I. Introduction

Who are we? What are we? Why are we? When seeking answers to these eternal questions, we tend to flatter ourselves by being accurate when it suits us and partial when it pleases us. In terms of our technological ability to use tools to make tools, we are truly awesome. In more general cognitive terms, our intellectual capacity to solve complex problems justifies the gratifying conclusion that we are intelligent. However, if this is true, it is only part of the truth.

It is also true that young people are turning to drugs and suicide for the escape they bring from a world in which adults hypocritically preach peace while preparing for and pursuing violence. Basic social problems appear and reappear generation after generation in culture after culture. Not only have we failed to match our ability in mechanics and engineering with a comparable level of expertise in political and social relations, but our vaunted technological and intellectual genius is readily bent to destructive purposes which harm rather than help people. Thus, all things considered, we look pretty stupid.

Although students of human behavior have pointedly ignored our rampant stupidity, many have made careers by pounding intelligence into the ground. Rooms could be filled with the books written on the topic. No one could even keep up with the scientific literature produced in the field. Yet, as vast as this literature is, it leads to but one overwhelming conclusion—and nobody knows what it is. The only thing we know for certain is that whatever intelligence is, it has never been tested on intelligence tests. So even if we are intelligent, we are not intelligent enough to know what intelligence is, so we do not know who and what we are.

If it is understandable that so much energy and effort should be devoted to the scientific study of intelligence, it is somewhat bewildering to find the much more common, actually dangerous and potentially devastating phenomenon of stupidity totally neglected. One could read the entire literature in the social sciences without finding so much as a single reference to it. At best, it is dismissed as the opposite of intelligence, but this just sheds more shade on the topic. Certainly, a matter of this importance deserves a hearing in its own right.

In this work, we will use a mixture of two approaches to answer the question "What is stupidity?" One is to consider the conditions Barbara Tuchman, in The March of Folly, deemed necessary for an act to qualify as a folly: 1.) ample, relevant information must be available to the performer, who is in a knowledgeable state about the given situation; 2.) the act must be maladaptive for the performer; and 3.) there must be other possible ways of reacting available. An additional factor in the analysis of folly was "Best interest", with folly being the studied achievement of "Worst interest". Although we will eventually discard all of these considerations as inadequate for the purpose of defining stupidity scientifically, as we first examine and then dismiss them, we will learn much about the limitations of science and the non-Darwinian essence of human nature.

The other approach is to answer, "Stupidity is the learned corruption of learning". As such, it is a normal, dysfunctional psychic phenomenon which is caused when a schema formed by linguistic biases and social norms acts via the neurotic paradox to establish a positive feedback system which carries behavior to maladaptive excesses. This book is really devoted to elucidating the interactions of the enumerated specifics of this process, but by way of introduction, let us note that stupidity is generally produced by the interdisruption of two commonplace mental faculties—a self-deceptive inability to gather and process information accurately and a neurotic inability to match behavior to environmental contingencies. Further, it has epistemological, social and moral dimensions.

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In an epistemological context, stupidity is the failure to gather and use information efficiently. Traditionally, self-deception has been considered only in terms of the use or abuse of information present within a cognitive system—that is, a person would have to "Know" something in order to deceive himself about it. However, we must acknowledge it is also self-deceptive (i.e., misleading) and usually stupid for one to refuse to gather new, relevant information about matters of importance.

Thus, when considering stupidity in relation to knowledge and data processing, it is imperative to distinguish between the related phenomena of "Agnosticism" and "Ignorance". Both words may be used to indicate the condition of "Not knowing", but they describe different ways of maintaining that condition. Pure, innocent agnosticism is not really stupid, in that it does not indicate an inability or unwillingness to learn. Agnosticism is the cognitive state when information is physically inaccessible (unavailable) to an individual or organization. Relevant data are simply not present in the environment in a form discernable to the sensory apparatus of the living system (person, group, etc.).

Ignorance, on the other hand, usually indicates stupidity in that important data are present and gatherable but unheeded. The reason that ignorance does not always indicate stupidity is that some information could seriously disrupt existing psycho/social systems were it to penetrate the cognitive defenses, so exclusion may sometimes be somewhat adaptive. This is really a rather complex process, as stimuli must be at least superficially perceived before being rejected by the system as being threatening to the existing belief structure or "Schema". Thus, motivation can play a role in ignorance if some relevant, available information is prevented from getting "Into the system" (i.e., accepted and incorporated into the cognitive program). This is likely to occur when a person senses that learning more about a particular matter might force him to undergo the most traumatic, terrifying experience one can be called upon to endure—he might have to change his mind.

It might be assumed that "Knowing is good", that there could not possibly be too much knowledge and that an excess of information could not possibly be unhealthy. However, people must compromise on both the quantity and quality of their information. In terms of quantity, people limit themselves by specializing—sacrificing breadth for depth, with each doing well if he knows something about anything. In terms of quality of information, people debase themselves by qualifying their standards—sacrificing validity for appeal, with each accepting whatever is suitable.

Unfortunately, these compromises not only fail to protect people from an overload of trivia but can keep them from knowing what is going on in their world. A given system can process only so much information so fast, and that should (theoretically) be important material, not insignificant detail. However, important material is not always brought to conscious light. At all levels, there is a secret aspect to human life—things which people do, although most of us should not know.

At the national level, every government has its covert band of operatives who skulk around doing whatever is necessary and improper. The general population and even most government employees are better off not knowing what is going on because the CIA, KGB and James Bonds are set up to betray the ideals which hold civilization together, so such important matters may be hidden from us.

At the individual level, too much candor can also be disastrous, as many doctors well know. There was a case of a terminal cancer patient who was given a useless drug (Krebiozen) and recovered. Upon learning the drug was useless, he had a relapse. Given a superstrength placebo, he again recovered, only to have a final and fatal relapse when learning that drug was useless. This was a case in which belief itself worked a miracle cure; it was knowledge that killed.

