II. Defining Stupidity

Naturally—that's how! We can be stupid just by being ourselves. In fact, this book is based on two fundamental contentions: we cannot really understand ourselves without understanding stupidity, and if we understand stupidity, we will understand ourselves. Although the focus of this work is on stupidity, it is really a study of how the human mind functions. Sometimes it is "Intelligent"; more often it is "Stupid", but most of the time, it just plugs along unobtrusively in a manner unnamed because it is so common as never to have been named anything at all. Regardless of the labels used, our characteristic interactions with the environment are all directed by the same basic mental process—the process by which our schemas shape perception, cognition and behavior.

In defining our mental life and shaping our behavior, the schema so routinely causes people to act in their own worst interests that stupidity can be considered one of the few, true cultural universals. Geniuses display it; superior people flaunt it, and the average person is never without it. Nevertheless, it thrives unnoticed in humanity's closet of shame. As this is the age when gays, blacks and even women have come out of the closet, perhaps it could also be the age when stupidity is acknowledged, confronted and even understood. Considering its impact on history, stupidity certainly deserves a hearing which is at least fair if not equal to that granted intelligence.

Traditionally, historians have pleased their readers with accounts of humanity's wondrous progress. These generally placed humans, as Mr. Clemens' boy Sam once observed, "Somewhere between the angels and the French". Likewise, psychologists followed the path of greatest acceptance in their concentration on intelligence to the total disregard of stupidity. Considering how little intelligence and how much stupidity there is, it really is incredible that this imbalance in the literature has existed for so long. Whatever the cause for this condition, it cannot be that stupidity is not a fit topic for scientific investigation, because if it is not, then neither is intelligence. However, the one is totally neglected and the other virtually pounded into the ground. If we really want to have a full understanding of the human experience, we will have to acknowledge and examine that which is both embarrassing and shameful.

Fortunately, our knowledge of stupidity is not limited to what historians and psychologists have not written about it. Herodotus noted that man was robbed of reason by "Infatuation". Of course, in ancient Greece, deities were responsible for everything, and in this particular matter, it was the goddess Ate who was responsible for infatuation, mischief, delusion and blind folly—apparently everything contributing to maladaptation but stupidity. She rendered her victims "Incapable of rational choice" and blind to distinctions of morality and expedience. (It is worth noting this awareness of the moral dimension of Ate's influence.)

In the Christian tradition, stupidity, blunder and folly were glossed over by Jesus in deference to the sensibilities of his followers, who were remarkably ignorant. Criticism of human idiocy was discouraged, and Christians came to regard the truth about a fool as a type of indecent exposure and strictly taboo. What other major religions of the world have to say about stupidity will not become clear until the beckoning field of Comparative Stupidity comes to flower, but the Christian attitude certainly contributes greatly to the nearly empty shelves in Western libraries where the hundreds of books on stupidity should be.

Those shelves are, fortunately, only "Nearly" empty, because there have been a few pioneers who dared delve into stupidity despite the taboo. First, of course, there were a couple of Germans. In 1909, Dr. Leopold Löwenfeld had Über die Dummheit published. In this work, stupidity was not defined from a medical viewpoint, but rather its broad forms were classified as multi-dimensional functional failings of a faulty intellect—meaning dullness, weak character, inattention, misperception, poor judgment, clumsy associations, bad memory, etc. One of the sexes and one of the races was less stupid than the others, and although the book was updated in 1921, even World War I could not shake the author's conviction about the sexual/racial distribution of stupidity. He might have inferred, for example, that white men were superior in stupidity, but he settled for everyone else being generally inferior in intellect.

Following Leopold's lead, Max Kemmerich had Aus der Geschichte der menschlichen Dummheit published in 1912. A Teutonic cure for insomnia, this work examines stupidity in a Biblical context and is essentially an attack on established religions. Max's emphasis on a belief system was well placed, but his work is intolerantly narrow in that he recognized the Bible as the only legitimate standard for belief and behavior.

In 1919, psychologist Charles Richet had L'homme stupide published. He dodged the issue of defining or classifying stupidity but dealt with the idiocies of drugs, wealth, feudalism, slavery, war, fashion, semantics, superstitions, etc., etc. This is more a witty compilation of thoughts and examples than a scientific treatment of the phenomenon and ranged so far afield that some subjects bear only a tenuous connection with the topic.

Dr. István Ráth-Végh, a retired Hungarian judge, contributed three books to the shelves. Like most other contributions, they are neither comprehensive nor analytical but do comprise 800 pages of source material for any reader of Hungarian in need of examples of idiocy grouped under convenient headings. Originally published at the rate of one per year from 1938 through 1940, only the first found its way into English: From the History of Human Folly (1963).

The first book in English on the topic was A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity (1932), by Walter Pitkin. Like many books, it was misnamed, being really a breezy essay on human folly, and failed, unfortunately, to generate any general interest in the topic. Then in 1959 came Paul Tabori's The Natural Science of Stupidity—a superficial if entertaining collection of anecdotes culled from history—and in 1970 John Fischer's general cultural review The Stupidity Problem, and Other Harassments.

Although the term "Stupidity" does not appear in the title, Groupthink (1982), by Irving L. Janis, belongs on the shelves next to the volumes just cited. It is concerned with a specific cause of stupidity but has some general value to anyone interested in the topic and provides a number of good case studies of how leaders make both faulty and sound decisions.

Finally, Barbara Tuchman's book The March of Folly (1984) rates a place with the others. Although she honors the taboo against the word "Stupidity", preferring the cumbersome "Woodenheadedness" and newspeakish "Unwisdom", her book provides more case studies of leaders caught up in themselves. (Much of the material presented in Chapter VI is derived from examples analyzed by Mr. Janis and Mrs. Tuchman.)

When considering "Stupidity", it is important to distinguish between the term and the phenomenon. The term may be used to designate a mentality which is considered to be informed, deliberate and maladaptive. However, because of the existing taboo, this is seldom done. Usually, the term is used like an extreme swear word—a put-down for those deemed intellectually inferior, although this tactic normally reveals more about the attitude of the user than the cognitive abilities of the designate(s).

