V. The Cultural Basis of Stupidity

What is culture? There are many answers, as it is different things to different people. Basically, it is a means of behavioral organization by which some of the more advanced species (especially sophisticated vertebrates) learn to interact with their environments. In our case, each society has a specific set of cultural controls—recipes, rules, plans and instructions—which provide both a method for structuring behavior and a linguistic context for perceiving it. In terms of a schema, normative rules define the behavioral program of a people while language frames their common assumptions.

Culture is also a means of transmitting behavior and values across generations. Further, it is a communication system, and it has been analyzed as a means for distributing both human and natural energy. However, no one yet seems to have considered culture as a means for fostering stupidity—promoting, developing and transmitting it throughout a society and through time. Perhaps it is this as well.

As a cultural constant, stupidity is routinely transmitted from one generation to the next by the time-honored mechanism of the vicious cycle. Poorly adjusted children mature into maladjusted adults, then using the same techniques their parents used on them to raise yet another generation of misinformed conformists or malcontented sociopaths. If there is some selection pressure acting to weed stupidity out of each generation, it is, apparently, easily offset by a willing disposition of people to spread it and encourage its continual, spontaneous synthesis.

For all the observing and generalizing done by cultural anthropologists, this one, true human universal seems to have escaped notice completely. In every age, land and culture, stupidity defines the hominid condition. It is both eternal and ubiquitous, although the specific forms it may take are, of course, dependent on the misperceptions and fantasies of the particular people running themselves into the ground chasing their own favorite rainbow. As a quality, it is the great equalizer of humanity, being a common element in all religions, philosophies, societies, political regimes and economic systems. No machine is built without it, and most artists— especially modern artists—depend upon it for their success. As a quantifiable phenomenon, however, stupidity is distributed unevenly, with some people being clearly superior to others in this respect.

This may be a short-term boon for society, if the dumb are failures who are unable to comprehend that the successful make and break their own rules to suit themselves. Verbalized ideals then may keep the disenfranchised in their places—exhorting them to work harder, toe the line, forgive, etc.—while the actual, functional means used to achieve specific, immediate ends are seldom acknowledged by the establishment. Unfortunately, some of the stupidest people may be the leaders, so graft and corruption in politics and subjectivity in science, for example, may have to be treated as exceptional (although self-serving behavior in government and biased attitudes in laboratories are as common as grass is to lawns). In order to protect the guilty, cultures usually reduce themselves to impracticality, so most are, at best, short-term successes which induce their own long-term demise.

Although the specific forms that contemporary stupidity assumes are our own and some of them newly minted, the general condition is part of our cultural heritage. It is the legacy of bygone eras which crushed the sensitive and favored the dull. We are the descendants of those who survived the drudgery and boredom of past working and living conditions. Our forefathers were the shirkers who left the fighting to the valiant and the brave. Our ancestors were just low enough on the ladder of cultural life not to succumb to the anxiety, stress, ulcers and high blood pressure of conscientious authority.

The person of limited sensitivity and modest ambitions finds happiness relatively easily. Having found it, he strives to maintain it and becomes the enemy of progress. Allied with the dull and happy are the powerful and successful, who often are not particularly happy but, nevertheless, want to retain their positions of influential unhappiness. Thus, both happiness and power are conservative forces acting to preserve the status quo by opposing objective evaluation of criticisms or suggestions which might improve the world but certainly would change it. Usually, the powerful will accept only those changes which increase their power—that is, changes which make significant change less likely.

Contributing greatly to the culture of stupidity is the willingness of people to submit to higher authorities in matters requiring intellectual effort. This willingness provides the psychological basis for the church and state, with the church providing beliefs for people who cannot understand and the state providing things for people who cannot do. In their self-serving ways, these institutions feed on the weaknesses of people, making them weaker and keeping them from learning and doing things they might comprehend and accomplish. As a state religion, Islam constitutes one of the most intense forms of cultural stupefication existent, as it concentrates human energy by promoting conformity in both belief and behavior.

In general, culture may be viewed in terms of a number of interacting component systems, each of which caters to a basic human need. First and foremost (and incidentally consistent with our own unbiased emphasis on schemas), culture is a belief system; there is invariably some religious commitment to a higher order of presumed powers or conjured beings. Also, culture is a system of ideology, with a philosophy of life based on false beliefs nurtured in agnostic ignorance. Further, culture is a communication system which disseminates the misinformation upon which a political system is based. The political system in turn is shaped by an economic system (if the term "System" still applies) which concentrates wealth, power and status upon the social system's favored few while distributing poverty, misery and despair among the unfortunate many. A system of technology helps each culture wreck its environment, and a system of arts provides symbolic expressions in front of which people may hide.

In each and all of these systems, there is a subtle hint of stupidity as a common element which unifies culture into a disintegrating whole. For the past two hundred years, social scientists have been trying to impose some order of logic on the actions and interrelationships of these systems. Perhaps it is time to consider the very real possibility that both the systems and their interactions are illogical, inconsistent and maladaptive to the point that culture may be characterized as stupid.

The range and intensity of religions may differ, but having a belief system is a human universal, and culture is the social mechanism for creating and maintaining the various religious systems of the world. Religion was originally directed toward supernatural spirits which presumably influenced natural events. Now, belief systems are also directed toward superhuman principles which presumably shape our institutions. Whether supernatural or superhuman phenomena be revered, the mode of religious belief is the same, and it is this process of belief—the defining feature of schemas—which determines the nature of human culture.

The psychological basis for religion is that people are disposed to worship what they cannot control. (This disposition may be represented by the formula: Control x Belief = K.) People also like to think they enter into some kind of reciprocal relationship with the incomprehensible if a system of belief, observance and ritual is established. This may provide a one-sided, imbalanced reciprocity, but it gives people the feeling that they have at least some input into the cosmic schema. In more mundane matters, people may literally "Believe in" (worship) their cultural institutions (the government, economy, etc.), particularly if and when they feel they have no control over such organizations and entities—as many feel they do not in the modern world.