As important as the quantity or quality of knowledge present in a system is the attitude toward gathering more. Often, people are hampered by their reluctance to learn more, although usually learning is helpful—particularly if it leads to a stronger, more inclusive belief structure.

Nevertheless, the desire to know is often tempered by a sense that learning more would be emotionally disturbing. This complicates any consideration of stupidity, when "Knowing" is one of the defining criteria for the condition. If a person does not know what is going on, he might do something maladaptive, but it is not stupid as such. However, if a person is making a point not to find out relevant information in his environment, is that not even stupider? If it would seem so, bear in mind we all have defense mechanisms to protect us from awareness of embarrassing cognitions and psycho/cultural mechanisms to help us cope with the unsettling cognizance of our inevitable death. Thus, the condition of "Knowing" appears to be of little value when one attempts to determine if an act was stupid or not.

Once people gather information, they treat it in one of two ways, depending on whether they like it or not. The double standard is quite simple: that which is acceptable is accepted; that which is unpleasant is suspect. It might be ideal if all data were treated equally, but personal biases predispose people to be selectively ignorant.

In most situations, ignorance promotes a common characteristic of stupid decisions—irrelevance. When stupidity is in full glory, the most discrepant cognitions are somehow matched up in the most implausible ways. Further, obvious relevancies are ignored, so the behavioral world takes on the bizarre, chaotic quality of a Wonderland gone berserk. Cause /effect and means/ends relationships are coined at random. The monumental is trivialized and the crucial disdained as an afflicted mind locks in on and pursues its own worst interest with unrestrained abandon.

Unfortunately, the determination of "Relevance" is quite judgmental, so stupidity is an arbitrary/subjective phenomenon. Deeds once considered stupid may turn out to be brilliant. On the other hand, achievements initially hailed as works of genius may later be exposed as moronic (as happened with the Maginot Line and the Edsel).

While much is made of the human brain's ability to associate various cognitions (ideas) in relevant cause/effect relationships, the amount of stupidity in the world suggests that the brain might also prevent or inhibit such functional associations while it promotes irrelevant connections. The child's brain begins by treating all possibilities as being equally probable. Learning couples certain stimuli with certain reactions. No Behaviorist's model of functional rewards, however, could possibly account for the diversity of the world's religions nor the battle science has had to wage against both ignorance and agnosticism.

In this cognitive context, it appears that stupidity is a very normal way for the human mind to compromise with its own emotionally based inability to deal directly with information coming from the physical environment and rewards from the social environment. This is a schizophrenic reaction which permits us to cope with distinct but interacting features of the human condition. For each of us, the invention and development of our special strategies are functions of a commitment to a particular lifestyle defined by our culture and shaped by our experiences.

In terms of intellectual development, stupidity may justly be viewed as both adaptive and maladaptive. In the short run, it is adaptive in that it helps an individual adjust to his cultural group's values by permitting him to accept any obvious contradictions between the real and ideal. As a means to short-term adaptation, stupidity is a classic example of the "Neurotic Paradox" in action. The neurotic paradox promotes behavioral patterns which are subject to immediate short-term reinforcement although the long-term results will be clearly negative. (A drug addiction would be a commonplace example of this basic psycho/physiological principle of learning and life.)

If stupidity is adaptive, in that it helps one fit into his immediate surroundings, it is maladaptive over the long run, as it inhibits innovations and constructive criticism of the social environment. Individuals adjust to the group, but the group loses its capacity to adjust to its surroundings as members sacrifice their individual integrity, insight and ideas and conform for the reward of social acceptance.

Of course, the bottom line, net effect of stupidity is negative, but its universal presence cannot be understood without recognition of its role in helping people adapt to their immediate situation. Thus, it becomes clear how there can be so much stupidity around although it is, in the long run, maladaptive. Survival within the system is promoted if one is so stupid as to accept the system's stupidities. Also, short-term survival of the system (institution, group, whatever) is promoted through enhanced social cohesion and cooperation. However, these immediate gains are countered by the long-term loss of induced inefficiency of information processing. Our cultural life is really a very human trade-off between these two dependent features: 1.) objective, rational, logical processing of information, and 2.) group cooperation and cohesion.

With the qualification of arbitrariness in mind, it should be noted that most people who find stupidity in others judge efficiency of processing information and usually do not even consider the social dimension of decisions affecting institutional life. Accordingly, what might be regarded as stupidity may in fact be a healthy, short-term compromise with group cohesion. Real stupidity comes when either factor (logical information processing or social cohesion) predominates to the disruption of the other.

One of the reasons a student of human behavior has difficulty generalizing about stupidity is that both opposite extremes can lead to stupid behavior. In a given situation, it may be stupid to do too much too soon or too little too late. Both overreaction and underreaction may be counter-productive. Hypersensitivity and insensitivity can both have negative effects. The Golden Mean may indeed be the best policy in most situations, but that leaves contradictory opposites having equally stupid results. Ergo, the student of stupidity, when citing a cause for the condition, must automatically ask himself if the opposite extreme might not also have produced a similar effect.

As long as a functional balance between polar extremes is maintained, stupidity can be viewed as a normal part of the human experience. It is a mechanism of cultural selection which will be found wherever people speak, organize and act. Static human systems usually cannot cope with themselves nor the conditions they create. An organization evolves to deal with a set of given circumstances and, in attempting to solve perceived problems, creates new problems. It then either adapts or stupidly tries to maintain itself until it is replaced by the next institution in the cycle of human organization.