As a disparaging term for members of an outgroup, the word "Stupidity" often indicates little more than a biased evaluation of behavior. If they do "X" it is stupid; if we do "X" it is smart or necessary. For example, political enemies voting to reduce the federal deficit may be considered socially irresponsible, while our cronies do the same thing because it is a fiscal imperative. As the same act may be interpreted as both stupid and reasonable (or brilliant), we do indeed live in a perceptual world of "A" and "Not A". Further, changes through time may alter prejudiced evaluations, so the label "Stupidity" may express nothing more than a temporal estimate made according to arbitrary standards subjectively applied to existing conditions.

As a phenomenon, stupidity is most often a limited and limiting experience pattern (or, sometimes, one that is overexpanded and overextending). In any case, it is caused by a belief blocking the formation or function of one more relevant to given conditions. Something going on in the environment is not matched in the cognitive world because the existing schema is too emotionally entrenched to permit an accurate appraisal of incoming data. First and foremost, the mind is an instrument for belief —not for knowing nor for learning but for believing—and usually, it functions to maintain a schema, regardless of how debilitating that may be.

There are really two dependent aspects to schematic stupidity: one is that a schema induces stupidity, and the other is that a schema is stupid. Almost every schema induces stupidity in that a schema is a belief system which inhibits the formation of competing beliefs, hostile ideas and discomforting perceptions. Oddly enough, even a schema of "Open-mindedness" can be stupid if it inhibits the development of clearer perceptions and an appreciation of the better ideas among those available. This is the chief drawback of the liberal schema, which tends to treat all cognitions, beliefs, forms of behavior and everything else equally.

As for a schema being stupid, every one of them is by one standard or another, in that each is a compromise of the beliefs upon which a society is based, the ideas it promotes and the behavior it permits. An internally consistent schema may be repressively flat to the point of boredom for those who hold it while being maniacally disruptive to those around them. If a schema cannot motivate people to do anything more than just believe and exist, it and they may lose out to more inspiring belief systems of competing groups. At the other extreme, schemas which dominated and then died litter the byways of history. It is really this motivational dynamic of our social nature which makes our verbal schemas inherently maladaptive and us so chronically stupid.

It would be much easier for us to understand and accept this were it not for our conceptual legacy from the Age of Reason. In the eighteenth century, it was presumed that people sought to understand their world and would eventually achieve an accurate and internally consistent picture of its complexities. Rationalists thought that people dealt with reality in an analytical, reasonable manner, with emotions under the direction of cognitive factors. Although there are very few sworn Rationalists left, many students of human behavior are still encumbered by the flattering assumption that people are reasonable and wise—as in Homo "sapiens", meaning wise.

In fact, confusion as to the relationship of wisdom to knowledge impeded our understanding of ourselves for years. Two hundred years ago, Rationalists believed that as we learned more about our world we would become wiser. That belief is no longer tenable. Knowledge accumulates; wisdom does not. For all our vaunted skills in communication, we still learn pretty much as do rats, with little wisdom passed on from one generation to the next and even less developed through education. Worse yet, each generation finds a new way to mess itself up because we do not behave even like knowledgeable rats. As knowledge accumulates, so do misconceptions, superstitions and idiotic ideas and beliefs of all sorts. These do as much to shape our behavior as do immediate circumstances, since it is through our cognitive world that the stimuli we perceive are interpreted.

The Rationalists could not comprehend the nature of stupidity, intelligence or humanity because they viewed the universe as an expression of ideals in logical conflict with their opposites—good vs. evil, God vs. the Devil, etc. They did not perceive healthy behavior as a balance or blending of social needs with environmental conditions and group goals. Nor could they appreciate how wasteful it was to divine philosophical systems which were internally consistent but functionally useless because they existed only in splendid isolation. In fact, it was exactly such effete thinking that characterized the unenlightened Germanic revival of the ancient Greek tradition of impractical philosophy in the eighteenth century.

In that age, France ruled the land, England ruled the seas, and Germany ruled the air. The Teutonic schemas were beautiful in their logical consistency, but they did not relate to anything real, and although Kant never quite got around to saying so, there are only two valid criticisms of pure reason—one is that it is pure; the other is that it is reasonable.

Unfortunately, the scientists in their structured roles and carefully controlled labs have been unable to do any more than the Rationalists to render analysis of the nebulous concepts of human nature and intelligence "Realistic", functionally valuable and intellectually valid. As psychologists have been unable to formulate an operational definition of intelligence, they have had to settle for trying to solve the problem of "Problem solving". This is assumed to indicate intelligence and can be broken down into a number of identifiable components.

First, a situation must be perceived as a problem. The perceived facts must then be coded in a conceptual shorthand (words) which lend themselves to mental manipulations. Relevant facts may then be integrated in an assembly reflecting functional relations. The problem can then be divided into parts through controlled dissociation. Finally, a solution can be found through imaginative integration of verbal symbols into a new synthesis leading to an improved relationship with the environment.

This concise summary of the problem solving process contrasts sharply with a comparable consideration of the many faces of stupidity. At the grandest level of generalization, behavior may be guided by an inappropriate schema. However, even when a relevant schema is operative, it may be misapplied in any number of inventive ways. First, information may be ignored. If perceived, the perceptions may be faulty. If accurate, they may be misinterpreted. If correctly interpreted, they may be disorganized. If organized, they may be manipulated in a faulty fashion (not at all or too much) by an imagination which is too weak or too strong. Poor language skills can contribute to the formation of sloppy symbols and clumsy conceptions. Inattentiveness can lead to the confusion of unrelated events, or there may be an inability to isolate factors from events which are concurrent but unrelated. The behavioral response may not be tested, or it may be poorly tested. It may be illogical (and therefore irrelevant) or too logical (and therefore unappealing).