One real psychological benefit to having belief systems and their supporting rituals is that both can serve to reduce anxiety in times of crisis: Belief systems provide a sense of control, and rituals provide a culturally acceptable means of action. In matters of ill health, the success of curers can be explained not only by the real effectiveness of medicinal treatment and the fact that some people recover anyway, but also by the fact that stress and anxiety are reduced for some patients who really believe in the medicine man and his little rituals. Thus, recovery may be enhanced even if the specific treatment is physiological nonsense.

For example, in some primitive societies, a belief in the malevolent dead provides a theory of disease. It offers both an explanation of cause (the actions of evil spirits) and a means of prevention (calling on friendly spirits). In the absence of any really effective medical means of coping with illness, such a belief and its attendant rituals permit people to face an otherwise bewildering experience with some confidence, and this, itself, can reduce the psychological distress accompanying an illness. If this is a short-term gain, and it indeed may be, there may also be a long-term loss, if such a belief system and its sustaining rituals prevent people from finding a real cure or means of preventing disease.

In general, religious systems are most conspicuous among peoples who are intensely dependent upon nature and have limited technical means for controlling it. This is the condition that originally led fantasy to add a spiritual element to the natural world, making the supernatural. This process was typically human—people rarely being content to generalize from just the data at hand when some more can be invented to dress up reality a bit. In sophisticated societies, people have come to misdirect their religious fervor toward their own cultural systems and even themselves. Although this may promote group cohesion and improve morale, it can inhibit both learning and adaptation. Although, in moderation, this trade-off can be adaptive, by its very nature, it tends to excess and becomes maladaptive because it is a cultural phenomenon, and culture is, inherently, a positive feedback mechanism. (E.g., technological development begets more technology; patriotism produces more patriots; etc.)

Along with beliefs, which all people have, humans also must have answers. The questions are universals: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? When will we get there? The answers form an ideology, which will be considered directly. However, if valid answers are not immediately available, they are manufactured by the schema because having an answer, even if it is wrong, is apparently more comforting than having none at all. One seldom hears the entropically futile, "We are helpless and hopeless and doomed to a pointless existence by indifferent fate" or even the more prosaic, "We don't know what we're doing". If and when such answers are offered, those accepting them are not much inspired nor well disposed to pass them on. On the contrary, most contrived answers tend to be self-serving and are designed to promote beliefs in both the supernatural and the people who provide the answers.

The role of "Answer man" is played by the "Priest"—a religious or secular expert who serves as an intermediary between the public and the supernatural spirits or superhuman institutions in which the people believe. The priest is really sort of a public relations specialist for the Almighty or the mere mighty. His job is to pass off reality in the best possible light and gloss over minor disasters, plagues, wars, etc. As everyone already knows, truly evil events are attributed to other powers which serve as foibles for the priests and those they represent.

Worse yet, priests are responsible for perverting noble ideals into ignoble means by the very human device of "Interpretation". This is the method by which a code of beliefs is adapted to the real needs and circumstances of society. Interpretation permits faith to continue, although necessity clearly demands that behavior contradict ideals. For example, American ideals have twice been trampled by "Real" Americans indulging in witch hunts for Communist heretics during the post-World War Red Scares. In a similar vein real Christians are supposed to love their fellow man, but "Man" is interpreted to mean "People like us" when intergroup conflicts arise.

It is sad indeed to note that the teachings of great religious leaders have so often been interpreted to justify some of the most barbaric, "Inhuman" attitudes and acts in history. An example of such a degraded ideal was provided by the Crusaders, who slaughtered infidels (and often the devout as well) in the name if not the spirit of Christ. It really is some kind of perverse miracle that the image of peace, purity and principle personified by Jesus could foster such fanaticism in his followers that his commandment to live in love could be so lost on the faithful.

Obviously, stupidity is the great ally of priests and leaders when they presume to interpret a creed according to need. Stupidity makes illogical interpretations both possible and acceptable. In times of challenge, when people are most in of need a credible cause, no one would be so stupid as to point out that the schema is a drawback and should be abandoned for a better one. However justified such an assertion might be, no religious leader could make such a self-defeating admission. If the schema can possibly be stretched to cover existing events, it will be. Be they religious creeds or secular laws, schemas are interpreted rather than corrected until the system breaks down. This occurs when unwelcome perceptions of cultural disintegration in the forms of violent riots, disruptive protests or massive emigrations cannot be denied even by the devout.

Not only can interpretation reduce a prevailing schema's meaning to irrelevance, but the emotional commitment of believers to a maladaptive schema can inhibit the adoption of one that is better suited to reality. The reaction of the holy Church to the inroads of science during the past several centuries is a stupendous example of how attempts to maintain a schema can inhibit development of control over the real world. Obviously, the clergy were just trying to retain their influence among the faithful, but they therefore steadily had to renounce power as we gained understanding about natural phenomena.

The social sciences are currently directed toward rendering cultural phenomena comprehensible rather than just credible. However, most people retain their unwitting religious attachment to established political, social and economic institutions. What most social scientists fail to appreciate is that they are studying religious systems, tampering with people's beliefs and experiencing very much the same kind of rejection natural scientists experienced in ages past when they tried to help people understand the natural world.

