Enough. Unpopular though it may be, it is a time to take a stand.
We have to stop celebrating morons and their attendant antics. We have to stop defending idiots and their self-imposed tragedies.
Whether it be a middle-aged former cricketer with a penchant for romancing equally vacuous bimbos or drug-addled footballers with a natural gift for screwing up every fifth chance offered to them - it’s about time we drew a line in the sand and said “sod off!”.
In the good old days we kept stupid people on a very short leash. They had limited opportunity to express their opinions, their social options were limited to the nearest pub and we created talkback radio to keep track of what they were thinking so it could be nipped in the bud before it became dangerous.
Somehow they have managed to escape these sensible precautions and now they are everywhere – some with unbridled power and influence.
All of a sudden their opinions are reported seriously by mainstream media, they dominate the social scene altogether and instead of ringing in to talk-back radio they appear to be hosting it.
If you live in New South Wales they form an entire government. If you live anywhere else they seem to formulate most of the government policy. In business they not only managed to almost bring down the entire world economy but somehow also got the job of fixing what they had broken.
Day by day their influence seems to grow and the non-stupid sit idly by waiting for everyone to wake up but people are not waking up… they are falling into the same stupor.
The growing influence of the stupid appears to be making stupid people “trendy” or, God forbid, even desirable. We underestimate that influence at our peril.
You see, we tend to identify the stupid as individuals - like that Corey kid who had the mega-party at his parents house or Sam Gilbert who thought photographing nude footballers made perfect sense - but they are probably best viewed as a group. As a group they are much more frightening.
As a group they are far more powerful than major organisations such as the Mafia or the much-vaunted industrial complex and without regulations, leaders or manifesto they nonetheless manage to operate to great effect and with incredible coordination.
However, when identified as a group they are also easier to understand and to stop. The Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity is a famous essay by the economic historian Carlo Maria Cipolla that explores the controversial subject of stupidity in some depth.
These are Cipolla’s the laws of stupidity:
1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.
So - you begin to understand how serious the situation is. Don’t be fooled by the protestations of stupid individuals that they are harmless.
Paris Hilton, for example, likes to insist her stupidity is nothing more than a harmless act – cleverly calculated to increase her media profile and celebrity mystique. This is simply not true. It is incredibly difficult to pretend to be stupid.
Anyone who had the misfortune to meet Paris on Bondi Beach when she last visited Australia would have had difficulty working out where the sound of the ocean was coming from. You can’t fake that. Paris is genuinely stupid and that makes her genuinely dangerous.
She is dangerous because we allow her to be seen as successful first and stupid second and therefore worthy of emulation by the young and the impressionable. It is in fact this identity model of motivation that creates most of the problems.
Take the latest example of local stupidity in Ricky Nixon. He decides that having some sort of ‘inappropriate’ relationship with a teenage girl (also coincidentally stupid – see how they congregate?) with a known and ongoing history of emotional and sexual immaturity is a good idea.
Non-stupid people are aghast. Did he not think of the consequences we all ask? Did he not weigh up the pros and cons of this and see that this could only be damaging in terms of his self-interest?
The answer is he probably did but self-interest was most likely not the motivational model he was considering. He was probably basing his decision-making on an identity model of motivation and that works like this:
What kind of person am I? What does that sort of person do in a situation like this? Therefore, what should I do if I want to be seen as that kind of person?
The potential result in Ricky’s head might have been this:
I am a successful sports agent. Successful sports agents are influential and desirable individuals who lead extraordinary lives of money, power and gratuitous sex. I should have a crack.
And if, indeed, that was the way Ricky was thinking then the problem from society’s point of view is how we have contributed to Ricky’s definition of a ‘successful sports agent’. Ricky gets that definition from the rest of us.
We paint a picture of what a ‘successful sports agent’ or anything else looks like. We create that identity by what we talk about and look up to as well as by what we don’t talk about and silently condemn.
Then, by celebrating stupid exploits and even defending them as somehow outside the control of the individuals involved we reinforce that identity model.
That is why Paris is a role model, Corey is a larrikin and Gilbert is a victim. That is why Warney is a legend, Cousins tale was a tragedy and Bush was President. Still think it’s harmless?
Stupidity can easily be proved the supreme Social Evil. To quote Walter B Pitkin who wrote A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity in 1932, three factors combine to establish it as such.
First and foremost, the number of stupid people is legion. Secondly, most of the power in business, finance, diplomacy and politics is in the hands of more or less stupid individuals. Finally, high abilities are often linked with serious stupidity.
These are the same people who then become role models. But they are only role models because we allow them to be. Here is an opportunity to stop the rot.
Wherever there is a vacuum the vacuous will fill it - so let’s start clearly identifying our role models rather than leaving it to chance. Let’s make the title of ‘role model’ one that is bestowed on worthy individuals rather than simply assumed by anyone and everyone.
Finally let’s start making the stupid undesirable by labeling the stupid for who they really are - no more excuses, no more redeeming qualities… just plain stupid.
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