Unsuccessful behavior is obviously likely to result from any error in the problem solving process. Mistakes might cancel each other out but more probably compound each other. Of course failure might also result from the influence of unknown factors on those known and understood. More important, lack of success might be due to the fact that the people involved are not even seeking a solution to the given problem. If they do indeed perceive a problem as such, they might simply make an emotional response which is directed more toward relieving tension than finding a long-term solution to the situation confronting them.

It is crucial to bear in mind that the use of the term "Intelligent" or "Stupid" to describe a problem solver depends on the degree of success or failure perceived. In this matter, as in so many others, humans have proved to be rather biased judges. Our bias is inherent in our schemas, which make us both arbitrary and subjective.

We are arbitrary in the selection of criteria by which we judge. For example, a person may be judged a "Success" according to wealth, status, power, health, number of children, etc. The selection of the specific criterion used is culturally predetermined by the judge's background and completely arbitrary (in that two judges sitting side by side may disagree due to their backgrounds) and often irrelevant (i.e., stupid).

The fact that we are so consistently arbitrary has two major implications for the student of stupidity. The first is that the only thing we can really know about ourselves is that we cannot really know anything about ourselves. Over 100 years of unbiased scientific studies have conclusively demonstrated that we are arbitrary creatures incapable of making unbiased studies, particularly of our own behavior. If you need evidence of our arbitrary nature, review the more than 250 competing and often conflicting theories about human nature which have been proposed by behavioral scientists. Taken together, these indicate only that human behavior is so varied that it can be interpreted according to any number of standards to support any number of causal explanations.

The second major implication of arbitrariness is that it practically guarantees we are going to be stupid because it inhibits our recognition of what stupid behavior is, especially when we are involved in it. One of the few consistent things about people is that we very seldom interpret our own behavior as stupid. Were we to do so, there would undoubtedly be much less stupidity. However, as judging behavior is such an interpretive process, we tend to favor explanations which confirm our sense of self-esteem.

More specifically, judgment is biased by the existing schema, with arbitrariness and subjectivity contributing to the usually self-confirming result. First, criteria for judgment are arbitrarily selected, and then, within that limited context, subjective judgments are made. To continue with the example cited above, a politician would probably judge success by the criterion of power, whereas an industrialist might judge by wealth. Of course, wealth lends itself to objective measurement, in that money can be counted, but clever accountants can render financial affairs subjective by a little creative finagling.

In general, whatever stupidity is, it is induced by the biased judgments a person's schema imposes on his experiences and perceptions, as is illustrated by a probably apocryphal anecdote about a confrontation between an alcoholic ballplayer and his reform-minded manager. The manager called the player into his office one afternoon and placed an earthworm in a glass of water. The worm wriggled around quite happily until placed in a second glass containing alcohol, whereupon it promptly shriveled up and died. "See that?" exclaimed the manager. "Sure," replied the player. "If you drink, you won't have worms."

The single, obvious lesson to be drawn here is that there is no single, obvious lesson to be drawn from what we perceive and do. Each person draws his own conclusions to suit himself, and this is where the behaviorists' model fails. Although success is a reward and failure is a punishment, just what exactly is being rewarded or punished (and even what constitutes success or failure—or even what constitutes a reward or punishment) is never quite clear, since we can draw the damndest conclusions as to what is going on in our perceptual world. Usually, the mind shapes perceptions according to a given emotional disposition, with experiences commonly teaching us lessons which are inherently biased toward the existing schema. As we are inclined to assume credit for anything positive and attribute blame elsewhere for anything negative that occurs around us, we tend to become better adapted to ourselves than to our environment. It is this positive feedback system between our judged actions and beliefs which induces us to persist in behavior which others construe as stupid but which we consider as necessary or intelligent.

In the biased world of arbitrary judgments, it is easy to label an act as "Intelligent" if it can be and is construed as successful. However, the evaluation of a person's mentality according to the results attained by his behavior can be grossly misleading. Consistent with humanity's tendency to flatter itself, we often attribute to intelligence significant discoveries simply because they are considered major achievements in the development of civilization. Many of these were really just accidental and in no way due to foresight, planning or directed thinking. No one sat down to discover fire. America was discovered by Norsemen blown off course, Columbus searching for east Asia and Frenchmen following the cod. Every step Dalton took to his atomic theory was either wrong or logically inconsistent, and the discovery of penicillin was made possible by sloppy lab technique. None of these exemplifies intelligence, but if they do not, then to what does the term "Intelligence" refer?

"Intelligence" is the ability to process information efficiently—meaning, in behavioral terms, that data are related to relevant, effective reaction strategies. The amount of knowledge in a system can by indicated on a scale extending from agnostic (having no data) to gnostic (having all relevant data), with ignorance being the aversion to gather more. Overall efficiency of the system is measured relative to the achievement of "Appropriate" goals, whether they are explicitly intended or subconsciously hidden. The functional strategies available as possible coping responses are determined by past experience and perceived circumstances, and people are labeled "Intelligent" when the strategy employed in problem solving suits their skills and proves to be successful. Thus, in a general sense, "Intelligence" is the label applied to the successful application of a schema relevant to a given problem in a particular context.

By way of contrast, the term "Stupidity" is often used to indicate a behavioral strategy that failed, although all failures are not necessarily stupid. For example, a failure really does not reflect stupidity if it was due to the influence of unknowable factors. Failure may properly be regarded as stupid when it is caused by the application of an inappropriate schema or the misapplication of an appropriate schema to a problem. (Of course, a compounding occurs when an inappropriate schema is misapplied.) Earlier, we reviewed briefly the mechanical malfunctioning (i.e., ignoring data, misperceiving data, faulty symbolizing, etc.) which can contribute to maladaptive behavior. However, our most profound interest is not in the incidental breakdown of relevant schemas but in the inherently deleterious nature of the social psyche which tends to make all belief systems and their behavioral sets maladapted to each other and the environment.