One of the peculiar things about all religions, be they supernatural or superhuman, is that so much of their substance is demonstrably false. Nevertheless, religious beliefs are the driving force of society. People would really rather believe than know. Facts and knowledge pale before the values of established beliefs and cherished attitudes. Norms sanctify behavior and certify social procedures as beyond question. Anyone who dares contradict, question or even doubt enshrined cultural values is asking for ostracism. No matter how society may falter, only cosmetic or comic criticism will be welcomed. Any fundamental challenge to or questioning of basic assumptions will usually be dismissed out of hand as threats from the outside. That America is not a democracy and that the alleged "Capitalistic" economy is government regulated mean naught to flag wavers.

The basic problem with trying to reform religious institutions is that believers tend to discount factual knowledge. Facts are routinely refuted by information gathered by divination—a method of gathering unavailable information, a means of learning the unknowable and a source of considerable comfort and solace to those firmly committed to the prevailing religious beliefs. This puts objective investigators at a disadvantage, as they accept the self-limiting principle of confining themselves to verifiable data. Naturally, disturbing criticisms do not carry much weight with people intractably entrenched in the holy establishment. These are more committed to themselves than to any principle of adjustment and thus tend to make any institution less and less efficient as justifiable complaints accrue unheeded with the passage of time.

Fortunately for priests, beliefs are sustained by ritual rather than relevance. Ceremonial observances provide participants with what they perceive as means of influencing their relations with supernatural or superhuman powers that are believed to control all things. Usually, participation in rituals is intended to perpetuate or improve the believer's relation to such powers. Supplication is frequent and sacrifice explicit. Naturally, anything good happening to the believer after prayers is attributed to them and acts (as did the food reward to Skinner's superstitious pigeons) as a reinforcement for the ritual.

Rituals not only strengthen the belief of the individual but also serve to promote group cohesion, since religious rituals are often social events. Although rituals are not designed to effect objective change directly, positive results may follow when an inspired believer or the united group copes with problems. Thus, rituals should not be judged as stupid for being misdirected at the time of performance; their value should be assessed later when the motivated, confident individual or cohesive group acts to deal with the challenges of the environment.

While we might tend to think of rituals in a purely theological context —that is, in churches and similar institutions of spiritual beliefs—they also play a significant role in secular religions. In American politics, for example, party platforms have taken on a metaphorical meaning, being increasingly ceremonial expressions of and for the devout and decreasing- ly programs for future behavior. People applaud and cheer them in perfunctory fashion, and perhaps some good comes out of all that later on, but the ritual is certain to be repeated four years later as much regardless as because of its direct or indirect, immediate or long-range effects on political life.

If rituals are basically futile efforts to effect change in some direct and immediate sense, much of the criticism in Western societies could be considered ritualistic. First, criticism is often off the mark because it must be couched in language which inhibits accurate, relevant thinking about fundamental problems. Second, the people who are on the inside, know what is going on and could make relevant criticism are too much caught up in the system to put themselves in jeopardy by blowing whistles. Further, those on the outside usually have little influence and less power, so their expressed grievances may be safely ignored. Finally, although it is very nice that we can write our Congressman, send a letter to an editor or draft a useless book like this, anyone who thinks that valid criticism in such messages will have some positive effects probably also counts on the equally likely event of winning the jackpot in the state lottery.

Even when criticism is justified, witches or their human correlates may be targeted as convenient scapegoats by people unable or unwilling to acknowledge their own contribution to the creation of existing difficulties. Belief in witches and witchcraft is usually most intense in times of increased social tension when people are faced with a crisis they are unable to resolve by the institutional means which created it. Since witches cause misfortune, misfortune must be caused by witches, and there is nothing like a good witch hunt to permit a culture to express its frustration and release its hostility on some hapless soul. This may be unfair, wrong, irrelevant and stupid, but it certainly is most satisfying to everyone (except the witches). Mostly, however, a witch hunt obscures the real causes of underlying problems and makes finding long-term solutions less likely as energy and attention are misdirected toward the rituals of chasing, catching and disposing of people who were being themselves. You need not wonder where to look for our modern witches: our prisons are full of them.

They have been imprisoned because culture transmits behavior, beliefs and rituals across generations by the process of indoctrination. Not only do individuals learn certain forms of social or antisocial behavior, but groups each invariably pick up the notion that they are the one with superior values and which alone has a private line to the Almighty. People in other groups are judged, by some standard selected just for this purpose, to be less worthy than themselves. This superiority complex must have been and may still be of survival advantage in intergroup competition, for groups with inferiority or realistic complexes are not notedly common. Thus, the belief in superiority can realize itself by making believers in fact superior to those who doubt they are or know they are not. Obviously, this sense of superiority can run away with itself, cause a culture to overreach its limitations and, as happened with Nazi Germany, induce its own demise.

A slightly inflated sense of worth tempered by some sense of reality appears to be the common psychological state of most cultural groups, but even a modest sense of superiority usually is enough to make a believer feel compelled to convert others to his better ways. If conversion to the faith is impossible, the imposition of religious prohibitions is a worthy, secondary cause for a missionary. It is difficult to imagine and impossible to calculate the misery presumably superior people have inflicted on others. Teaching by example is seldom enough. The presumption is to help the unwilling by forcing observance of rituals, proscribing behavior and attempting to impose beliefs on those unfortunate enough to come into contact with superiority.

Every religion is invariably accompanied by an ideology—another cultural universal which plays its role in fostering stupidity throughout the human family. An ideology provides believers with a raison d'etre—a logical justification for existence (although it may appear irrational if based on flaky assumptions). It describes, to their satisfaction, their relations with other people and to the universe as they perceive it. Further, it provides a means of comprehending the environment, and it also serves as a guide to action(or inaction) so as to maintain as secure and static a psychic quo as possible. In most cases, a well developed ideology is conservative, but fanatics may tailor their own to justify extreme acts of violence deemed necessary in their value system.

