Research
The Technological Basis of Stupidity
A major cultural factor in determining the amount and nature of work performed a society is the level and type of technology applied to the exploitation of its natural resources. Basically, technology is that aspect of culture which encompasses the tools as well as the techniques people use in meeting their material needs.1 It functions through time in its interrelations to other aspects of society so its significance must be appreciated as means to maladapt a society not only to its natural environment but to itself as well2 to the point of being tyrannically dehumanizing.3 Regardless of the level of sophistication of its technology, when a group outstrips the carrying capacity of its environment, starvation, disease and/or war 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 exceeded, the same predictable result is inevitable but worse. 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, neurotic paradoxically induced crash when it comes.
Political Stupidity
For lack of effective, credible criticism in the slap-happy world of the media, power does indeed tend to corrupt (as Lord John Acton noted1) because stupidity is a corruption of learning. For some reason, the power to command frequently causes a failure to learn--with power being a substitute for wisdom. Worse yet, the errors of leaders are less likely to be corrected then those made followers lower on the power-ladder, so, as often noted, failure comes from the top down. Ideally, 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 has best be well informed, heed available information, be open-minded without being empty-headed2 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.3 The principle of cognitive dissonance applied to politics would show that there is a constant push from way below and outside the powergrid to reform the system and force those in power above to live up to the ideals they routinely espouse but rarely honor and apply. Usually, such pushes are blunted by mid-level, career-minded, promotion-seeking mismanagers.
Stupidity in the Age of Reason
The Age of Reason was marked by a decline in the theological basis of knowledge due to a rise of scientific explanations of natural phenomena—trends which reflected the application of reason to philosophy, astronomy (where it was most effective) and biology. However during this era, the political life of nations continued to be shaped by power while the cognitive life of people continued to be shaped by religion, tradition and emotion, which combined to make this period as unreasonable as any other.
Stupidity During the Reformation
At the same time that people were turning away from theological truths and looking outward at the world, those truths were undergoing dramatic revision as both the Christian religion in particular and Western Civilization in general were thoroughly reformed. In the early sixteenth century, with religious man seeking biblical answers to theological problems, Christianity underwent a number of soul searching revisions which were essentially conservative in nature efforts to go back to times before the Church became corrupted. Meanwhile, with Renaissance Man seeking human answers to temporal questions and functional solutions to real problems, the secular religions of capitalism and nationalism were taking shape. Thus, as Christian theology was being redefined, the Bible reinterpreted and the Church both split and reformed, rising capitalism was undermining the medieval guild system while growing nationalism was enfeebling the Holy Roman Empire and weakening the papacy.
Renaissance Stupidity
The Renaissance was an expansion of the Western cognitive world beyond the limits of the medieval mind. Deism was replaced by humanism as God was replaced by man at the center of thought. Christian theology, which had so restricted intellectual development to ways to prepare people for the next life in heaven, gave way to a general appreciation of this life here and now as people self-consciously gloried in and legitimatized the world of the senses. Indulging the sin of pride, reborn man presumed to stand on his own two feet and repudiated the doctrine that he needed God’s support at every turn. Reason based on knowledge gained through experience openly challenged faith as the basis for belief.
Medieval Stupidity
Medieval stupidity should be easy to characterize: It should be Christian stupidity. However, a look at the historical record indicates much less Christian behavior than belief during the Middle Ages so stupidity in this era of religious violence was more a function of the Church reacting to medieval realities as a ruling rather than Christian institution. Still, although the Christian schema was not much of a guide to medieval behavior–being more a set of rituals than a code of ethical integrity, it inhibited appreciation of the secular di-mension of life, and it was this inhibition which actually char-acterized medieval stupidity. This condition was more noticeable among the intelligencia, such as it was, which had been indoctrinated with theology, than among the people or the prag-matic rulers of the Church or states. Certainly the political be-havior of medieval leaders was clearly shaped more by some eternal, transcendent power ethic4 than by either a sense of Christian virtue or a inherent desire to understand what they were doing.