Although the labels "Intelligence" and "Stupidity" are easy to apply in everyday life, efforts to elucidate the underlying schematic process have yielded little but confusion for centuries on end. Perhaps it is time to consider the possibility that something is wrong with the questions being asked or the questioners asking them. One obvious problem is that the questioners have human minds, which means that analysis tends to be both linear and biased. When using words, as most of us do, people can think of, at most, only one thing at a time. This is the source of logic (thinking in ordered steps), and it puts us at a disadvantage when trying to understand the complexities of nature. Of course, our triumphs in unraveling the secrets of the physical universe have been possible because we can hold all other conditions steady while we selectively alter one variable at a time and observe dependent reactions. However, this approach is clearly of limited value in the study of the living world, in which the dynamic interdependence of systems is really the proper subject for investigation. On the other hand, when we use mathematical symbols rather than words to facilitate complex, computerized thought, the resultant models fail to reflect the entirety of the human condition because of our inability to quantify social values and spiritual intangibles.

We would be most successful in understanding ourselves if we not only asked the right questions correctly but had no predetermined criteria for defining our results. Nevertheless, this investigation of how the human mind works will emphasize stupidity. Why stupidity? Because it is ubiquitous! Because it is eternal! Because it has been neglected and ignored! Because it is found in overwhelming abundance in every phase and facet of the human experience, except as a topic in psychology texts and journals where it is overwhelming by its absence.

Thus, this will not be a balanced account of human behavior but an attempt to redress an existing imbalance. We will consider people not only as problem solvers but as problem creators. We will analyze not only how people succeed but how they fail. We will examine how human behavior can be both adaptive and maladaptive, and our profoundest discovery will be that intelligence and stupidity are not opposites but siblings—that they contrast with one another like two faces on the same coin.

When people interact with their environment, their behavior is directed by a schematic cognitive program. A particular act can be construed as "Intelligent" or "Stupid" depending upon the perceived degree of success achieved, but while these labels indicate opposite evaluations, they do not indicate different cerebral programs. Nor should stupidity be viewed as a disruption of an "Intelligence mechanism". There is a coping (or responding) mechanism in action, and it can be construed as stupid and/or intelligent depending upon the circumstances and the judges. This coping mechanism is multidimensional, but we shall focus on three arbitrary/subjective facets important to understanding stupidity—information processing, (mal)adaptation and relevance.

When considering the ways by which the human mind processes information, it is imperative to remember that the normal cognitive state is that of self-deception. Our self-deceptive nature tends to make us stupid and, more to the point of our analysis here, certainly complicates the relationship of knowledge to stupidity. If people simply do not have relevant information available to them in a perceivable form, they are agnostic. However, if they ignore available information to the impairment of schematic accuracy, they are being self-deceptive and probably stupid. Likewise, if they misinterpret information, they are being "Data stupid", although there may be some social advantage to certain cognitive indiscretions. The person who ignores warnings of an impending disaster exemplifies the condition of being data-dumb. Military history, particularly, provides a litany of warnings unheeded or misconstrued.

The relationship of knowledge to stupidity is very circumstantial. Usually, the more one knows about a situation, the more successful his behavior is likely to be, but there is certainly no advantage in being overloaded with useless information. Worse yet, a person may worry himself sick if he is unfortunate enough to know about a threatening situation over which he has no influence whatsoever. Thus, having knowledge can be maladaptive, particularly if one has no coping response available.

If the relationship between stupidity and knowledge is circumstantial, that between stupidity and ignorance is usually reciprocal. Ignorance often exists because a schema blocks learning relevant to survival. On the other hand, stupidity may keep people ignorant by inhibiting behavior which would permit corrective learning. Instead, a positive feedback system may then make behavior increasingly maladaptive to the environment.

Data processing systems are most maladaptive when they make dysfunctional associations among bits of information. Stupidity is thus made more likely when there is not enough information (a party is to some degree uninformed), when there is too much (overloaded) but most commonly when it is wrong (misinformed). Stupidity also results when information that is present and correct is misemphasized or misinterpreted. Of course, more profound kinds of stupidity are produced from a complexing of different possible source errors—e.g., a misinformed person misinterpreting inaccurate data.

Just as many factors related to information processing may render a schema maladaptive, so is the determination of "Maladaptation" another very arbitrary/subjective facet of the general coping mechanism of the mind. For example, although a person may know his drug addiction is maladaptive over the long haul, getting the next fix is most compelling and in his immediate, short-term best interest. While it may be to a company's advantage to control more than a fair share of resources, this may be maladaptive for its supporting culture. Since determining maladaptivity depends so much on the arbitrary selection of the referent time scale and the standards and perspectives for judgment as well as the subjective evaluations of the judges, it, like "Knowing", turns out to be a rather imprecise guide for determining whether or not an act is to be deemed stupid.

When attempting to determine whether an act is adaptive or maladaptive, subjective judgments may be predetermined by the arbitrary selection of the referent itself. Is behavior maladaptive for an individual? His reference group? The environment? Behavior can be maladaptive relative to any or all of these referents. A system can be internally inconsistent, in which case it is maladapted to itself. It can pointedly disrupt communication and adjustment to other human systems, and it can prevent accurate feedback from the environment, to the long-term detriment of the capacity of nature to sustain the human experiment.

In any situation, there are thus three concentric fields for behavioral adaptation. The first is an individual system—a person, business group, team, etc. The next is the social context of the supporting culture—other individuals and groups. Finally, there is the ultimate arbiter of fitness— the physical environment. An intelligent policy is one which is advantageous to the performer, beneficial to humanity in general, and at least not detrimental to the environment. The development of the telephone might serve as an example of an invention which was a success all three ways. Mr. Bell and his family prospered; society was provided with speedier communication; and, except for some unsightly wires, no major negative impact on the environment was suffered. Usually, of course, a policy engenders new problems as it solves the old by emphasizing success in the first, limited category at the expense of the others.

Thus can a policy be both adaptive and maladaptive. In a short time span, a pattern of behavior can be construed as adaptive by those who profit from it while it is condemned by those who must endure it. Over a longer time span, individuals may alter their judgments about a policy as they become aware of unexpected and clearly negative results. As a bottom line, "Self-interest" is really the final criterion of judgment, and stupidity is behavior counter-productive to the welfare of the performer. However, as the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, and Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania found, the pursuit of one's own best interest may be maladaptive in the extreme.

