Coaching
Stupidity Explained!
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
A wise man once said,“ Life is tough, but it is tougher if you are stupid.”
According to Merriam- Websters online dictionary, the word stupid can denote a person who is“ slow of mind” or‘ given to unintelligent decisions” or even“ lacking intelligence or reason.” Would you describe yourself like that? Would you describe someone else like that?
Albert Enstein said,“ Two things are finite; the universe and human stupidity; and I am not sure about the universe.” This suggests that human stupidity is infinite. Just how many people are there who can be described by the adjective stupid. Is it an insult to human beings? After all, everyone is born with intelligence. Using that intelligence is another issue altogether. Or is it critical thinking skills that need to be developed? That’ s what education is for. Bertrand Russel said“ Men are born ignorant not stupid. They are made stupid by education.” Quite contradictory view-points here.
Academic scholars have attempted to explain stupid. In 1976 an economist called Carlo Cipolla came up with five laws of stupidity.
# Law 1: Everyone underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation.
Cipolla argues that the sheer number of individuals who can be described as stupid is huge, much more than one generally thinks. In an organization, how many suffer from this condition?
# Law 2: The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
Cipolla believes that stupidity is present in all different groups of people, whether at different levels of society, age or even education. This is probably why one would expect someone holding a PhD to be extremely intelligent, but looks incapable of organizing their personal or professional life. And the blue-collar worker makes a lot of sense even when his level of education isn’ t a PhD. Or a village elder has wisdom despite never having set foot in a classroom. Does Russel have a point when he alludes to the fact that education doesn’ t remove the stupid?
# Law 3: A stupid person is one who causes losses to another person or a group of people while they gain nothing or may even suffer losses.
Cipolla argues that it is not so much about intelligence or the lack of it, but more to do with behaviour of the person. The fact that someone is willing to cause losses to others and to themselves creates a loselose position and no one gains anything from such. For example, you choose to run a shoddy marketing communications campaign, which doesn’ t benefit the organization or brand and it also doesn’ t do anything for your personal reputation as a marketer.
# Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, nonstupid people constantly forget that in any time and place and circumstance dealing and / or hanging out with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
Bandits are those who are mainly interested in benefits to themselves and losses for others. This thuggish behavior, sometimes classified as selfish, is usually not sustainable. If everyone in the organization or society starts behaving like this, it can result in complete dysfunction. The me, me, me approach shows others you only care about yourself.
There is a popular saying that you become the sum of the five people close to you. Cipolla suggests that if you keep hanging around stupid people, you will absorb some of the behaviours and start acting like that. Peer pressure is real. Are you able to resist it and chart your own path?
# Law 5: Stupid people are the most dangerous type of people.
Cipolla says stupid people are unpredictable. They do not care about others. Organizations that have silo working conditions are all about not caring for others. How can so many people
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