It is important to bear in mind that such stupidity in moderation may be an effective defense mechanism which promotes self-confidence in an individual and cooperation within a group. It is only when it goes to excess that it tends to become stupidly maladaptive, but it is precisely this which is made probable when a behavioral or cultural trend develops into a self-rewarding, positive feedback system. When this occurs, a pattern of activity becomes rewarding in and of itself regardless of its extrinsic consequences. Behavior may then go to extremes because it is reinforced by the schema, which functions as an intrinsically gratifying, internal reward system for such conduct. In the absence of critical self-examination, individuals or groups may become victims of their own excesses as inner directed behavior becomes imbalanced and disruptively self-defeating. Such a disruptive imbalance develops when, through internally induced, sustaining, self-reinforcement, a system becomes removed from moderating influences of the external environment. This is exactly what stupidity is —a schematically generated, self-deceptive breakdown of the feedback mechanism between behavior and the environment.

This breakdown necessarily follows from stupidity's success in creating an arbitrary world that will maximize cooperation of group members. This can be done by blocking disruptive input as well as by inventing pleasing images and ideas. Such tactics may prove to be maladaptive, but this is the price for the immediate reward of enhanced social cohesion.

As effective as stupidity may be in promoting cooperation, it disrupts a system's capacity for effective learning. Understanding is sacrificed for the sake of social cohesion and cultural stability. The drawback of this intellectually limiting, contrived complacence is that it all but guarantees frictional competition and conflict with other equally maladapted groups.

One might reasonably expect that such competition and conflict would weed out stupidity so that the more intelligent systems would eventually prevail. However, it appears that there is at least as much stupidity now as ever before, so it seems that competition merely replaces one stupid system with another. If this leaves people with the option of being ruled by a bunch of idiots or a pack of fools, they can be excused from being too concerned about the difference. On the other hand, anyone who wants to understand what makes everyone else so stupid would do well to consider the factors which contribute to this most common mental state.

If it is human to err, it is even more human to speak, and it is in language systems that we find a major source of human stupidity. Language has two basic functions in society: it permits people to exchange information as it promotes cooperation. Stupidity necessarily follows from the compromise reached by people as they balance these two factors. When people speak, they usually both impart information and convey their group identity. This social aspect of language expresses common values and presumes common assumptions. It also means that critical information is often couched in terms and tones acceptable to all—which in turn means a lot of criticism is muted and stupidity glossed over, if not induced.

Much is made of the brain as a system for processing information, but there is relatively little interest in how information is not used or is misused. One common assumption is that if knowledge is misused, there was some breakdown in the rational system of the mind. In fact, much of the mishandling of data is systematic and based on social values implicit in language as a cultural rather than computerized processing medium.

While it is difficult to study how people don't do something, we must consider how and why people do not use certain information readily available to them. The answer has to be that some facts are emotionally disturbing and would be emotionally/socially disruptive if permitted to pass through the cerebral word processor. This emotional element throws off judgment97-or provides a shifting basis for analysis. It is also the source of the "Motivated ignorance" which characterizes the human propensity to be not just uninformed about ego-defining issues but biased by the values implicit in the linguistic system used to process data.

Language is basically a coding system people use to accomplish two interrelated ends: information is conveyed and group cohesion is maintained or increased. Language categorizes experience so that generalizations about the environment are possible, but the labels (words) used for these categories often pick up emotional connotations which distort the processing procedure. The evaluation of the informational component of language then becomes inextricably bound up with the emotional life of the individual or group.

It is this emotional factor which precludes objectivity within any linguistic system. Hence, stupidity is best construed as a social defense mechanism parallel to the Freudian defense systems which protect individuals from an overload of awareness. Just as many Freudian defense mechanisms are generated within individuals who fear self-knowledge, stupidity develops within a society to inhibit unacceptably accurate cognitions of both personal and institutional ineptitude. Along with idiosyncratic forms of individual stupidity, members of a society exhibit collective forms of idiocy within the context of—or reaction against—social values.

The induced subjectivity underlines the essential social nature of stupidity. Society defines awareness of reality as it funnels fictions into our consciousness. The mind is really a socially conditioned filter which a given experience may or may not penetrate, depending on the value structure of a particular society.

In virtually all cases, stupidity is perpetrated subconsciously, in that the agent cannot sense, with his value system, that his actions are counter-productive in terms of that set of values. What he does sense is an emotional satisfaction that precludes any objective analysis on his part (and which is incomprehensible to any outside observer) because one does not consciously engage in self-analysis when cognitions are successfully shunted into emotionally acceptable if irrelevant categories.

In the rational/intelligent model of behavior, discriminative stimuli guide actions so that behavior is "Appropriate" and likely to lead to positive results: behavior is considered to be under "Stimulus control", and this model is actually fairly descriptive of how the mind routinely handles unimportant matters. However, the more important a matter is as an ego-defining issue, the greater the role of the schema vis-a-vis immediate stimuli in shaping attendant behavior, with the result that actions become increasingly inappropriate and even counter-productive. To put it the other way, stupid behavior becomes increasingly common as a schema blocks the perception of impinging stimuli and an understanding of issues and/or creates substitute stimuli and idiotic ideas through fantasies.

The basic problem with the rational/intellectual model of the brain as a computer is that of the self-generation of bugs. Computers invariably have bugs, but the brain has built-in emotional biases which fade in and out depending on the nature of the "Input". The appropriate computer model in this vein would be an electronically unstable machine with a defective program which functions to keep the hard drive steady by preventing major alterations of its programs. In human terms, correcting a program (i.e., changing one's mind) is necessarily emotionally involving and therefore done only reluctantly. In computer terms, any program is inherently maladaptive because of its necessary and inevitable impact on perception (i.e., the process of data input).

