wasn’t, beyond depressive and whatnot else, also stupid. Why
couldn’t he sensibly kill only himself by some private means? Did the mass
murder give him a sense of power? That he was going to make history and reap
immortal fame? Or did he stupidly think that dying in such extensive company
makes it go down more easily? Or that jumping out of a window was somehow more
difficult? And what about the stupidity of the people who thought him fit for
piloting?
But for large-scale stupidity is there anything worse than
war? Well, yes, a religion that, discounting your stupidity, allows or indeed
encourages you to wage it. Aren’t almost all wars, to say nothing of jihads,
caused by religion? The excuse that suicide bombers or ISIS misread the
teachings of Islam won’t wash: any religion that lends itself to such
misreading is clearly to blame. And fanaticism is surely one of the monumental
forms of stupidity,
I am writing this as Easter is approaching, and wonder how
many of us qualify as dumb bunnies, who not so much hide as lay an egg. And,
speaking of eggs, how many greedy fools among us wouldn’t kill the goose that
lays golden eggs if such a fowl existed?
There is an old joke about two loonies painting an asylum
wall. The one holding the ladder says to the one on top of it, “I am about to
move the ladder. Hold on to your brush.” That, only slightly exaggerated, is the
archetype of stupidity. The only difference is that from this stupidity only
the top loony will be hurt. From other, typical stupidities it is usually more
than one person who suffers.
Now there are stupid men who want their women to be
submissive, stupid. As Baudelaire said to a woman in a poem, “What matters it
to me that you be wise? Be beautiful and be sad.” That is the view of a sexist or sadist. Stupidity in anyone
very much does matter to both possessor and victim. Yet what about the men who
lust after the beautiful bimbos on TV talk shows? They look absolutely smashing
until they open their mouths. After that if you still wish you could have one of
them, it is you who are stupid.