The ideology finds impractical expression in the laws and explicit rules of cultural organizations. These serve to misguide such organizations, bureaucracies and formal social groups into set patterns of behavior which protect insiders from criticism as they crudely crush human aspirations. If laws are left on the books long after they are dysfunctional, if bureaucrats insist on following procedures simply for the sake of procedure, if groups cling to irrelevant traditions, somewhere an ideologue is content in the knowledge that his world is consistent with itself. The failure of an organization to adapt to changes in the environment matters little to the loyal member committed to obeying rules. Of course, if anything good does befall a group, priests claim confirmation of the ideology, whereas if anything bad occurs, everyone attributes it to external forces.

People really need an ideology, just as they need food and drink. The constant attempt of humans to make principles of behavior both moral and rational indicates an inner quest for a universe with both meaning and order. While learning can be an opening and broadening experience, it often tends to be self-conforming and progressively restrictive: ergo, the cultural characteristic that a given philosophical system tends to become entrenched ever more within itself, inhibiting adaptability and repressing expressions of novelty. The unquestioning commitment to an ideology can make compromise difficult, particularly in times of challenge and change when a willingness to adjust may be needed most. Military history indeed shows that most wars have been fought over metaphysical issues rather than pragmatic problems because during intense cultural confrontations, the commitment to ideology becomes inflexible to the point of rigidity, whereas compromise is usually possible on practical matters. Also, people come to fight over their different ideas of morality when they finally realize how totally useless philosophical argumentation really is.

In terms of morality, ideology malfunctions as a guide for behavior by defining right and wrong and good and evil so that people can be wrong and evil. Naturally, people like to think they are right and good (or extremely clever) and that any snafus are due simply to bad luck or unforeseeable circumstances. However, people so often bring on their own bad luck and contribute to their own demise by failing to heed clear warnings that they must usually be at least wrong and perhaps evil as well—or else being right and good is not all it's cracked up to be. The point is very simple: priestly sanctions of individual behavior and cultural institutions, economic morality, the family marriage, propriety in society, honorable leaders—all these express a "Correct ideology" which, if not selectively applied to reality, may be tragically maladaptive. Further, an ideology as a theoretically abstract set of idealized answers to life's problems may be maladaptive not only for what it is but for what it is not: it can be fatally misleading when providing answers and when inhibiting questions.

An ideology is supposed to be explicatory, and, in a sense, it is. It usually does explain to members of a culture who they are, why they are, whence they came, and what they should do and be. It provides an explanation of how the universe operates, how to respond to the environment, and how the group will realize its end. It does not much matter that these are all stories based as much on agnosticism and ignorance as misinterpretation and emotional conjecture.

If it is stupid enough that an ideology explains so little so poorly, it is even stupider when it prevents people from learning what it purports to explain. Having an explanation is the biggest stumbling block to getting a better one. Since people seem to need credible explanations, an ideology is constructed to be sort of consistent with itself even if it is contradictory to beliefs and behavior. When it dominates to the point of making ideas independent of and coping responses irrelevant to unacceptable circumstances, an ideology becomes a menace to its own well being as well as that of its devotees.

One basic problem in such a situation is that some specific problems are simply declared taboo and left to fester because they should not exist in the first place: they confront the cultural ideal and threaten the underlying belief system. The fundamental, avoidable message is clear—society is not working as expected. Thus, taboo problems pose a threat to the ideology, as this is the rational element of the schema which provides people with the illusion that they are in control of their lives and that everything is going along A-OK. Beliefs are basic and irrational, rituals are fixed action patterns for responding to perceptions, and the ideology is somewhere in between trying to organize information into some rational order that will, in Barry Goldwater's terms, "Make sense".

The fact that the ideology (set of ideas) contributes to the existence of shameful problems by inhibiting reasonable discussion of them is largely lost on everyone. Poverty and disease are but two phenomena which may be explained by acts of God, moral turpitude of the afflicted or any number of other possible causes. The explanations offered invariably conform to and confirm the basic ideology of the explainer: rebels blame the establishment while officials affix blame on the victims or immutable natural forces. The problems, however, remain and become more serious until a relevant way of coping is found by someone responsible enough to learn how to relate causes to effects and then, finally, causes to cures.

In the transformation of cultures, as indeed in their original formation and transmission, learning is paramount. In fact, learning, unlearning and relearning are all processes fundamental to the development and existence of culture. This is not a uniquely human phenomenon, as many mammalian species depend upon their considerable learning capabilities in the development of their social organization and general behavior. With the basic cultural process being part of our primate heritage, it is language that gives human culture its distinctive flair.

In developing the cultural capacity for stupidity to human dimensions, language proved to be a most effective mechanism in that it both inhibits awareness and subverts communication. It is language which provides us with our basic misperceptions, which culture then embellishes and disseminates. Thus, self-awareness is inhibited when language permits us to misinterpret embarrassing events into socially acceptable contexts. Although sense organs give us our first impressions of our environment, words fix our attitudes, direct the process of data selection and strongly influence the misinterpretation of information so that we may contentedly misconstrue experiences.

It is through language that "Exploitation" becomes "Development"; "Indoctrination" is "Education"; and "Destruction" is "Liberation". It is no wonder that so much stupidity is so readily accepted, as so much of our psyche is structured to prevent its recognition, and so much of our behavior is designed to reinforce evaluations of immediate success even as we sacrifice critical adjustments and long-term survival.

Criticism within a system is inhibited not only by language but also by common if unjustified assumptions. For example, in terms of terms, capitalism really cannot be effectively criticized as a system of economic profits and losses. However, in terms of the human misery of poverty sustained and needs ignored can capitalism be taken to task. Unfortunately for the poor, the term "Misery" does not happen to be in the businessman's vocabulary, so its perception rarely appears in his mind. Further, the capitalist's assumption that the system will respond to need is flat out idiotic and serves only to hide the failings of the system from its devotees. The business economy responds to capital. If there is a need and no money, as there nearly always is in starving Africa or even American slums, business does not respond. On the other hand, where there is money and no need, advertisers will be paid to create one.