The act of perception can be broken down into two separate steps. First, information gets into the system as a result of selective attentional processes. The brain does not treat all external stimuli equally. Perception is a process of discrimination, with stimuli deemed "Important" getting attention denied the trivial. However, what is deemed important is in no way a function of objectivity, since the emotional component of information interferes with the accuracy of its handling. Some stimuli get favored treatment and are emphasized while others are ignored. The paranoid may perceive something trivial as threatening so as to justify his fear. Alternatively, someone else might pass over potentially upsetting stimuli as too disturbing to contemplate.

After stimuli enter the system, they are then organized into "Meaningful" units, with the meaning of "Meaningful" being about as arbitrary as anything can be. This process of organizing is linguistic categorizing, which commonly results in illusions and misperceptions. The net result is that selected data are arbitrarily construed to conform to and confirm the existing cognitive program—the Schema.

The schema is the basic belief structure of the individual. It is the frame of reference for the perception of stimuli, and it defines the behavioral repertoire available for response to them. The schema provides both general and specific expectations about their relations and may fill in information, should experience with an object/event be limited. It is modifiable by experience as the individual interacts with the environment, and minor adjustments are quite common and usually occur with little or no emotional reaction.

The schema is a verbal/behavioral construct through which situations are perceived in a linguistic context which systematically distorts incoming information so as to reinforce itself at the expense of contradictory, disturbing data. This is the basic mechanism of stupidity, as it necessarily causes people to be out of sync with their environment. The schema is a self-sustaining cognitive paradigm which maintains its emotional base by misperceiving the environment through verbal labeling of stimuli. It has something of a hypnotic effect, focusing attention on schema-confirming percepts so that these data can be processed while reality testing on the rest of the perceptual field is suspended. The garnered data then serve to strengthen further the schema as they are incorporated into it.

As a function of experience, the schema can both help and hinder the individual as he attempts to deal with problems in his environment. The schema is an advantage when the person confronts a problem similar to one already solved, as each time it gets easier to deal successfully with such situations. However, the schema may limit insight—the act of pulling together various facts into novel, functional relationships. In this sense, experience and the created schema can inhibit innovation and contribute to the persistence of behavior which once was adaptive but has become obsolete.

Again, we must emphasize the inherent arbitrariness of the entire phenomenon. There is no particular virtue in holding or changing a given schema except relative to the environment over time. This, in turn, is an uncertain base, the perception of which is confounded by linguistic bias.

Stupidity thus results both from and in perceptual limits on learning which prevent a system from recognizing its own intrinsic limitations. A new idea is not judged objectively by an independent standard but is regarded primarily as a challenge to the prevailing ego/social system. This is an emotionally based, usually subconscious reaction. Only secondarily can the cognitive content of new information be processed consciously on something like its own merits.

When pondering the passing of many great human institutions down through the ages, one must conclude that most failed to adapt to changing conditions. What is not so obvious is that the new conditions were often produced by the institutions themselves. Turnover of organizations is inherent in the human conditions in that a schema tends to limit values to those appropriate to the circumstances present when it developed. These values sustain the status quo by preventing recognition of problems created by the impact of the institution on its environment. This perceptual failure occurs concurrently with the general schematic restriction on the development of any novel modes of thought or behavior. Indeed, one of the sad ironies of life is that most innovators must fight the system in order to improve it. Very few organizations encourage excellence, so most transcendent achievements first had to overcome entrenched opposition from the establishment.

Although we all delight in the triumphs of the crackpots who contributed to the advance of civilization, it is impossible to appreciate the tragedies of those who failed not because they were wrong but because they could not overcome the built-in idiocy of their cultural environment. We cannot even imagine how much better life might have been for all of us. However, when stupidity reigns supreme, the establishment stifles critical analysis so as to thwart improvement and protect the schema for as long as possible. Such was the case in 1929 when, months before the crash, Alvin T. Simonds sent an article to Nation's Business suggesting a business decline, only to have the article rejected because it was "Pessimistic". At that time, financial houses hesitated to forecast declines in business, as they tended to lose good clients and win enduring enemies by objectively interpreting the facts.

It is important to note that accuracy was treated as an irrelevancy in this case. Agnosticism in the general business community was promoted by wishful thinking. This is but a single example of the blind egotism so common in stupidity—the reluctance to perceive unpleasant realities.

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Along with its linguistic/perceptual mechanism for preventing recognition of reality, stupidity has another ally which inhibits effective coping with problems. This is the mechanism by which social life establishes conflicting standards for rational behavior. That is, stupidity is actually encouraged by the basic nature of group interaction.

First of all, no one is perfect. Stupidity is grounded on this basic fact. The point is not that we all make mistakes because we are not perfect but that we cover them up for each other because we know sooner or later it will be our turn to goof up. In considering stupidity, we need not belabor maladaptive, incidental "Noise" in the human system—the errors people make from sheer inadvertence, fatigue or accident. But if we do not belabor them because they are not symptomatic of any significant, underlying behavioral principle, it is important to note that society politely hides our imperfections behind a self-deceptive illusion of mutual assurance.

Secondly, when they interact, imperfect people are not even trying to be objective, or honest, or to learn about themselves. They are usually trying to prolong a social relationship. This provides, for example, the basis for the cozy relations of the media and their sponsors, which may be fine for the sponsors but which necessarily makes the credibility of the media at least suspect. Usually, of course, they overcome this potential image problem with sincere pronouncements and very thorough coverage of events not in the sponsor's worst interest.

Most social groups exist for two related functions: group maintenance and goal achievement. The relative importance of these two functions will vary with conditions, and with compromise the normal state, most people live in a genial, casual pursuit of some particular achievement. As sacrifice is the nature of compromise, one of society's inherent stupidities is that goal achievement must often be traded off so as to perpetuate an organization whose expressed purpose is to accomplish that goal.