The American industrial complex is a prime example of a dynamic association of similar organizations concentrating on their own short-term enhancement while contributing to the demise of the common life support system for general society. The government's response to the pollution and exploitation of our natural resources was the Environmental Protection Agency. On non-recycled paper, it was an ideal solution to a real problem. In reality, it was taken over by the industries it was designed to control. Its record in promoting pollution and the desecration of nature is unsurpassed in the annals of government. It is most easily dismissed as a misnomer: it should be called the Industrial Protection Agency or the Environmental Pollution Agency.

If it is difficult to generalize about and define maladaptation, it may be quite easy to recognize. Commonly, a behavioral trend goes to a self-de-feating excess. Technological overdevelopment, political repression and human exploitation are all examples of maladaptation induced by the inherent tendency of cultures to function as positive feedback systems. Such excesses usually indicate a power structure caught up in the neurotic paradox: excesses are promoted as entrenched values both reinforce established patterns of behavior and render criticism less likely and less effective. In most cases, a dominant subgroup controls its supporting culture and may be living beyond the carrying capacity of the general society.

Maladaptation usually indicates that the coping mechanism really is not "Coping" but is simply responding in counter-productive ways. In a more common but less spectacular fashion, nonadaptive behavior indicates that the coping mechanism is responding in wasteful, irrelevant ways. As indicated above, the determination of relevance/irrelevance requires both arbitrary decisions and subjective judgments. The arbitrary criteria by which relevance may be judged are: context, personnel (the people who act and/or judge) and purpose.

The context of an object or behavior does much to determine—indeed, it practically defines—just what its relevance is. With regard to an object, as Winston S. Churchill observed: "A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife's bed is a cause of the gravest concern." As with baboons, so with behavior. For example, the purpose of a doctor asking, "How are you?" may vary with the setting. In his office, it is likely an initial professional inquiry: on the street, it is probably a cultural throwaway.

Of course, context is not merely a matter of physical location. Behavior is invariably interpreted in a conceptual context, but it is the observer who arbitrarily selects the context in which relevance is judged. Thus, a patriotic hawk construes a Congressional vote for a large defense budget as laudable, whereas a frugal-minded economist would regard the same act as fiscal madness. The one views the purchase of vast amounts of military hardware and the maintenance of a sizable military force as necessary for national security; the other considers the money spent as an intolerable drain on our financial resources.

In a similar way, arbitrary personal considerations play a major role in evaluating the relevance of behavior. The critical factor is the relationship between the actor and the observer. If a friend and an enemy do the same thing, two different interpretations are likely. In terms of the example just cited, a political ally voting for a large defense budget is patriotic, whereas an opponent doing so is a reckless spendthrift.

There is often a real cultural loss when attention afforded an innovation and its considered worth (relevance) are both only secondarily determined by its inherent worth. The status of the innovator may either add to or detract from the value an offering is accorded. This social dimension is a major determinant in groupthink: e.g., when a leader sponsors a proposition, it is likely to receive a favorable reaction from his followers.

The final criterion by which relevance is judged is that of purpose. Survival is a basic purpose of life, but when it becomes an end in itself, development ceases and is replaced by stagnation. When the purpose is simply to survive, human behavior is shaped by an opportunistic schema which is consistent only in the ease with which it yields to immediate circumstances. In such cases, life is a moment to moment struggle for short-term existence, with no thought given to long-term ramifications of behavior. Such a schema might be labeled "Meism/Nowism" as any other morality is simply an unaffordable luxury.

If behavior is not dictated by necessity, purpose can be created by a commitment to group norms. Accepting group standards can be stupid in that it defines adjustment in terms of a single, totally arbitrary value system. In general, most schemas are directed toward maintaining a status quo. Unfortunately, they may be so committed to themselves that they self-destruct. The process begins when an initially successful pattern of behavior becomes routine; when it serves to block innovation, it promotes failure. Reformers who then call for improvements in the schema are regarded as a source of distress. They are usually considered maladjusted and are not, in fact, adjusted to the cultural values society has enshrined as sacred. This particular kind of vexation is a growing problem today, as Western Civilization moves from making people equal in rights to similar in thought and behavior.

Because the judgments concerning the condition of "Knowing", the process of adaptation and the nature of relevance are so arbitrary and subjective, the coping complex is practically preprogrammed for stupidity. Indeed, tragedy often strikes when we let wishful thinking prejudice and/or prevent objective analysis of our interactions with the environment. It was just such a gratifying, self-confirming attitude on the part of NASA officials which contributed to the disaster of the space shuttle Challenger in January, 1986. The pleasing, working assumption was that everything was A-OK unless there was clear, uncontrovertible evidence to the contrary. The Morton Thiokol engineers responsible for the rubber seals (O-rings) between the booster rocket segments simply did not know if they would function at the low temperatures prevailing at the scheduled time of lift-off because they had never been tested under such conditions. In the absence of clear-cut data indicating likely malfunction, the engineers' expressed reservations and warnings of possible malfunction were blithely overridden by company executives and NASA administrators committed to the launch schedule and hence predisposed to assume the seals would work. Unfortunately, this proved to be an unwarranted assumption.

In a more positive vein, we may derive some psychological and social benefits from the arbitrary and subjective ways we misinterpret our behavior. We commonly indulge ourselves by holding self-serving, inconsistent, unrealistic beliefs which characteristically contradict our behavior. With such cognitive aids, people can live in mental worlds which transcend reality and, to the extent that some healthy fantasies are realized, improve their circumstances. Such cerebral bootstrapping is common in humans and provides positive support for the coping mechanism which also can be so maladaptive.

For better and worse, the normal human mentality protects us from ourselves so that we cannot recognize the irrationality of our belief systems nor the inconsistencies between them and our behavior. What kind of inconsistences? We are rewarded for lying and cheating, although our superego value system tells us we should be fair and honest. We are advised to be meek and humble by the powerful and mighty. A person really could be justly accused of being stupid just for doing as he is told. Usually, most people are street wise enough to resolve such paradoxes pragmatically by seeking tangible rewards and leaving ethical considerations to the empty-handed.