Criticism is further diminished and stupidity promoted by the cultural suppression of honesty and integrity. Both are welcome if they promote group cooperation. In and of itself, however, honesty is worthless. In fact, it may even be a dangerous indulgence, as honest whistle blowers have discovered to their dismay when pointing out corruption within the system. Such criticism is regarded as disruptive, and such candor is dealt with according to Luce's Law—"No good deed goes unpunished". When leaders regard truth as a threat, anyone with a modicum of sense will suppress any inchoate urge to correct rather than confirm the establishment. At the first sign of integrity, the state totters.

It would be nice to think that cultures would develop watchdog subgroups which would promote social order. The news media are supposed to compose one such element in American society. However, when the watchdog is fed by those it is watching, its objectivity is likely to be compromised. The ideal of an independent press is a myth. News is reported honestly, accurately and fairly, if that is acceptable to sponsors, advertisers, publishers and owners, but editors are paid to keep honesty out of the media as well as to direct it toward problems deemed profitable to explore and exploit. The business of journalists is to distort and pervert truths not acceptable to the establishment. Reporters and editors are intellectual prostitutes permitted to be virtuous only when it suits the corporate and political powers behind the scenes. Nothing fundamental is critically examined by the "Mythia" (i.e., myth x media): for example, the government might be criticized but not the Constitution.

For lack of effective, meaningful criticism, power does indeed tend to corrupt (as Lord Acton noted), because stupidity is a corruption of learning. For some reason, the power to command frequently causes a failure to learn—as if power can be or is a substitute for wisdom. In an ideal state, the responsibility of those in power is to govern as reasonably as possible to the mutual advantage of all. To accomplish this end, a leader had best be well-informed, heed available information, be open-minded without being empty-headed and judge all effects of policies objectively. However, it is unusual for someone transfixed by his own power to be open-minded enough to perceive that a pet policy is having unintended, negative effects, responsible enough to admit it and wise enough to replace it with a better one.

Generally, mismanagement is promoted when creeds and rituals of government become so rigid as to inhibit adaptive responses. In the holy wars of politics, priests crusade and campaign, thrive and perish, but even when victorious over political opponents, officials may find their reforms and policies lost to bureaucratic inertia. It often appears that the machine of government is designed to produce friction, constructed to break down and operated for those who service it. Society is there for the government—to feed it and clean up after it, to nurse it through illness and to support it when it goes out to cut its teeth on its neighbors.

The sad fact of real political life is that misgovernment may actually strengthen a regime temporarily. Gaining and retaining power is what government is all about, and the idea that having power is not an end in itself but a means to help people is a myth political priests may use to mask their short-term, self-serving machinations from the long suffering public. When the government takes control of a society, it may be building itself up, but it also builds up a lot of aggravation and resentment. As agencies expand in size, productivity is reduced to the point that one might think waste has become an incentive. This is the point at which bureaucracies cease to solve problems and become problems themselves. While there is nothing quite so stupid and aggravating in public life as officials perversely persistent in pursuing a policy clearly in everyone's worst interest, the commitment of politicians to their favorite projects is a motivating force unto itself and makes government immune to reason and restraint. The short-term gain of power through corruption makes a mismanaged agency less ruly and more an end unto itself. This may make the "Ins" temporarily stronger, but it also intensifies long-term resentment against them and fosters opposition to them.

The craftier politicians have found that, while stupidity may lead to unpopularity, popularity may lead to stupidity and that this is the most effective way to succeed in politics. If a politician really wants to be stupid, as so many seem to, he need not be too circumspect—all he has to do is find a popular cause. The more popular the cause, the less critical people will be about policies directed toward achieving the end: the more people want something, the less they will be concerned about how they get it. This gives stupidity full rein to flourish in the absence of skeptical criticism. Only after officials have persisted for a long time in contrived foolishness to the point that their actions become unpopular and finally unacceptable will a government to forced to do something intelligent. This is basically what happened with American involvement in Vietnam and is happening now in eastern Europe.

Generally in political organizations, the leader is a popular headman —the first among unequals. As a central reference point, he may play a largely symbolic role in that, most of the time, people know what to do anyway. Oddly enough, in our modern societies, traditional patterns of political behavior have been strengthened by the emphasis of the role of the "Leading man" as a symbol rather than as a doer. The American public, for example, forms lasting impressions from a President's incidental gestures as representative of the people but pays relatively little attention to what he does as chief of state. More and more, when such leaders are chosen, they attain office because of their popular appeal rather than because they are effective administrators. In fact, the leader really does not lead anymore. He is just there, like an elected monarch, giving a general tone to society and providing a focal point for the reverence of those who believe in the system. He also provides the media with an object of attention, so that hundreds of photographers have someone to focus on and scores of reporters have someone to quote off the record. If any leading must be done, there is least friction if the people lead the headman where they want to go. On the other hand, the most effective leaders are those who can make people want to do what is necessary and make that appear to be right. Of course, stupidity thrives at its self-defeating best in the gray area between the appearance and actuality of necessity.

In terms of political organization, republics are particularly stupid, due to the temptation of representatives to give people what they want rather than what they need. (Fortunately, doctors do not prescribe medication according to this principle.) Elected officials, however, are seldom in a position even to consider what ought to be done except in the neurotically paradoxical context of getting reelected. Further, the danger of gratifying the people is usually somewhat offset by the influence of special interest groups. Their campaign contributions are a principle source of corruption among elected officials and make many of their acts appear to be as stupid to their constituents in the short run as they may prove to be embarrassing to the representatives themselves in the long run, if and when they are revealed. Not only does power corrupt, but it is eminently corruptible.