It is in this dual nature of group function that one finds pressures for both accuracy in and distortion of knowledge. To maintain a group, some accuracy may have to be sacrificed, making goal achievement a little less likely or more difficult. The ultimate in the chronic stupidity of institutional life is, of course, that maintaining the group may become an end in itself. In such a situation, cognitive incest obliterates any pretense at logical justification for self-sustaining acts.

Groups undergoing this process begin to separate from reality and define their own existence when the proper handling of and response to incoming information demands socially intolerable adjustments of group procedure and structure. This trend is climaxed as social inertia comes to disrupt effective reaction to the external milieu.

Civil service bureaucracies are notorious centers for such useless workfare programs. These repositories for the dysfunctional contribute nothing to the nation's health or wealth. It would be absurd even to suggest a scale for measuring their monumental waste and pathetic inefficiency. However, if they are an overall drain on society, they contribute indirectly to the self-respect of a nation which, in its stupid magnificence, provides a place of employment for the hopelessly inept—the government.

Within the formal context of written laws and rules, daily routine of most social life, institutional and otherwise, is regulated by norms—social standards for acceptable behavior, dress, manners, modes of speech, etc. These norms encourage stupidity by providing a systematic pattern of reinforcement conducive to conformity for its own sake. It is the acceptance and approval of members which first induces and then sustains a common schema and its system of values that form individuals into a group.

Life in groups is a given of the human experience. The newborn must learn all that is needed to survive, and it is the birth group that provides protection and information as this process of socialization proceeds. Not only does the initiate learn a particular language (with all its perceptuallimitations), but he also develops a sense of belonging which precludes criticism of the fundamental assumptions of his culture. People may be critical when ideals are not realized, but they rarely criticize the ideals themselves. To do so automatically classifies one as an outsider, and most people would prefer to belong than be critical.

The process of maturation is one of falling into the opinions of those in one's immediate surroundings. It is noteworthy that this is only indirectly related to reality. Truth comes to be whatever conforms to the verbal environment as the member comes to believe in the assumptions of his peers rather than regarding them as hypotheses to be verified. This may entail some cognitive constraint, but submission by the individual consolidates the collective mental habits of his egocentric group.

When socialization completes this process of mental control, a schema will not be altered unless an external reward is more appealing than the discomfort of changing the schema is emotionally wrenching. People rarely change just for the sake of accuracy, unless they have internalized objectivity and learned to abide by the respect for data demanded by a disciplined methodology like that of science. Only the more superficial things (like fashions) change just for the sake of change.

When attempts are made to comprehend behavior in terms of maximizing positive outcomes and minimizing negative results, the importance of the internal reward system is often underestimated. Only such a system could account for fiascos like the Edsel, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and Watergate. The psychological basis for such idiocy is the positive feedback system that socialization and the schema create and maintain.

Conflicting or contradictory data from the external environment is deflected or deflated by the belief system, which develops into a fundamental religion. Any objective analyst may easily discern all kinds of logical inconsistencies and perceptual absurdities in someone else's religious schema, but that type of analysis is invariably based on a rational evaluation of factual data. Actually, devoutly held schemas are functional not because they effectively define and address particular problems but because they help bind self-deceptive people together. This emotional/social dimension as it contributes to group cohesion is usually overlooked by rationalists, thus making their analysis flat and somewhat irrelevant. However logical, neat and smug self-contained texts in cognitive psychology may be, they usually omit this central point and leave the reader with the same vaguely empty feeling he would have were he to see a production of Hamlet without Hamlet.

Although the term "Religion" is traditionally defined in reference to the supernatural, it will be used in this discussion to refer to any compelling belief system, whether the object of the schema is supernatural, natural or man-made. Thus, much of this consideration of stupidity will be dealing with "Secular religions", such as beliefs in Democracy, Capitalism, Equality, Freedom or whatever. Our concern is not with the nature of the belief's object but with the nature of the belief. If a belief is unreasonable, it usually is so because it is a compromise synthesis of reality cum mentality. Such a condition may be functional and is a normal, acceptable method of balancing the many factors which interact in our social lives. When this compromise is itself compromised, the process of schematic crumbling is simply too ambiguous in the early stages to be defined as such, so it is defined to suit the viewer. Only when the process nears completion, can it be labeled as clearly stupid.

The basic requirement of all religious organizations is not that they be logical but that they keep in touch with their members. Keeping in touch with the external environment is secondary or perhaps coequal. This commitment to the group does not really make the system less sensitive overall, but it might seem that way, as attention must be directed inward as well as outward. Also, the data that are gathered from the outer world are processed not in their own right but in terms of the internal schema. Naturally, to an external observer (who himself can never be totally objective), the responses of the system might appear irrelevant to the given conditions, but what he often fails to consider are the further "Givens" that are not elements of his own schema.

One of the basic mistakes made in evaluating behavior as stupid stems from the assumption that people are really trying to achieve a particular goal—even one in their own best interest. Many people function more in a particular way than toward a particular end, even though the way may be self-defeating. For example, some fool may be committed to being honest rather than to making favorable impressions: he is simply honest and lets impressions take care of themselves. Such a person might lose out to an imposter, if both are applying for the same job, but the specific goal of getting the job is secondary to his basic commitment to honesty.

The gutters may be filled with people like that—too dumb to deceive in a world of scams, but honesty and objectivity do not always stand in the way of success. William Howard Taft was an amusing example of remarkable insensitivity in social relations. For example, he mentioned Grant's drinking problem in a eulogy to the former President. He spoke to be accurate, not to obtain a particular effect and nevertheless managed to become President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Although situation ethics may carry most individuals far in a world of superficial impressions, groups need not only belief systems but statements of those beliefs as rallying points for their sense of identity. These pronouncements are the "Creed" of the group. They are not guides for behavior of the members but verbalizations which promote group cohesion by providing superego-satisfying justifications for whatever must be done. Thus, the military claims that "Peace is our profession", and courts somehow get themselves associated with statements about "Justice". Such creeds have a self-deceptive, hypnotic effect on group members and inhibit the development of any sense that what they do is maladaptive. At best, creeds may make people knowledgeable but unaware, as the kind of knowledge gained is used to 1.) sustain the group schema, 2.) sustain the group, and 3.) help the group cope with its environment.

