On stupidity and why we deteriorate through our obsession with ends

Today, in the Western cultural hemisphere, there are still people who do not believe in the impact of the climate crisis. There are still people who want to deny others their self-determination over their bodies. There are still people who do not believe in the theory of evolution. And there are still people who deny and relativise a worldwide pandemic with millions of victims. For many, these views are incomprehensible. Beyond any subjectivity, one has the feeling that the active suppression of objective truths, driven by populism, is finding its way further and further into the centre of our society. Based on this undeniable observation, the question arises as to whether we as a human race are exhibiting ever-increasing stupidity? A legitimate question that actually stands in absolute contradiction to the progress we have achieved within the last centuries. While researchers are developing new biotechnologies such as mRNA to fight global pandemics, 18% of the population in the US still do not believe in evolution. Moreover, there are people who indulge in conspiracy theories on a daily basis. So how did it come about that such a gap has formed in our society and stupidity persists? To answer this question, I look at the meaning of stupidity and discuss the contradiction that it can still exist in an advanced society based on potential social and historical origins.

As a first step, we need to establish the notion of stupidity. The Cambridge dictionary defines stupidity as a “state of being silly or unwise”. A clear and objective classification of stupidity beyond this seems generally impossible. For this reason, any subjective factors are removed. Examples of these are lack of knowledge, level of education, skills or savvy. Furthermore, ignorance or incompetence should also be excluded. A definition of stupidity that meets these criteria is that of Author and philosophy professor Steven Radler: “A kind of intellectual stubbornness”. According to him, someone is stupid if he/she has access to all information needed to make an appropriate judgement in order to develop reasonable and well-founded convictions and yet fails to do so. Stupid people believe what fits their worldview. Consequently, they do not act rationally. They are irrational — stupid — as they hold on to beliefs even though they can be clearly disproved by evidence. In this regard, it must be acknowledged that we all exhibit stupidity to some degree, as it is human to indulge in emotions at times, contrary to rational views. Nevertheless, there is a difference between a structural suppression of rationality and pure humanness that is sometimes driven by emotions.

According to this definition, rationality is the decisive factor in determining stupidity. Consequently, one has to look at the origins of rationality to understand how it took hold in our society. In the 17th century, the Western world experienced an intellectual revolution of significant proportions. The Enlightenment changed the justification of theories away from authority, tradition and religious dogma to evidence. Great names like Galileo, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Newton and many others began to use modern scientific methods. The logic of deduction or reasoning based on collected data determined truth — The epitome of rationality. Following this, views could no longer be accepted on the basis of faith. Moreover, beliefs had to be reconsidered if they turned out to be wrong. The Enlightenment thus led to a structural rationalisation. It led people to become self-determined subjects who attain objective knowledge through means such as logic and science. But how is it that a few centuries later, there are still people who do not believe in climate change or science in general?

The problem nowadays seems to be that still, a relatively large part of the Western population is not ready to adjust their views based on objective facts. This could have two causes. Firstly, it could be due to the information available to formulate a view. However, in order not to let this essay get out of hand, the assumption is made in this aspect that every citizen has access to all the information necessary to make a rational decision (even if this is often not the case — more on this in a soon following essay). The second cause is the capacity of human beings to process information logically and rationally into a view. People who lack this capacity form their views not on the basis of what Descartes calls “clear and distinct” evidence, but on the basis of prejudice, hearsay, hope and fear. This lack of capacity can have its origins in many personal as well as psychological reasons. However, as mentioned at the beginning, in this model consideration we make the assumption that every human being has the physical possibility to build such a capacity from birth. If this is true, there seems to be a structural problem in our society that hinders the development of this capacity. Consequently, a sociologically analysable problem arises.

To analyse this, we need to understand how the behaviour of individuals in our society affects the development of this capacity under given circumstances. Are there any chains of cause and effect that have led to the current state of affairs? For this, we use the theory of social actions according to Max Weber. This generally examines how human behaviour relates to cause and effect and serves us here to look for a structural cause for the lack of this specific capacity. The development of such a capacity is linked to intrinsic or extrinsic motivations which are promoted variously in social groups.

Weber thus characterises societies with his theory of ideal types of social action in order to explore the motivations for human action. Depending on this, different motivations could help or hinder the development of the capacity mentioned. He distinguishes between 4 levels. In order to facilitate understanding of these, they are explained in the context of an example: “The aim of every human being is to lead a fulfilling life.” Accordingly, social actions describe the ways in which people pursue this objective. The first type of social action is goal-rational action. Individuals who act in this way see their actions as justified by the mere end. For example, it does not matter what effects the actions have on the environment as long as they serve the goal of leading a fulfilled life. Acting thus becomes purely instrumental and a mere means to an end. The second type of social action — value-rational — is characterised by actions that are rational in relation to values. The means are chosen according to their efficiency, but the ends are determined based on values. In our example, the actions to achieve a fulfilling life could be determined by the belief in ethical values, regardless of their chances of success. In this way, the means to an end are weighed up, taking into account certain factors such as generational climate justice. Thus, the goal of living a fulfilled life could be pursued through means that reflect the need to have the smallest possible climate footprint.