Governments not only administer stupid laws ineffectively but also provide a professional judiciary to apply them unjustly. There was a time when people were judged by trials of combat. There were also trials by water and fire. These were all based on a belief that trials were moral confrontations. If a person was judged favorably, it was because he was right relative to another individual or neutral nature. Those who smile with derision at such judicial mechanisms might do well to take a good look at our modern jousting list—the court of law—where hired wits do battle to determine the morality (guilt or innocence) of the person on trial. The hired guns—the lawyers—use all the tricks in the book to win "Their" case. At best, judges preside not to get the truth but to see that the game is played fairly, while occasionally, the rules of court obstruct any quest for the truth. At worst, judges may intervene to interpret formalistic rules according to some preconceived notion of how the "Fair" game should end.

In all seats of political power, be they administrative, legislative or judicial, ceremony shapes the ways in which personalities interact to solve and create real and imaginary problems. The preoccupation with most political officials is with the rituals of government. As long as these assure the likelihood that those in power will retain their positions, the rituals are honored as sacred. The impact of decisions reached under such circumstances is usually secondary to the desirability of maintaining a modicum of decorum and giving speakers a chance to pronounce a few slogans for public consumption. The regulation of society is considered rather irrelevant and is indirectly affected only when conservatives become convinced the status quo must be further preserved and protected or reformers can convince political hacks it really is in their own best interests to apply some common ideal to reality.

One of the basic problems with which all community leaders must contend is that the ideals and ideas they are expected to use to solve existing problems are often simply common assumptions. This is particularly true in the field of economics—a domain in which beliefs and arguments over them have clearly become religious in nature. The general field of economics relates to the system of allocating productive goods and the land, tools and labor employed to produce them. The need for systems is a cultural universal, but one might legitimately inquire as to just how systematic the systems are. Capitalism really is not a system: it is economic anarchy. Socialism is too systematic: it stifles initiative with plans for state traction. Communism is economic democracy: it is collective stupidity, with each detracting according to his means.

Pure economic systems are not to be found except in the minds and tomes of economic theorists. In the real world, people need some way to organize their resources, equipment and labor so that goods can be produced and distributed. The actual system used by a given society is an expression of its cultural ideology and is sanctioned by an economic schema which defines "Right and wrong" in quasireligious terms. The discrepancies between the ideal and real systems are due to the compromises people must make to function, however ineffectively, in a world of physical limitations, egos, selfishness and ineptitude. In fact, the theoretical systems might better be considered distractions which keep people from understanding what they are doing.

As unsystematic systems, economic disorganizations have ideological explanations which are neither reasonable nor accurate. Indeed, what devotees thereof have created for themeselves is what they need—emotionally satisfying religious sanctifications. For example, Calvin Coolidge apparently thought the business of America was something holier than just business. He referred to the capitalist's factory in pre-Crash America as a "Temple", opined "The man who works there worships there" and declared that "Advertising ministers to the spiritual side of trade". It is hardly surprising that stupidity can play a very large role in economic life when leaders who not only accept but even revere the establishment with religious fervor allow their beliefs to color their critical thinking.

For the sake of brevity, our analysis of economic systems will be arbitrarily limited to a consideration of the labor force. Stratified societies dominated by a strong political organization are often founded on forced labor systems. However the coercion is structured—be it through slavery, serfdom or whatever, the emphasis is on political and social control rather than economic efficiency. Whatever is wasted (i.e., human labor) is considered expendable, and whenever a system considers its bottom strata expendable, its leaders are obliged to keep their followers as misinformed and credulous as possible.

In caste systems, work is performed by the members of all castes except the land owners. Actually, the land owners do a job of sorts: they decide the allocation of labor. Usually, the rule of thumb is that those lowest in the hierarchy do most of the work, and those highest do least. When it comes to distribution of the goods produced, the asymmetry remains but is, naturally, inverted. Those low down get less; those highup get more. While it might seem unfair to sweaty laborers that the workers get the least out of the system, the priests justify distribution according to the worth of the people—inferior people get what they deserve, which is something less than what is received by superior people (meaning the priests and their elitist equals). Such a system is aided by the stupidity (i.e., jaded education) of people accepting their fate and acquiescing in their own exploitation.

No matter what the system of labor organization, in agricultural communities, large families are advantageous in that there is always plenty of work to be done. However, as a society industrializes, the large family becomes a liability rather than an asset. Thus, a cultural conflict develops as traditional values are strained by new working conditions and challenged by a different way of life. In such situations, stupidity is the big winner, with ignorance, poverty and despair following closely in about that order. More of these commodities are produced and distributed than can be imagined. Unlike the "Goods" of life, these "Bads" are doled out generously to those least in need of them. Seldom is the unstable base of such societies a serious concern to the leaders, who usually simply repress threats of change.

If there is one constant across all civilizations, it is the unequal distribution of wealth. The increased productivity of advanced societies never promotes equitable prosperity, as surpluses are drawn off to support those who organize most and produce least. This inequality of wealth is so ubiquitous that the notion of economic equality must be one of those theoretical ideals which reformers find inapplicable to real humans. It seems that some people invariably lord it over others, so as in the caste system mentioned above, people generally share goods but not equally: Those responsible for dividing up the goods invariably give themselves more than they allot to the producers. Of course, all such systems are sanctified by priests, who are duly rewarded for their ideological support of the establishment. This arrangement is stupid for the workers while it lasts and stupid for the priests and their cronies when it fails. There is little consolation in knowing that any system which fails is likely to be replaced by one that is just as stupid, as a bunch of bandits replace a pack of thieves.

