by F Abagnale & P Henry
Stupidity was given a quick fix time on radio Today – 04/09/2025 – BBC Sounds. Perhaps it exemplifies the ignorance they want from their listeners as less than 4 minutes of this crucial subject was allowed. Stuart Jeffries and his new book, a clever quick chronicle of ignorance, A Short History of Stupidity by Stuart Jeffries review – comfortably dumb? | Philosophy books | The Guardian , droned out in a minute. Perhaps it typified the “mass stupidity” of totalitarianism and the “structural stupidity” of life under late capitalism described in his book. Daisy Christodoulou, of No More Marking, promoted how AI’s are “so good”, like GPS, even though using this gadget “you don’t develop the same mental understanding of the journey … and we get cognitively lazy”.
Climate devastation, destructive consumerism, Trump, media domination, complex issues made into soundbites are just a few examples of this stupidity. Our inculcated stupidity produces more stupidity. Yet little time is taken, on this public service station, to educate its listeners. Shame on the BBC!
The popular 2020 collected works The Psychology of Stupidity, are filled with essays in categories which tackle the subject more completely, including emotional & cognitive dysfunction, societal conditions like groupthink and instant fame that block scientific, emotional and analytic literacy.
How the pressures of ‘being human’ may be correlated with a stupidity needed to carry on living.
None of the above deal with how it’s also in corporations’ interest to keep the public stupid to be more compliant so they can sell more things to them at higher prices. By reducing the public to consumers and relegating all other life purposes to the shadows, stupid behaviour is shown off as glamourous around the world. It’s the basis for GDP calculations and is supported by the banks( Credit consumption increases with consumers taking on more debt for longer – Credit Connect) even if governments ultimately underwrite the risks and it depletes the earth’s resources.
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