Are you stupid, an idiot – or both? Philosophy has an answer

“Idiots are out in force again today,” uttered my father sotto voce whenever someone cut him off or flagrantly disobeyed the road rules. From the back seat, I, a young lad naive to Sydney’s road rage, interpreted this to mean the “idiots” had got themselves organised. They were deploying en masse to the great inconvenience, even danger, of us ordinary citizens.

The separation between norms and idiots may not have been as impermeable as my father supposed. Norwegian philosopher Lars Svendsen explains in the recently translated Stupid Idiots: A Philosophy of Stupidity and Complete and Utter Downright Idiocy that at times we’re all stupid and idiotic. Svendsen’s examination has been timed to a moment when both have taken the world by storm. With social media’s reach and AI’s amplification, never before have the stupid and the idiots been so dominant.

First, a distinction: the stupid are those who choose not to think, while the idiots among us think poorly. From this point, the author develops a taxonomy via a survey of philosophers and writers. Kant, who features heavily, considered stupidity a lack of judgment, while Socrates labelled the stupid as those who failed to examine life. We, of course, could not leave without mention of Harry Frankfurt’s seminal On Bullshit, who defined bullshit as a disregard for the truth (as opposed to lying, which acknowledges truth and says the opposite). This introduces us to an overlapping concept: stupid idiocy.

Through its short but incisive exploration of failures to think well, Stupid Idiots paradoxically becomes a guide to rigorous thinking. For it is at the border between wisdom and idiocy that greatest insights lie. It is also an exercise in humility as those who consider themselves best informed are most likely to err – like when Schopenhauer explains that one can “read themselves stupid” by consuming only literature that accords with their opinions. Svendsen recommends the budding Marxist pick up Hayek and vice versa.

Through echo-chamber busting, Svendsen suggests a return to the fundamentals of discourse and a subtle rejection of our fractured, dug-in politics. Opinions are not sacred while the idea of “my truth” is anathema to intelligent thought. Instead, if we cultivate critical thinking, are suspicious of orthodoxy and listen to those holding opposing views, we have a real shot at avoiding idiocy, if not attaining wisdom.

On the other hand, Stupid Idiots articulates how the chips are stacked to the advantage of the habitually moronic. The Dunning-Kruger effect, for example, boils down to the less you know about a subject the smarter you think you are. You simply don’t know how much you don’t know. Meanwhile, bad information (bullshit) travels further and faster than the truth.

Svendsen’s work exudes tolerance and empathy on the subject of human fallibility. Great thinkers have all been idiots at times: Heidegger was a Nazi, Aristotle thought women had fewer teeth than men, and Schopenhauer believed in all sorts of paranormal nonsense. Indeed, our discourse, the basis of our political system, can and must withstand certain amounts of stupidity and idiocy. The author states that conservatives tend to be stupid, as they too readily accept authority, while progressives are more likely to be idiots as they overestimate their outside-the-box thinking. These flaws are healthy. Things only go awry when we reach a critical mass of stupid idiots.

The titular Stupid Idiots are a special group. They are those who think badly and are so pigheaded they refuse to be swayed by life, experience or contradictory data. They are the conspiracy zealots, the antivaxxers. All dictators are stupid idiots as they cannot stomach dissenting opinion. Theirs is the only truth.

And so, in rounding its final corner, Stupid Idiots reaches the subject it had been alluding to all along: Donald Trump. So rare IRL does one meet a near-perfect archetype. Trump, who is convinced “nobody knows more about this than me”, routinely demonstrates stupid idiocy par excellence. What is special about this book is that up to now it appears more beard stroking philosophy until the revelation it has been a political script the entire time.

In the end, my father was right. The idiots are out in force today as they are every day. For we are they. Through acknowledging this, Stupid Idiots is short, sharp, rigorous and avoids condescension. It is a guide to how we can all think better and an admission that fallible thinking is universal. Or in other words, to “duh” is human.

Stupid Idiots: A Philosophy of Stupidity and Complete and Utter Downright Idiocy by Lars Svendsen, translated by Matt Bagguley, is published by Reaktion Books ($35).

What else is happening in the book world?