It is wiser to be modest; if you try to rise above the crowd, you will not be forgiven. Even if you escape from the herd, you will still end up in the slaughterhouse. Howl with the wolves, bleat with the sheep, but never walk alone; everyone will shout at you. It goes without saying: if you really believe that you are smarter and more admirable than the average person, then the fatal diagnosis is near: most likely, you too are an unconscious carrier of stupidity.
By Jean-François Marmion
“Sound reason is the most evenly distributed thing in the world,” wrote Descartes. And what about stupidity? Whether dripping or flowing, bursting or pouring, it is everywhere. Without boundaries. Sometimes it appears as a light, almost tolerable lick; other times as a stagnant and disgusting swamp. And at other times, like an earthquake, a storm, or a giant wave that swallows up everything in its path, destroying, trampling, and polluting everything. Regardless of the form it takes, stupidity splashes upon us all. It is even said that its source is ourselves.
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF BEING
Everyone sees, hears and reads nonsense, every day. At the same time, each of us is guilty of producing it, of thinking it, of ruminating on it and of uttering it out loud. We all become fools from time to time, uttering nonsense as we live our daily lives, without any real consequences. What is important is to be aware of this and to feel sorry for it; because to err is human, and to admit our mistakes is half the forgiveness of them. There will always be those who take us for fools, but we very rarely recognize our own foolishness. In addition to the constant murmur of foolishness that surrounds us day after day, there is, unfortunately, also the roar of the masters of stupidity, the kings of stupidity – idiots with a capital “I”.
These idiots, whether at work or at home, are not random. They follow you, haunt you with their insistence on inexplicable stupidity, with their unjustified arrogance. They advance, sign contracts, and would erase with a stroke of a pen all your opinions, emotions, and dignity. They erode your morals and make you doubt that any kind of justice can exist in this ugly world. No matter how hard you try, you can’t find even a thread of human connection with them.
Stupidity is a promise broken, a promise of intelligence and trust that the idiots among us betray – they are traitors to humanity. These scoundrels are like fat animals – completely bestial! We may want to pet them, to turn them into friends, but they are not on that level – that is, on our level.
They suffer from an incurable disease. And since they refuse to be cured, convinced that they are kings of the land of the blind, the tragicomedy is complete. It is no wonder that people are fascinated by zombies – by the simulation of existence they embody, their intellectual emptiness and their deep need to drag the living, the heroic and simply decent people down to their level. And this makes sense: idiots, like zombies, want to eat your brains – these failed beings never disappoint you. The worst thing about them is that they can sometimes be intelligent, or at least pretend to be. They are masters at turning the contours of knowledge into prison bars and would gladly burn books – along with their authors – in the name of some ideology, or of something they have heard from some “wise” person (idiot or not).
INSURANCE MAKES YOU CRAZY, SECURITY MAKES YOU STUPID
Fools condemn you immediately, without any possibility of appeal and without accepting mitigating circumstances, based solely on the momentary appearance that they manage to see through their narrow blockades. They know how to incite their sympathizers, how to push them towards lynching in the name of virtue, customs, respect. The idiot hunts in packs and thinks collectively. As Georges Brassens’ song says: “The majority is useless to humanity; whenever more than four people gather, you will find a crowd of idiots.” He also adds: “Glory to the man who, having no grand ideals, is content simply with the fact that he does not become an obstacle to his neighbors.” Unfortunately, our neighbors do not always return our honor.
Unhappy with the fact that he makes you suffer, the annoying idiot is pleased with himself. Unwavering. He is immune to self-doubt and convinced of his rightness. The happy idiot violates your rights without a second thought. The fool takes what he believes for truths carved in marble, while all true knowledge is built on sand.
Uncertainty makes you crazy, certainty makes you stupid; you have to choose which camp you are in. The masquerade thinks it knows better than you do – it not only claims to know what you should think, feel and do with the back of its hand, but it also knows who you should vote for. It knows who you are and what is best for you better than you do. If you disagree with it, it will belittle you, insult you and attack you, both literally and figuratively, for “your own good”. And if it can do so in the name of some lofty ideal, it will not hesitate to attack the “trash” that your existence represents to it, with a complete sense of impunity.
And here’s a bitter truth: justified self-defense is a trap. If you try to reason with an idiot or change his mind, you’re lost. The moment he decides it’s your job to improve him, the moment he thinks he knows how to think and act (like you, of course), the game is over. So there you go: now you’re the fool—and you’re also naive, because you believe you’re up to the challenge.
Even worse: the more you try to reform an idiot, the stronger he becomes. He delights in seeing himself as a victim who annoys others – and for this very reason, he feels convinced that he is right. By rebuking him, you give him the opportunity to believe with complete conviction that he is a hero of nonconformity, someone to be protected and admired. A member of the resistance… Tremble before the greatness of this curse: if you try to reform an idiot, you will not only fail, but you will strengthen him and encourage imitators. Before there was only one fool: now there are two. The fight against stupidity only strengthens him. The more you attack an ogre, the more souls he devours.
HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
In this way, there is no way that stupidity will lose its power. It is exponential. Are we living today – more than yesterday and less than tomorrow – in the golden age of idiocy? Since the earliest recorded times, the greatest minds of their time have believed this. Perhaps they were right, then. Then again, perhaps, like everyone else, they were just old fools. However, the real novelty of our age is that today it only takes one idiot with a red button to wipe out all stupidity – and the whole world with it. One idiot chosen by the sheep who were too proud to choose their butcher.
The other great characteristic of our time is that, even if we admit that stupidity has not yet reached its peak, we know that it has never been so visible, so shameless, so loud and so unquestionable. This is enough to make you lose hope in your fellow citizens. On the other hand – who knows? – it may inspire you to turn to philosophy to cope with the situation, since lately it is increasingly difficult to deny the futility of everything and the narcissism of everyone, not to mention the stupidity of appearances and the prevalence of shallow judgments.
Ah, if only a second Erasmus would write us a Glory to Folly (but in bursts of 280 characters, to save us from migraines)! Ah, if only a new Lucretius would appear to bring us relief and perhaps even joy – joy that we would enjoy safely on shore, while the ship of fools sinks, sabotaged by its own passengers, who scream for help as they drown. Like insatiable greedy people, we lick our lips at the most desired nectar: the war among fools themselves, with hairs on end and egos ready to clash. Great minds think alike; small minds clash. While you try to remain a spectator, not an actor, in this battle scene, it would be foolish to imagine yourself less vulnerable to folly than your grim, howling, miserable, and agitated contemporaries.
But if, by chance, you were right… what a victory that would be! It is wiser to be modest; if you try to rise above the crowd, you will not be forgiven. Even if you escape from the herd, you will still end up in the slaughterhouse. Howl with the wolves, bleat with the sheep, but never walk alone; everyone will shout against you. It goes without saying: if you really believe that you are smarter and more admirable than the average person, then the fatal diagnosis is near: most likely, you too are an unconscious carrier of stupidity.
(Taken from the book “The Psychology of Stupidity”)