Along with poverty, another inescapable fact of civilization is collectivism. In most advanced societies, the larger productive goods—waterworks, roads, equipment used in public services, factories, etc.—are almost always collectively owned either by private groups (corporations)or governments. Bigness is inescapable and means that civilization is characterized by collective stupidity. Gone are the good old days when an individual could just go off and fall flat on his very own face. More and more, stupidity is organized for people who can merely select for which fools they will work and with which knaves they will invest their time, energy and money. In the business world, the small entrepreneur, who tries to maximize profits in response to the specifics of his economic conditions, has been replaced by the corporation man, who seeks promotion by responding less to external events and more to rules, regulations and policies generated internally by the company. In the political domain, government is there doing its worst to see to it that each of us has the same chance to accept and conform to standards set by the Mediocracy. Further, as a tax payer, a person is working not for himself but for the government—the least responsible institution ever to evolve.

There is much more than irony in the fact that so many people are so willing to work so hard in their own worst interest. Such behavior is made all the more probable by the human capacity to believe in nonsense. People identify themselves so much with causes, institutions, ideologies and religions that they render themselves incapable of judging their own best or worst interests. It is sad enough if they believe that what is good for the system is good for them, but this belief tends to inhibit criticism. This gives leaders free rein to pursue their own self-aggrandizement. Labor unions provide some unfortunate examples of this phenomenon, as workers have eagerly lined up to be bamboozled by officials lavishly paid to price American workers out of the labor market.

It would be nice to think that the allocation of material rewards would provide all who contribute to the production of goods at least minimal means for subsistence. In primitive societies, rights of access to water, food and shelter are assumed and honored. A person can gather whatever is needed or wanted directly from nature and can share in the rewards of common efforts in rough proportion to his contribution to them. However, when existence depends on the ownership of land or on laboring for others, the issue of economic rights becomes both crucial and very arbitrary. Rights happen to be very circumstantial and incredibly alienable. Their existence is determined by people with a vested interest in seeing to it that workers get just enough to keep working. As we are seeing today in eastern Europe, rights turn out to be expressions of the numbers and organizational capacities of the disenfranchised and those sympathetic to their plight. Historically, in the case of the American labor movement, rights did not exist until workers brought them into being at the expense of owners' rights to control property. The waste to society of such conflicts of interest is the alternative to oppression of one group by another.This, in turn, means that a certain amount of inefficiency is characteristic of culture, although the form will vary from one society to another.

Recognizing, much less dealing politically with such economic waste and inefficiency is complicated by the confusing number and nature of roles individuals can assume as their identification with different social groups shifts. Any human society is a welter of associations. The basic human social unit is the family, which is an association based on kinship. Beyond this, there are formal and informal associations designed to foster cooperation and restrain disruptive behavior for the good of the dominant power group. Obviously, under certain conditions, a subgroup may find itself driven to disruptive behavior (as were trade unions in our recent past), but this is usually a last resort, when orderly means of attaining a group goal appear to be thwarted by the general society.

Not only are human societies assemblages of overlapping and sometimes contradictory associations, but they invariably have some form of class structure as well, with each class system supported by a formal ideology and set of rituals. The verbal doctrine emphasizes and the program of stereotyped behaviors reinforces the ideal virtues of the lower social orders, especially of those stupid enough to accept their inferior position and resigned to defer their rewards until later—like in their next life. The presumably more eternal values of obedience and spiritual devotion are sanctimoniously contrasted by priests with the crass materialism of those who indulge in the luxuries made possible by the degrading practice of manipulating worldly power.

Classes become castes when they become rigidly defined to the point that membership is a birthright and intergroup mixing prohibited. Caste societies are not human universals, but they are common enough and represent extremes of the class system so that their intense stupidity warrants our attention. At all levels, caste position is ritualized so as to exaggerate awareness of separate group identity. There is usually little in the way of yearnings for upward mobility or improved status, as everyone's position is preordained. Along with established rituals, supernatural powers are at the disposal of the establishment and may be called upon by priests to punish anyone who transgresses the rules. When religion is the establishment, critics may be motivated to proselytize, but ideological and social development is usually rigidly circumscribed. Thus, a caste system is the social structure typically found in a self-contained theocracy.

Even more rigid than designations of class or caste are those of race. Unfortunately for racists, there has been so much interbreeding among the human subspecies (races) that there is no genetic basis for making clear distinctions among them. Nevertheless, human groups are not only separated but invariably stratified by racial identity. All hierarchical rankings of race have only one thing in common: those passing judgment are always in the top group. When feasible, those in power will use racism to preserve their advantages, but there are long-term losses to such a system in the protection afforded the inept of the dominant race and the suppression of the gifted and able of other groups. The sad thing about the long history of racism is that it is an important issue only to and because of those determined to make it one. In almost all matters of public importance, if decisions could magically be made on the basis of relevant criteria, race would be one of the last considerations in any culture.

Beyond consideration of caste or race, differentiation of individuals is a given of the human condition. Those who are most skilled or who possess some admired attribute are treated as important or socially valuable and are granted a larger share of available economic, social and political rewards. This is discriminatory as well as universal in human culture.

However, the cognitive basis for much social stupidity is not discrimination based on ability but the human tendency to generalize behavior of differentiated members of a group into the form of a representative stereotype. This streamlines social decisions, as individual variation can be ignored and reactions keyed to specific characteristics deemed definitive for behavioral interaction. However, the loss to stereotyping is obvious: individuals are raised up or put down not because of their abilities but because they are lumped into a particular cultural/linguistic category.

Women, for example, have been universally and eternally victimized by stereotyping. It is alleged that the female psyche has somehow been permanently shaped by the oft noted ability of women to have children. It may well be that there is something to this for mothers (who do usually tend to be female) who spend more than 24 hours a day in the presence of children. Anyone subjected to such stress and pressure might have to sacrifice something to reality, and it may be a bit of logic and sanity. Recent research indicates there are real differences between male and female brains, so there may well be a special brand of feminine stupidity. However, before we venture too far into the yet unchartered domain of comparative idiocy, let us indulge in an uncharacteristic bit of diplomacy and allow the possibility that the two sexes are, in their own aggravating ways, equally stupid.