This creed rarely fools our classic outside observer. He is usually quite quick to note when a given group is behaving in ways contradictory to its expressed values, and he then makes the mistake of asserting that the members are stupid, in that they are engaging in behavior inconsistent with their creed. Once again, we return to the nemesis of arbitrariness— by what standard is stupidity to be judged? The creed? The observer's creed? Goal achievement? Despite obvious incongruities, people may decide unconsciously that it is in their emotional "Best interest" simply to hold on rigidly to their creed rather than try to adjust their ideas to fit either their actions or incoming and possibly disturbing bits of information about reality.

If identifying the "Best interest" of a party is difficult for anyone, concerned or not, then we should not be surprised at the persistence of maladaptive behavior—even if no one knows what it is. The internal reward system of the self-sustaining schema can promote a course of action totally irrelevant to anything in the perceivable environment. As maladaptive behavior persists, pride becomes a prime motivating factor for perpetuating what is arguably a mistake—that is, people would rather go on being wrong than admit it and take corrective measures. If the war in Vietnam might possibly once have been winnable or even justifiable for the United States, those possibilities passed away years before the fighting wound down to its disgraceful conclusion.

The military effort in Vietnam actually turned out to be unusually stupid, in that it was idiotic in two different ways at once. It induced internal conflict while becoming an international debacle. Often, stupidity is found where a system disrupts itself. Alternatively, a conflict between systems (e.g., countries, religious groups, etc.) may be induced by stupidities that are mutual or complementary, so what might begin as legitimate competition can degenerate into misunderstandings, recriminations and worse. In terms of laying an egg, Vietnam was a double yolker.

In the context of the stupidity of a system struggling against itself, one appreciates the good nature of people like Barry Goldwater, who once suggested he might sponsor a Constitutional amendment which would require all decisions of the Supreme Court to "Make sense". Of course, the Court would have found it quite difficult to function effectively with such an unreasonable restriction, and in more general terms, "Making sense" is about the last thing a human system should be expected to do, however pleasing it may be to analysts who prefer logic to life.

Arbitrariness notwithstanding, there are basically only two types of stupidity. By far the most common is that of principle—a system too committed to itself to adjust: its reward system becomes so internalized that it ceases to respond effectively to external change. The other type is, as one might expect, the exact opposite: this is the hypersensitive stupidity of overreacting not only to incidentals in the environment but perhaps to fantasies as well. This type usually leads to chaos, with opportunism of the moment substituting for development by a guiding schema. Both types have their places in the dynamic disorder of the human experience.

Once again, it is necessary to point out the compromise nature of the human condition. When an organization has to trade off a logically perfect system which makes sense with itself in order to find a balance with the psychological needs of imperfect people, social reinforcement will shape the behavior of those sharing common assumptions, values and beliefs. If this is a less than ideal process, it is at least consistent with the general biological principle of replacing living systems which were once but no longer are the best adaptation to an altered environment. The peculiar thing about human systems is not that they create so much of their own environment, but that they usually create one in which they cannot survive with their belief systems both honored and intact.

One specific form of rigid stupidity as induced by social norms deserves special mention because it has been identified and studied so intently. "Groupthink" is a very intense form of stupidity as it works its magic on a small, tightly knit band of people too committed to their common schema to save themselves. The Kennedy-condoned Bay of Pigs invasion remains the classic example of groupthink in all its stagnant glory. All the elements of stupidity became concentrated in the White House as the best and brightest set about creating the perfect disaster. It exemplifies the most dangerous of all possible combinations: smart people in positions of power behaving stupidly.

If it is possible to be too cooperative, then groupthink is both possible and probable. It occurs when a decision making group is highly cohesive, insulated from outside opinion and working on a policy already strongly endorsed by the leader. Under such conditions, no member is likely to risk his group status or membership by pointing out flaws in the considered policy. In the absence of external feedback and internal criticism, anything less than the perfect plan is sure to go awry.

Not only is there this cognitive drawback based on the tendency toward uniformity of opinion among members of an isolated group, there is also an inherent danger in modern bureaucratic systems that leaders derive some sort of perverse satisfaction and prestige from being removed from reality. In accordance with Reedy's Law (i.e., "Isolation from reality is inseparable from the exercise of power"), status seems to demand that those who make the most important decisions have information presented to them preselected and packaged in predigested form. Rather than surrounding themselves with truthful advisors as recommended by Machiavelli to his theoretically ideal, wise Prince, many modern rulers content themselves with fawning sycophants. The miracle is not that such leaders make so many stupid decisions but that they make so few.

In general society, the lack of critical analysis typical of all stupid systems stems from the moral commitment of members to their group creed. As the schema becomes a religious belief, it is removed a second step from reasonable criticism. (The initial separation from logical control occurs when the linguistic system of the group inhibits negative evaluation of fundamental assumptions, since the words used to convey information convey implicit values as well.) Of course, there is something vexing about a whistle blower pointing out that the system does not work, so nothing is likely to disturb the almighty or the attitude of religious worshipers quite so much as a few practical observations.

