On Stupidity

It is not about intellect

Roman Emperor Nero (37-68 A.D.)

I once made a painful confession to my teacher. I am not sure it is correct in its conclusion, but it was stated sincerely.

Beyond rank and position, I told him, the tough truth is that success in life stems from raw, quantifiable intellect, the kind tested for in standardized exams. His silence signaled agreement.

A friend of mine in the physics doctoral program at Columbia disagreed. He tutored people for tests so he was in a position to know. But he also had what I do not: intellect that aces abstract analysis and logic problems.

In The Prince, Machiavelli writes that there exist three kinds of intellect, as seen in: 1) Those who can do the thing itself, which is excellent. 2) Those who can judge the thing, which is good. 3) Those who can neither do nor judge, which is worthless.

The third kind signals not only lack of skill but, crucially, inability of judgment.

I confessed that day that I possess the second kind. That was, however, before I rediscovered myself as a writer. I now claim the first—but without disavowing my confession or personal disclosure.

From where, then, does the third kind, i.e., stupidity, emerge?

I have noted elsewhere my conviction that ethics arise from the emotions. It seems to me that stupidity does, too.

Stupidity is the intellectual equivalent of a program missing a dot or dash—hence, everything comes out wrong, every insight is off-kilter. This is not attributable to a paucity of quantifiable intellect. I attest that much. Then what causes stupidity, sometimes in evidently educated and even accomplished people? It is coarseness of emotion. This interrupts integration, context, and doubt.

This suggests why some parties can never be convinced of anything, nor can their support for bad ideas or their disdain for good ones be leavened or slackened. They lack emotional receptivity to suspended judgment. Departures, when they occur, prove temporary. Departures imply motion.

A professor of mine, film historian James Harvey, once said, “You know, Mitchell”—he and my mother called me that—“the older I get, the more I realize there are really two kinds of people: those who like where they come from and those who do not.” He meant this in terms of lineage; but it says, I think, the same thing I do here.

How do you deal with stupidity? The same way I counsel dealing with cruelty: escape it. Immediately and without qualification. In a world of limited time and endless communication, do not damn a stone. Step around it. If you cannot, vow internally that you will at the first opportunity.

A stone will always remain a stone. It is its nature.