Likewise, the down-trodden, the poor, the workers, all have been stereotypically regarded as social elements which somehow fail to fulfill the cultural ideal of success. At best, a culture will exploit those it has disenfranchised; at worst, it will ignore them. Throughout history, workers have been systematically fatigued, starved and forced to live in generally unhealthy conditions. Anyone trapped in such conditions might indeed be better off were he too dull to criticize his own lot: ergo the basic undercurrent of tragedy in the human drama—that those most directly and hardest hit by social iniquities are almost blessed if they can accept their fate rather than become aware of their helplessness. It is a matter of record that many reform movements (i.e., abolition, mental health, etc.) derived considerable impetus from articulate, upper class ideologues who were morally outraged to the point of action by the appalling discrepancies between what society promised and provided.

On the other hand, there are always some people who amass wealth and then use it, along with their superior political and social positions, to consolidate effective control over productive resources. They then further their interests by using their enhanced influence to gain yet more power. This positive feedback system routinely creates social inequities which are compounded by laws passed and enforced, in the name of justice, to protect the special advantages and power of the few rather than to secure a minimum standard of decency for the many. Differential access to privilege and power thus both produces and perpetuates social stratification, because the material prosperity of the upper class is usually created and maintained by the debasement of all others. Such a system may then go to excess as the mighty reinforce their own self-confirming, self-serving perceptions, attitudes and beliefs at the expense of objectivity.

Frequently, such ruling groups are also in charge of the theological establishment, so they control access not only to natural but supernatural resources as well. By using all the means available to them, leaders can assure themselves that the prevailing ideology sanctions their privileged status, economic influence and political rank. Not only do the established powers maintain the stratified system which supports them, but their position is further secured by popular belief in the system. Modern societies have thus secularized religion while becoming religious about secular systems. All these factors can make the mighty self-assured to the point of complacent stupidity.

A major factor in determining the amount and nature of work performed in a society is the level and type of technology applied to the exploitation of its environmental resources. Basically, technology is that aspect of culture which encompasses the tools as well as the techniques people use in meeting their material needs. It functions through time in its interrelations to other aspects of society, so its full significance can be appreciated only as means to maladapt a society not only to its environment but to itself as well.

Regardless of the level of sophistication of its technology, when a group outstrips the carrying capacity of its environment, starvation will follow. This is a basic principle of life, and technology cannot alter it. Sophisticated devices and methods may expand the capacity of the environment to sustain a certain way of life, but when these new limits are quantitatively exceeded, the same predictable result is inevitable. In fact, without some guiding sense of the long-term impact of technoillogical exploitation of natural resources, technology serves only to build up a culture to a bigger and worse crash.

Just at the start of the Industrial Revolution, Thomas Malthus articulated the principle that starvation, disease and war have been, are and always will be the limiting factors on the growth of human populations. It is a sad commentary on humanity that, although technological development has proceeded apace since that time, little in the last two centuries indicates that our political leaders are aware of the long-term dangers inherent in their shortsighted policies. We seem unable to reconcile the facts that we are both slaves to our cultural world and creatures of nature.

The chronic starvation in Ethiopia is a tragic example of the stupidity a simple culture can impose upon itself. There, agricultural techniques which sufficed for ages became ineffective as the environment changed. The problems of coping with extensive droughts were compounded by the contrived polices of the government to meet the crisis in a manner based on the Marxist ideology of Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam—policies which proved to be at least as maladaptive as the traditional means for providing food. It is noteworthy that no one in a position of real authority did anything to promote birth control as a long-term policy for preventing future famines. Presumably, famine acts as a Malthusian form of birth control since this matter is too important matter to be dealt with logically by informed, intelligent leaders.

Although the commitment of any civilization to its way of life may be irrational, it may also be regarded as quite efficient, if the same society provides the standard for measuring success. The hidden pitfall is not so much what that standard may be as what it is not—not what it includes but what it omits. In technologically advanced societies, the commission of machines to help people is clearly desirable, but the omission of people from the calculations of computer programmers is indicative of a cultured failure to perceive that people are not here to help machines. The social impact of technology and scientific ideology is commonly treated as an incidental spinoff from numerous, specific projects, each developed by single-minded engineers. However, the parts do not add up to a whole; they add up to a lot of parts. The material success of a technologically oriented society may impress those who revel in quantified analysis, but human and spiritual values have been sacrificed to the point that mostof us cease even to wonder if life has any meaning beyond our self-constructed, self-destructive world. Today's overdeveloped nations insist on perceiving themselves more as thriving in their own technological present than withering in a spiritually and aesthetically sterile future.

Beyond the purely material and social dementions of the human condition, there is a universal artistic dimension to culture. Through techniques developed for the manipulation of the senses, people seek to express and communicate emotional experiences. Unfortunately, art is often judged to be stupid by many rational, articulate people who fail to appreciate it as essentially an emotional medium. Art serves to heighten and intensify feelings by making them explicit, thereby making us self-consciously aware of who and what we are.

As a special creation, a work of art is both a part of and apart from reality. Through artistic expression, people affirm their potential to transcend and improve upon their immediate conditions. This creative impulse is undeniable, although its specific manifestations may be regarded as destructive by those who fear change. The greatest cultural contribution art can make is to promote a sense of faith in the human capacity to control change of superficial aspects of life so as to confirm or confront fundamentals. If the way people react to art is indicative of the way they feel about life, they will continue to embrace the idiotic as well as the barren in their historic attempt to both express and deny themselves.

Notes