One type of observation is that there is a mismatch between creeds and deeds. This problem is inherent in the human condition. Our verbal creed not only allows us to describe our world but also helps us work together in it. It provides us with ideals to live up to and hide behind. Also, our actions are compromises with all the many factors of life which impinge upon us. Small wonder, then, that there are often discrepancies between our verbal and real worlds. This can be stupid, but mostly it is simply an expression of humans attempting to function in a world of arbitrary compromise.

When present, stupidity is easy to recognize, as it invariably promotes what it should prevent and prevents what it should promote: that is, it is counter-productive. When ideals become stumbling blocks, preventing their own realization, there is something wrong. When, in the name of justice, we walk all over someone's rights, there is something wrong. When, in the name of fairness, we suppress the oppressed, there is something wrong. Just what is wrong is never clear, and in a world of conflicting absurdities, we may become a bit jaded and accepting of stupidity as a condition so common that we no longer even recognize it as such.

The ultimate danger really is to be found in the extremism that such indifference permits and fanaticism promotes. Compromise and balance are the first victims when people stop caring enough to note the stupidity surrounding them, so if we accept the absurd, we deserve the disastrous. When control comes not through reason but primarily through conflicting powers, we have a tenuous future at best, and unfortunately, that is exactly our situation today. At least we have structured our domestic power conflicts so that confrontations are channeled through the halls of government and the courts. In such places, the most irrational decisions can be reached with maximal attention to decorum and minimal concern with reality. Again, the miracle is not that we get along so poorly but that we get along at all.

Invariably, failings and excesses of the establishment do engender checks on themselves. Reformers arise among the disenfranchised and proceed to add their particular brand of stupidity to those already flourishing. Usually in the names of improvement and progress, reformers become persecutors and strive to reduce life to some grand order through change. They might wreck the economy in their efforts to improve the standard of living. Or perhaps they induce riots and war in their quest for harmony and peace. In America, the purveyors of righteousness are always ready to make the country "Right" again—or for the first time—if the people can stand it and the world can afford it.

The main problem reformers must contend with is that the game is stacked against them. Almost everyone, to varying degrees, falls under the illusion that the establishment wants to be fair. It is rather incredible that anyone with an IQ exceeding his age could entertain such a notion. Perhaps this is just a backhanded tribute to the awesome power of stupidity that we can believe such a thing. The establishment wants to stay established: if it can be fair and retain final control, it will be, but prevailing institutions are basically indifferent to "Fairness".

By itself, being "Right" is of no particular advantage in a dispute. It can make a person aggravated and an aggravation, but it has minimal persuasive impact. All this shows is how powerful stupidity is as a factor in social life. Institutions promote it by being inherently conservative, trying to impede any significant changes in the status quo. As all judgments are arbitrary, anyone can be both right and stupid. In fact, many people are right and/or stupid, but it is seldom clear who is which and when. What is clear is that the establishment is indifferent to those who are right but powerless, because the mighty tend to judge everything according to their own self-serving standards for cultural stability and worldly success.

*

This arbitrarily based indifference to those with good ideas underlines our pervasive stupidity in social relations. By contrast, our undeniable successes in matters technical become all the more curious. It seems obvious at this point to consider the application of objectivity to the social domain in the hope that the social sciences might undercut our proclivity for individual and collective maladaptive behavior. This is well worth considering, if indeed our faith in science is justified and if the application of scientific analysis to human behavior would lead to a reduction in stupidity.

Science, in the form of the social sciences, has already proved successful in helping people learn about themselves and their institutions. It has also proved useless in providing any sort of ethic to direct the application of knowledge gained to any clear-cut, long-range benefit to humanity. Science is especially good in the narrow, immediate sense of gathering information about a specific problem or set of conditions, and the more specific the context, the better. How those data and possible solutions to problems relate to society in general is another crucial problem in itself and somewhat beyond the scope of true science. All science can legitimately contribute to the application of knowledge to problem solving is limited to projections of likely future results and sometimes sample test case studies.

As previously noted, one of the major shifts in our mental world in the past few hundred years is that we tend more and more to believe in human institutions with a religious fervor previously directed toward assumed supernatural forces. Thus, although the influence of established churches may have waned during this period, religious belief is still as powerful as ever as a factor shaping human behavior. All the horrors and cruelties which used to be the province of the devoutly sectarian (as evidenced by their witch hunts and inquisitions) have been extended and expanded upon by the devotees of secular (i.e., political and economic) institutions. It is expecting too much of science, which in its pure form is morally neutral, to combat such forms of socially induced subjectivity. Scientists can try to be objective and may make us more knowledgeable but not better.

The real problem confronting the foes of stupidity is not one which can be solved by gathering more knowledge, which is the function of scientific research. The solution will be found in the relevant application of knowledge, which is a matter of technological ethics. It is very much to our credit that we are so clever as engineers—efficient at inventing and building all kinds of sophisticated machines and contraptions. A list of major human achievements would read like a "What's What" in technology—moonwalks, atomic power, heart transplants, gene splicing, telecommunications, etc. But all this success in applying knowledge comes up short of humanity and leaves one with the feeling that the success is that of a detached system which has taken on a life and purpose of its own rather than that of one filling some compassionate need. Although we rejoice in the qualitative improvement in health attributable to medical science, the overall plight of humanity has been poorly served by those who apply what we know, with each plus seemingly counterbalanced by a minus and each advance accompanied by new problems.

If a worst-case scenario is needed to make the point, it is, unfortunately, all too available and all too recent. The fundamental and total immorality of the Nazi regime scars the conscience of civilization because it proved, in an incomprehensible way, knowledge does indeed make us free. It expands our ability to "Do" without providing any kind of human value or humane ethic other than operational efficiency. In fact, the most disturbing aspect of the tragedy is that the Nazis were so efficient in a cause so perverse.