The third type is affective action. This merges means and ends so that action becomes emotional and impulsive. Such action is the opposite of rationality because the actor in question cannot calmly and soberly assess the relationship between the ends of action and the means that are supposed to serve those ends. Rather, the means themselves are emotionally fulfilling and become ends in themselves. People who express such social behaviour are in a given situation and determine their social action in response to it. The action is not directed towards a goal or based on a value system. In our example, we could mention people who feel neglected and forgotten by society. Since, from their perspective, they have been brought into this situation unintentionally, they form their own world view and act reactively in a kind of defiance to the disadvantage imposed on them. The last type is that of traditional action. In this, the means and the end are determined by established customs and tradition. According to our example, it would therefore be predetermined what leads a person to a fulfilled life. This social action is based on the assumption that this situation is natural and unchangeable. Those concerned are not able to imagine alternative ends. This kind of social action is seen, for example, in religious groups.

Modern societies have evolved from levels 4 and 3 to levels 2 and 1. By and large, one would assume that rational actions predominate today. Nevertheless, one can see in political developments of recent years that there are still significant parts of society that act according to the principle of affective action. Whole nations are represented by politicians who mercilessly exploit their citizens’ affective orientation with almost too obvious manipulation. At the same time, more and more parts of the population are oriented towards obsessive goal-rational actions. This can be identified by the fact that our education system is increasingly oriented towards goal-rational lifestyles. Education is now largely seen as a means to the end of occupying a certain social position in society. The original intention of education to mature a person into a self-determined, rational subject with values seems to have been lost. There is a gap between affective and goal-rational orientations. The teaching of value-based action is increasingly neglected by society as it does not seem to have any direct value in the labour market. Yet it is precisely this kind of social action that gives an individual the capacity to process information clearly and in consideration of their environment — and thus not to become stupid. The study of humanistic subjects to gain this capacity is usually not part of the curriculum of mainstream subjects such as business studies, engineering or medicine. Instead, Anglo-Saxon universities in particular gear their study programmes towards the attainment of certain upward mobility. Education now seems to be a commodity that is bought with the prospect of social advancement. Instead of providing broad access to learning rational action and value systems, it seems schools and universities have increasingly become profit-driven enterprises under the guise of non-profit entities. “In the process of commodification, learning as a goal in and of itself has been eroded.”

It, therefore, appears to be a structural problem that our education system is moving further and further away from the goal of providing students with the intellectual capacity to not become stupid. The origins of this go back a long way. In fact, an example of this development can be dated back to the 1800s. Scotland was at the forefront of the Enlightenment by establishing five of the oldest universities in the world. At the time, they offered the highest quality of liberal education in the world while demonstrating great diversity through relatively low attendance costs. Scottish writers and poets dominated the international literary scene. The Scottish Enlightenment phase encouraged people to become self-determined subjects who acted rationally but based on certain fundamental values. However, these developments were halted at the beginning of the 19th century by a reorientation of the education system. With the nationalisation of the East India Company (EIC), the Indian Civil Service became a proxy government serving over 300 million Indian citizens between 1858 and 1874 when the EIC came to an end. It became one of the most attractive employers for British citizens to achieve a certain social status. Due to the high demand, an entrance exam based on science and mathematics was introduced. The liberal arts focus of Scottish universities was not suitable for the purpose of passing this exam. For this reason, the curriculum of Scottish universities was adapted and the phase of world-class philosophers pouring from Scotland came to an end. Goal-rational actions took over from value-rational actions. Education now represented a goal rather than the formation of intellectual capacity to become an enlightened subject.

This example shows why our education system has impacted our society through the increasing focus on goal-orientation of our actions within the last centuries. The intermittent prevailing focus on value-rational education led to the development of people into mature, value-rational citizens. Education was seen as an end and not as a means to an end. An ever-advancing goal-orientation of the education system changed this. Education became a mean to achieve ends such as social status and was commodified in the process. It follows that we become dumbed down by both affective action and over-rationalisation since in both perspectives we cannot build up the necessary capacity to perform value-rational actions. Only by looking at education as an actual end, it would be possible to rebuild this societal capacity. We could use more lessons on what it means to be a value-rational citizen who has the capacity to make rational decisions considering the impact on their environment. The key here may lie in rethinking the purpose of our education system. In the short term, the current system seems to help generate economic growth — but is it worth it if we become stupid in the process? The foundations of rationality and critical thinking that come from studying the great thinkers could be the basis for a values-based future in which stupidity is eradicated.

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