Although recognizing stupidity is a very arbitrary/subjective process, it is quite easy to cite the conditions thought to characterize stupid behavior. Stupidity is commonly considered possible only when and where behavior is optional. If conditions have deteriorated to the point that a maladaptive course of action is the only one available, survival and not stupidity is the only consideration. However, it may have been somewhat stupid to have become boxed in in the first place.

On the other hand, it is just as stupid (in the sense of being wasteful) to underreach one's level of competence as to overreach it. In the first case, a system fails to develop its potential because it really is not challenged and therefore is not functioning as efficiently as it might. In the second case, stupidity can lead people into an environment or situation in which they cannot function effectively because their behavioral options are unsuited to the conditions at hand. In such a situation, an overambitious system finds itself unable to cope with the problems confronting it. Life's best compromise of competence is to find an environment in which a decent level of efficiency can be sustained over a long period of time, with a reserve capacity available for coping with emergencies.

Another condition thought to characterize stupidity is "Counter-productivity". A stupid schema promotes its own demise by directing its devotees to behave in ways "Perceivably" in their own worst interest. To the extent that this is a valid point, it is one of the wonders of humanity that such behavior can clearly be so common. Nations sleep while their enemies march. On the other hand, paranoids defend themselves in the face of nothing. Companies squander millions on an executive's pet project while rejecting products or improvements which would net them millions and more. The crux of the matter is that stupidity is perceivable as such by all but those engaged in it at the time. These simply cannot perceive their own behavior as stupid because it does not appear to be so in terms of their own schema.

While failing to perceive their own behavior as stupid, people usually do see themselves as morally justified as they pursue their worst interests. A sense of morality is a human universal, with the many cultures differing only as to the specifics of their various ethical codes. Further, in each and every case, language plays a major role in determining the standards available for evaluating the morality of behavior.

In an absolute sense, there is, unfortunately for all the world's Pollyannas, no simple and direct correlation between success and any one system of (im)morality. Any trite generalization in this regard would have too many exceptions to be of any real value. At best, it might be said that an honest person puts himself at a short-term disadvantage when dealing with liars, cheats, phonies and frauds. These, on the other hand, run the risk of finding their nefarious successes hurt them in the long run.

Thus, stupidity can be viewed as a short-term adaptive strategy, in that it allows a degree of adaptability denied any strictly rational behavioral system, if indeed any such thing ever existed. To the extent that schematic rigidity inhibits the adoption of corrective measures to reduce the causes of existing problems, a system runs the risk of breaking rather than bending. Every living system is going to experience a certain amount of stress; it is in danger when behavior becomes increasingly maladaptive as stress increases. This occurs when the schema ceases to be a guide for successful coping with the environment, establishing itself instead as a stumbling block to functional responses. In such situations, new stimuli may elicit an outmoded reaction pattern or perhaps none at all. When a schema finally does break down under stress, it ceases to be a guide at all, so even consistent stimuli may elicit chaotic responses.

In searching for intrinsic causes of human imperfections, it is most reasonable to begin with a consideration of genetics. Although stupidity is a behavioral universal, this cannot be taken as proof of a genetic basis for the trait, as it could be the legacy of a common culture or, more probably, a function inherent in culture. Most emphatically, stupidity is not mental retardation, which is caused by the many factors which limit the cognitive skills of those who test poorly on conventional IQ tests. Such factors may be genetic or chemical, as in the cases of drugs or poisons. Retardation may also be caused by head injuries and infections. However, all such restrictions on the development of normal mental functions are irrelevant to the topic at hand. Stupidity is not a restricted form of intelligence but a normal mental function in its own right and an expression of our cultural rather than our genetic heritage.

There are, of course, any number of environmental factors which promote maladaptive behavior, but they really do not contribute directly to stupidity, as caused by an irrelevant schema. Some of the environmental factors which reduce adaptability are climate, diet and disease. In addition, other factors, like fatigue, age and drugs may play roles as well. It is interesting to note that all the above factors hit the smartest hardest. The dull may get a bit duller, but the brilliant can suffer greatly. Thus,society loses not only by a drop in general responsiveness of everyone but particularly from the loss of creative ideas from the bright. In this way alone do such factors contribute to stupidity.

Geography, for example, can play an indirect role in the development of stupidity. Usually, seacoasts are areas of cultural interaction. Where transportation is difficult, as in the mountains, or where distances are forbidding, as on the plains, beliefs are less likely to be challenged and become more firmly entrenched. Of course, in a relatively constant environment, fixed beliefs may be quite functional, but when change does come, adaptation is then all the more difficult.

Climate has a more direct role in effecting stupidity. The oppressive heat and humidity in the Middle East and much of India no doubt played a role in the development of the fatalistic indigenous religions. An accepting, passive life style is adaptive to such stultifying and sultry conditions in that it keeps one from overheating, but it hardly encourages inventive enterprise. The tropics are stupefying in that they afford too much food and comfort naturally and provide too little stimulus for people to develop their potential.

By way of contrast, the moderate and varying climates of the temperate zones encourage people to interact vigorously with the environment as they make continual adjustments to changing seasons. In the past, for much of the year, work was a way to keep warm, so the climate encouraged an active work ethic. As working is a way of learning, by being actively engaged with the environment, a culture tends to thwart the development of stupidity.

On the other hand, the harsher the environment, the more stupidity is promoted, in that one cannot afford to be too sensitive to the rigors of his surroundings. Thus, insensitivity to the point of callousness can be an advantage, with the hypersensitive sometimes breaking down under climatic and work induced stress duller compatriots may hardly perceive.

