"TRUST ME, I'M, LIKE, A SMART PERSON"

 "TRUST ME, I'M, LIKE, A SMART PERSON"

You don't have to be an Einstein to guess who spouted the above words: Donald Trump, that paragon of sagacity. "The trouble is that in the modern world, the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt," said Bertrand Russell.

***

Ailments can prove to be blessings in disguise, at least sometimes. Being confined to the bed for over a week helped me catch up with some reading. One of the books I read was an incredibly slim (96 pages including the title page, foreword, publisher's note, introduction, blank pages between chapters, a few charts and all that.) I guess it can be compressed into all of eight A4 sheets, 12 point Times New Roman, double space. In fact, the 9-chapter affair is a short essay.

Titled "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity", it has been written by Italian economic historian Carlo M Cipolla (1922-2000) and translated into four languages, clocking half a million copies. This Fullbright fellow and Professor of University of California postulates a moral definition of stupidity: a stupid person is one who harms others without procuring any gain for himself.

In his foreword, the redoubtable Nissim Nicholas Taleb (author of Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, etc) describes the work as a 'masterly book'. He says that the book starts like a satire and then swings between the serious and the satire; he adds, thoughtfully, 'because economics is boring (by design) and this is fun, playful to read'. That sums up what the book is like.

According to Cipolla, though the actions of the stupid person would not benefit him in any way, they can cause a lot of damage though they have no interest in the survival of the system. (Methinks one could replace 'though' with 'because'!)

***

Rather than dwell more on the book, I will reproduce the whole of Chapter VII on the third of the five laws he enunciates.

"It is not difficult to understand how social, political and institutional power enhances the damaging potential of a stupid person. But one still has to explain and understand what essentially it is that makes a stupid person dangerous to other people – in other words what constitutes the power of stupidity. .

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit's actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants a plus on his account. Since he is not intelligent enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as well as providing you with a plus, he will produce his plus by causing a minus to appear on your account, All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit's actions, his nasty manoeuvres and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defences.

With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.

Because the stupid person's actions do not conform to the rules of rationality, it follows that:

a) one is generally caught by surprise by the attack;

b) even when one becomes aware of the attack, one cannot organise a rational defence, because the attack itself lacks any rational structure.

The fact that the activity and movements of a stupid creature are absolutely erratic and irrational not only makes defence problematic but it also makes any counterattack extremely difficult - like trying to shoot at an object which is capable of the most improbable and unimaginable movements. This is what both Dickens and Schiller had in mind when the former stated that with stupidity and sound digestion man may front much' and the latter wrote that against stupidity the very Gods fight in vain."

***

Haven't we came across such persons in the history, day-to-day life, workplace and politics whose decisions harass people for no reason, for no advantage to them, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places?

Three such instances spring to my mind. How about you?