If this was the most evil if not stupidest misapplication of force in the pursuit of an ideal, it seems just that much worse when we realize that it was not just technology gone mad for the sake of technology. It was the logically calculated use of the most advanced technology of the times, by the most educated, civilized culture of the times attempting to realize a policy deemed to be in the best interests of humanity. If anything like the Last Reich had occurred anywhere else or at any other time in history, it would have been disturbing enough, but at the turn of the century, Germany was the center of civilization, with the greatest of universities and a culture of such breadth and depth that it has never been surpassed and rarely equaled. In science as well as music, Germany was preeminent; in philosophy as well as engineering, Germany predominated—and this was the era when the leaders of the Nazi empire received their education.

The lesson is very simple for anyone willing to heed it. Science and technology are both methods: the one helps us learn, the other helps us do. Neither is a control system. They are both morally neutral and offer humanity no ethical precept which will protect us from ourselves. Worse yet is the realization that all the cultivated learning in the world seemed to encourage rather than prevent the most despicable abuse of power ever. It would be very stupid indeed to think that it could not happen again or anywhere else. The sad fact is that if it could happen in Germany then, it very certainly could happen somewhere else some other time. Nationalism and racism, a sense of injustice and betrayal, a frustrated feeling of superiority and most especially, an elite with a mission to purify the world by replacing diversity with righteous order—all these elements are common in many societies today. Again, the miracle is not that we have so much trouble but that we have so little.

Trouble we do have, of course. In contrast to our great achievements in technology, we have our dismal failures in human affairs. Poverty, starvation, disease, crime, drugs, riots, wars (real and potential) all confront us every day on the news. Science helps us learn about nature, and technology provides us with the means for effecting change, but neither provides us with the understanding we need to help ourselves. Hence, people continue to suffer in sloth and apathy—ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-fed— while a self-content middle class smugly convinces itself it is somehow morally superior to the disadvantaged, and government charity doles out just enough useless help to keep the disenfranchised hopelessly dependent on the long spoon.

If this is the best we can do, we are indeed in a mess. Perhaps we would do better if we recognize that we and the institutions we believe in are the causes of our problems. Much psychological research has gone into the study of humans as problem solvers, which is all well and good because we can and do solve problems. However, virtually no attention has been directed toward analyzing our considerable ability to create difficulties and even less to our inability to resolve them. On the one hand, we are rather deft at dealing with natural problems; our scientific and technological triumphs are all over natural phenomena—the human body, genes, electromagnetism, space. On the other, our failures are self-generated, and we cannot correct them because those in power who created them simply do not recognize them as problems solvable within the system. Perhaps if we understood our foibles by applying the schematic model for stupidity advanced in this book, we could render human behavior comprehensible. Ethics could then be a function of knowledge rather than religious taboos in the way our technological expertise allows us to make informed rather than mystical decisions about our interactions with nature.

One example of the interaction of expertise, knowledge and ethics in human affairs is that of the increasing moral imperative for cooperation. Ironically, while technological success has promoted the growth of human populations, computers have made disruptive innovative thought more difficult and individual creative thought anachronistic. The development of new disruptive ideas is more difficult because technology is standardizing our cultural world. Conformity in dress, behavior and thought is promoted by centralized control in the fashion industry, the legal system and the media. We isolate ourselves from interpersonal contact with headsets plugged into boom boxes playing synthesized music or endure prefabricated laugh-tracks on sit-com TV. For variety, we depend on old-line fanatics, like religious fundamentalists, to upset the cultural quo.

Thus, creative thinking which promotes unity is now the responsibility of some undefined, centralized establishment. It would be nice enough if this were a planned process, with each idea adding to our collective happiness, but it is basically haphazard, with each item adding to someone's bank account regardless of long-term consequences for society in general. Without realizing what has happened, we have turned our right to be original over to the amassed media. Oddly, this constitutes one example of manic stupidity due to the lack of an overseeing schema as growth without development has produced change without progress.

A more extreme example of amoral stupidity is the way we are wrecking our environment. Thanks to our failure to plan resource development, we are killing our lakes and streams, poisoning our forests, turning rain into showers of acid and are generally strangling our life support system. Once again, it is only the confrontation with our technological excesses that is forcing reason upon us. As a classic example of the neurotic paradox in action, the immediate, short-term profits which technologically advanced corporations net spur them on in their commitment to despoil the land, water and air. These indulgences beget, however, protesters who assert their right to live and breathe and who gather strength from the obvious soundness of their position that if things continue at the current rate, there soon will be no environment left to despoil. Thus, the battle of those who would wreck the world in a random, chaotic, indulgent way versus those who would save it by systematic, controlled planning. With the political power structure being what it is, they will reach a compromise—to wreck it by systematic, controlled planning.

If it is rather trite today to observe that our technological excesses are challenging our morality, it is still worth noting that this development may decrease the likelihood that compromises in the future will be reached on the basis of justice rather than on the basis of power. Power sharing based on rights meant that more and more often, more and more people dealt with each other as equals, but we are surrendering our rights to the shadow establishment. This is the most compelling change at work in our culture, and it may lead us to a blasé world in which variety, which provides both the spice of and disputes in life, will be unimaginable.

In a more realistic vein, it would be nice if someday all existent disputes could be settled fairly rather than by force or formality and that all decisions reached would be functions of reason rather than irrationality. Whether we ever reach such a state will depend to a large degree on the role stupidity plays in our future. Stupidity can both prevent survival, by promoting misunderstandings, and promote it, by making us more accepting of our limitations. It is most likely, however, that stupidity will transcend survival because we do not understand our limitations. Specific cultures rise, flourish and then pass away for lack of effective self-control— too much or too little. However, stupidity remains, appears and reappears in successive civilizations with such monotonous regularity that if we are to break the pattern and endure, we will have to answer to that overwhelming question never quite posed before: How can we be so stupid?

Notes