The stupid person is the most dangerous kind of person that exists,” wrote the historian Carlo Cipolla. Extreme or exceptional situations demonstrate this. Sensitive, intelligent, and thoughtful behavior can keep us afloat and help us weather the storm, but foolish, stupid, and impulsive behavior can definitely sink us in the middle of the hurricane.
Since we are social beings we have to take into account the behaviors of others. Sometimes, as Juan Rulfo said, “we save ourselves together or we sink”. Under these conditions, when constraints are essential to avoid disaster, stupid behavior can dangerously tip the scales.
What is human stupidity?
Cipolla manages to evade subjectivity by analyzing human relationships in terms of gains and losses. So it separates human stupidity from individual expectations by offering a more objective definition of the same. He believes that “a stupid person is a person who causes harm to another person or group of people without, at the same time, making a profit for himself”.
He also explains that there are enormously stupid behaviors: “there are people who, with their improbable actions, not only cause harm to other people, but also to themselves”. Unlike the bad guy, who can harm others for his own benefit, stupid behaviors only cause harm to the environment and wreak havoc. Therefore, no one makes money on it. It’s meaningless behavior.
In short, to classify behavior as stupid, we could refer to three conditions:
- Lack of practicality. The person knows what he is doing, but he is doing it wrong. His behavior is neither practical nor functional, it is not an effective response to the situation, therefore not only does it not solve the problem, but it creates others.
- Metacognitive myopia. This concept of the psychologist Klaus Fiedler refers to the inability of the stupid person to analyze his thoughts. This person is unable to analyze his reasoning process, he cannot make inferences beyond the given elements, so he is perfectly stupid.
- Reasoned ignorance. The stupid person chooses more or less consciously motivated ignorance ; that is, he refuses to know more, to go deeper and to try to understand. However, because he has a huge ego, he often ends up in situations that require more skill and knowledge than he possesses. The result is a disaster.
Stupidity in power
Stupid people can cause enormous damage. Cipolla explained that “ some fools usually cause only limited damage, but there are others who end up causing terrible damage, not just to one or two individuals, but to communities or entire societies”.
“The capacity for harm that a stupid person has depends on various factors”, one of these being “the position of power or authority he occupies in society. The ability to harm others is dangerously magnified by the position of power he occupies,” he said.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for people with excessive ego and little knowledge to reach positions of power from which they can make terrible decisions that drag down those who directly or indirectly depend on them with them.
Why is this happening?
“The problem with humanity is that the stupid are sure of everything and the intelligent are full of doubts,” said Bertrand Russell. Smarter people are aware of their limitations and are often reluctant to exercise power, which is why it falls into the hands of bolder people, but with less ability, intelligence and knowledge.
In his Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity , Cipolla explains that more intelligent and rational people tend to underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people. “Stupid people are dangerous and ominous because rational people have a hard time imagining and understanding stupid behavior,” he adds. “Generally, the attack takes us by surprise even when it is expected and it is not possible to organize the defense.”
Stupid behaviors do not follow rational logic, making it difficult to anticipate them. So it’s not unusual for many people to get sucked into the destructive spiral of stupidity in their path.
How to protect yourself from stupid people?
When life has us cornered as a society, especially in times of crisis, wars and pandemics, human stupidity emerges in all its glory. Unfortunately, sometimes there’s not much we can do about it. It is extremely difficult to converse with stupidity. However, we can arrange not to participate in it.
“Intelligence and stupidity are not the opposite of each other, nor is stupidity the lack of intelligence, rather intelligence is the product, more or less failed, of a continuous series of attempts to dominate, or escape, the stupidity that constitutes all that is human,” wrote Matthijs Van Boxsel.
This means that we can all act stupid under certain circumstances. A study from the University of Oulu has revealed that believing we are too smart can cloud our reasoning and lead us to make decisions that are harmful to ourselves and others.
Therefore, we must keep ourselves free from the toxic influence of excessive ego accompanied by metacognitive myopia. We can achieve this by developing critical, but also humble and empathetic thinking. Always asking ourselves before making a decision not only what is good for us, but also what is good for others.