As if cultural stupidity is not enough, people have a tradition of deliberately stupefying themselves artificially to help them escape self-imposed stress. While there are reports of birds, elephants and monkeys selectively eating fermented fruit (presumably for the effect rather than the taste), people drug themselves en masse. Alcohol is one of our milder stupefiers and may have made civilization both necessary and possible. The standard saw is that nomads settled down to cultivate grain for food, but an alternative explanation is that they grew grain for the production of alcoholic beverages. The escape afforded by alcohol from the long-term stress of concentrated associations of town life may have permitted the development of civilization.

Even without artificial stupefiers like alcohol and narcotics to help them, people routinely achieve irrelevance by adhering to or seeking out a maladaptive schema. When indulging in such stupidity, they usually display certain symptoms characteristic of their condition. As mentioned above, ignorance commonly enjoys a reciprocal association with stupidity: this can take the form of a positive feedback system in which ignorance begets stupidity which begets further ignorance. Other symptoms of stupidity are often opposite extremes bracketing functional means. Stupidity can be due to as well as cause both insensitivity and hypersensitivity. If confusion is a stupid state, clarity in the expression of trenchant thought can be offensive and thus stupidly disrupt social coordination and cooperation. It may be equally stupid for a person to be either too slow or too fast in reacting to a situation.

However, under extreme conditions, any of the normally stupid extremes may be the operational ideal. Sometimes, we must be fast, callous, reckless or otherwise intemperate. Judging when conditions are abnormal enough to require the abnormal response is one of the ultimate subjective tests anyone can face. In such a situation, the standard rules no longer apply and emergency measures must be adopted if the system (individual or group) is to survive. Whatever the conditions, stupidity is the failure to apply the appropriate, relevant schema effectively.

While considering extremes, it is interesting to note that humans are extreme in their cultivation of stupidity. It is found in the animal world but is limited in both degree and kind. In more general terms, some students of human nature aver that there is nothing qualitatively distinctive about our species: according to this view, we are just a particular blend of many traits commonly found, although in different proportions, in all animal species. Thus, our nutritional needs, bodily functions and behavioral habits are all considered typically animal—perhaps extreme in some cases, as with learning, aggression and stupidity—but not distinct in kind from our fellow creatures.

An alternate view is that we are indeed distinctive. Just what the distinction is has long been a subject of speculation. The "Soul" is one of the longest-lived attributes which is alleged to separate us from beasts which seldom kill their own kind and never en masse. More notably, language is thought to be a distinguishing human characteristic, and it is—as long as it is defined as the way humans communicate. Stupidity happens to be one of those many types of behavior which we share with our relatives. We have just perfected it and, thanks to language, given it a distinctly human twist.

The common feature in all cases of stupidity is that a given program of response blocks a more relevant reaction. In insects, the program may be very limited and keyed tightly to a few critical environmental stimuli. Differences may appear among the caste groups of social insects like bees —workers work, drones drone, etc.—but within each caste, there is remarkably little individual variation.

The nest building behavior of the digger wasp provides a classic example of the inability of an animal behavioral system to adjust to altered conditions. The usual routine of the female is to dig a nest, kill some form of prey, drag the victim to the nest, place it in the nest, lay eggs on it (the larvae from which will feed on the carcass after the eggs hatch), and then close the nest. This sequence might be considered the insect's schema for action, and it is usually quite effective, as long as there is no scientist around to play God. In the event of divine intervention with any step in the ritual, the rest of the behavioral program will be continued blindly, although it has been rendered pointless. If, for example, the prey is removed from the nest after the eggs have been laid but before it is sealed, it will be sealed anyway, dooming the offspring to a tragedy of larval dimensions. The only reason this is not considered a classic example of stupidity is that the wasp has, apparently, no choice in the matter. It is preprogrammed to follow a set pattern of behavior, with no adjustment to information feeding back from the environment. Once the schema starts the sequence of action, it runs to completion.

In contrast to the preprogrammed nature of insect behavior, vertebrates are characterized by an open genetic program. The responses of adults of a species will thus be similar to the degree that they share similar genes and experiences and different to the degree that the general patterns of behavior can be refined by unique experiences of each individual. While higher vertebrates can be individualistic, social behavior of vertebrates in general has been promoted and achieved by 1.) enriched communication systems, 2.) precision in recognizing and responding to individual groupmates by the learning of idiosyncratic behaviors, and 3.) the formation of subgroups within the general society. Usually, vertebrate behavior favors individual and in-group survival at the expense of the extended society.

It is important to note that the process of learning, which is so crucial to the vertebrate way of life, is preconditioned in many species by a biological disposition to learn actions that are crucial to survival. This is the phenomenon of "Preparedness" and is exemplified by the facility with which birds learn to fly and people learn to speak. It suggests that organisms may be preprogrammed to learn certain behaviors as part of their normal developmental process.

While "Preparedness" indicates a positive legacy from an organism's evolutionary past, the Garcia Effect demonstrates that there are biological predispositions in some species to favor the learning of certain lessons over others in the lab. The average pigeon will learn to peck a disc to obtain food but will not learn to peck a disc to avoid a shock. For a rat, the same learning pattern is found: it can learn to press a bar to obtain food but cannot learn to press a bar to avoid a shock. "Preparedness" and the Garcia Effect suggest that learning can be promoted or inhibited by a preprogrammed mental set in an organism. This is the effect of the schema on humans—it makes learning of certain things easier and others more difficult.

Outside the lab, animals of all kinds may be fooled by mimicry and deceitful displays of members of their own and other species. Birds, for example, may be tricked into playing hosts to the eggs (which usually look something like their own) and young of the scores of brood parasites which infest the avian world. In the case of the cuckoo, the hosts end up rearing the parasites' young to the exclusion of their own.

Beyond showing the ability to cope more or less successfully with reality, higher vertebrates evince the cognitive capacity to live in a world of fantasy. This was demonstrated experimentally by B.F. Skinner's "Superstitious pigeons", or so we like to believe. The birds came to make idiosyncratic jerking movements in response to randomly scheduled food reinforcement, behaving as if they thought their actions caused the production of food. Likewise, the "Rain dance" of Jane Goodall's chimpanzees suggests a mental ability to associate effects with noncauses. Of course, in this case as well, the behavior does not necessarily indicate the cognitive world of the performers. The animals may simply be displaying emotion and releasing tension without presuming to influence that great chimp in the sky who makes it rain. However, it is reasonable to assert that such behavior indicates mammals can carry maladaptation to new levels of confusion.

In general, the mammalian life style emphasizes extended learning in fewer, slower developing individuals in contrast to more rigid behavior patterns in swarms or schools of quicker developing insects or fish. This necessarily means there is a premium on the adaptability of the individual in times of crisis, rather than a reliance on numbers to carry the species through. However reliable they may usually be, the patterns of behavior which are learned in the routine of daily life may be maladaptive in a short-term emergency situation. Adjustment of behavior to novel necessity is very much a learned process typical of the more adaptable mammals, like the primates and particularly ourselves.

As with all of our other special traits, human stupidity is the culmination of a long train of development shaped by our evolutionary past, but meaningful generalizations about our psychic evolution are difficult because we are a compromise of all the incongruities of life. For example, our ancestors had to be adaptable but not too adaptable. They had to be calm, accepting, thick-skinned and slow-witted to survive the harshness and boredom of daily routine. In contrast to this long-term disposition, on the other hand, they had to be responsive to emergencies and ready to adjust quickly when circumstances demanded a speedy and novel reaction. This basic duality of a long-term/conservative, short-term/innovative mentality made each step in cultural adaptation an optimistic gamble at best, as it rarely was absolutely clear at the time of decision if conditions warranted a new policy to deal with the problem at hand.

If balance was the key to survival, it was a balance of extreme potentials subjectively applied to naturally and culturally selecting conditions: e.g., sensitivity to environmental stimuli is necessary for survival, but either extreme (i.e., hypo/hypersensitivity) can cause a stupid response. Insensitivity provides a basis for stupidity in that what we do not know can indeed hurt us, so one measure of stupidity is what we fail to consider—what we fail to perceive, refuse to learn or omit from reckoning.

At the same time, and in exactly the same way, insensitivity eased the way, for what we do not know cannot worry us. For example, insensitivity toward killing, blood and suffering was of survival advantage in our not so distant past. To the extent that fighting and killing determined survival, brutality was a necessity and sympathy a luxury. Further, to the extent that people were inured to suffering, suffering was an acceptable way of life and death. Thus, the power of dullness made our last million years such a struggle and contributed to our acceptance of our struggling condition.

However, with the mean of sensitivity as the balanced ideal, those who reacted to cold, hunger, abuse and injustice died out. Those who were insensitive to such conditions endured and transmitted their passivity to their descendants. This selective pressure was somewhat balanced by the simultaneous elimination of those insensitive to immediate threats and dangers. Thus, the human psyche was shaped for long-term tolerance and acceptance of difficult conditions while being responsive to short-term challenges of the moment.

The wonder of human culture is that anyone manages to grow up with anything like sanity and sense. Consider the fact that most people start life with the handicap of parental love. Of all forms of emotionally induced blindness, this is the blindest, and most of us get a double dose. As with others who love, parents are blind because they want to be, and for nearly two decades, the child is helpless to escape the best efforts of his parents to distort his self-image and sense of importance.

Whatever limitations culture may have, it certainly is efficient at transmitting stupidity from one generation to the next (as well as developing itanew). Children receive a basic lesson from their parents and other adults who gain some peculiar pleasure in denying reality to them. It is quite common to say to a small child, "What a big boy you are". Statements contrary to the obvious may be more comforting than the truth—"My, what a scrawny little runt you are!"—and have the added advantage of preparing the child for the adult world in which accuracy is commonly sacrificed to diplomacy.

In the first year, the child forms a basic information processing schema. This is the first step in the construction of a general religious belief system which will guide and limit future behavior. Also at this time, the child develops a fundamental sense of trust or mistrust, which is another source of future stupidity: later on, the individual will find himself mistakenly trusting the untrustworthy or suspiciously dismissing honest people with sincere intentions.

A cognitive correlate of trust is the concept of object permanence, which is formed by the age of 18 months. By this age, the child can represent by mental image objects no longer in sight. The underlying, supporting assumption is that objects are consistent—that they remain the same not only when viewed from different angles or distances but even when they cannot be viewed at all. Thus, different perceptions can be associated with a presumably constant object. This has potential for stupidity, in that objects sometimes do change and yet people will cling to their original images rather than adjust to an altered reality.

The age of two years is the age of language, with actions and objects being represented by verbal as well as visual symbols. Classifying and grouping the symbols is accomplished according to the specific language of the social group. This is the process by which information is sorted and organized into categories which may or may not reflect relevant relationships found in the environment.

Along with the development of a child's cognitive world of ideas, a sense of rules and order also develops and undergoes transformation with maturation. For a young child, a rule is reality and is sacred because it is traditional. Even some adults never get beyond this stage, and, indeed, the basic rules of life, whatever they are, do not change. The older child comes to realize that stated rules are expressions of mutual agreement. They are seen to function by promoting social cooperation through individual constraint.

Although the idea of rules may change, the system of assumed world order the young child inherits from his parents is a moral necessity to him. As he matures, he will be forced to resort to reason when the sacred and obligatory rules are challenged by people with other rules or by an amoral environment. He then may be pulled in a number of directions while trying to impose unity on the chaos of this experience.

For all their inventive play, young children are really basically conservative. They hate change, as anyone who has dared change a word in a bedtime story well knows. Their cognitive expectations are very precise, with routine providing a sense of safety in a world which is often strange and unpredictable. Generally, the more uncertain the external world appears, the more tenaciously the schema is held. It is important to note that the schema provides a sense of security beyond its functional capacity to provide accurate predictions of events. Whatever its flaws, it becomes the "Cognitive map" of the individual's reality and contains 1.) the world-view, 2.) the self-concept, 3.) the self-ideal and 4.) ethical convictions. Although it can cause stupid behavior by the way it both functions and malfunctions, its common presence indicates that the schema must also be, to a significant degree, truly adaptive.

Notes