The Rise of Collective Stupidity

PAUL COLLITS

Anyone observing, seriously observing, the trajectory of modern societies will be unable to avoid the conclusion that individuals, communities, regions, nations, their “leaders” and the world have been overtaken by what The Psyche podcast calls the rise of collective stupidity, and the vanishing without trace of critical skills.

They quote Stephen Hawking, who said:

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

That is a pretty good summary of the age we have all been called to live in. The whole Whig theory of history, the belief in inevitable progress, and thinking we are cleverer than anyone who came before us, all suffer from an illusion of knowledge.

Some of the comments are pretty good, too.

One even quoted Aristotle:

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Here is another:

We’ve traded independent thought for convenience. When emotion replaces evidence and popularity outweighs truth, collective stupidity becomes a feature—not a flaw.

And another:

I have tried talking to people with opposing view points. What I got back… slogans, talking points (verbatim), tribal protectionism, being interrupted, talked over, etc. No matter how much proof I tried to present to support my views, they were dismissed, I was ridiculed. Some of the dismissive devices used were the bandwagon fallacy, the straw man fallacy, the appeal to authority. I was unable to get through, so I walked away. I had to become comfortable to stand alone and not be part of the group.

Examples of collective stupidity are not hard to find.

· Cognitive dissonance in every direction.

· Covid compliance. Like lamely wearing masks that don’t work and lining up for repeated death jabs that can, well, kill you.

· The widespread acceptance of thinly veneered lies, like climate catastrophism.

· The willingness to pay vast sums of money for university “education” which has been one of the chief agents of the destruction of critical thinking.

· Reflexive obeisance before the administrative state.

· Front bar wisdom, shouted drunkenly.

· Giving Anthony Albanese three terms of government.

· Believing that having periodic elections means we live in a democracy.

· Handing Hamas terrorists a state to play with.

· Thinking that mass immigration will solve our problems, and not create new ones.

· Walking down the street with your head buried in a smart phone.

· Accepting massive cultural change to the benefit of no one, without demur.

· Thinking that those who question dubious narratives are the stupid ones.

A random selection.

There are a number of contending answers to the obvious question – why is it so?

· One theory is, ironically, the overload of information, which encourages short-cutting and discourages real thought.

· Matias Desmet and mass formation.

· Another is the pressure to conform and the desire to be accepted that trump real understanding, and perhaps, courage. One now seeks “social proof”. And virtue signalling replaces being right.

· Another is the lack of incentives in society to Another is the sheer cleverness of propaganda and the power of the narrative. Like truth being relative.

· The pull of technology is captivating.

· Ideology is a powerful constraint on independent thought and on truth seeking.

· The decline of reading. And the rewiring of the brain through digital media. Reliance on memes.

Collective stupidity has a number of close relatives, and it together that they act to destroy the true, the good and the beautiful. Stupidity alone cannot achieve this. Those close relatives include consent borne of fear, ignorance, the desire to conform, cowardice, the absence of intellectual curiosity, naivete, gullibility, blind faith in authority, a willingness to trust the supposed goodness of those in power, laziness, presentism and the abandonment of history and tradition. It is the whole package that is doing us in. The loss of critical thinking skills – ironically, given how many job descriptions demand them – is paramount on the list, however.

On that specific matter of ditching history, both as a discipline and as a resource for current decision-making, it is worth recalling the wisdom of Victor Hugo (per Henry Ergas):

The only thing nearly as valuable as a country’s future; its past.

There couldn’t be a much more egregious example of collective stupidity than willful ignorance of one’s past. Sleepwalking to ignorance. And so to submission.

There have been clues about our present condition for some time now.

Solomon Asch’s chilling conformity experiments back in the 1950s demonstrated an embarrassing willingness of modern man to go along just to get along, even if it means denying the obvious. AI’s summary:

Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments, conducted in the 1950s, investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could influence an individual’s opinions and behaviors. The experiments, involving a line-matching task, demonstrated that a significant number of participants conformed to incorrect answers given by a unanimous majority, even when the correct answer was obvious.

See also here for a good summary:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html

The old leftist writer Noam Chomsky spoke – when the left mattered – of “manufactured consent” in the context of public acquiescence in lies.

“Manufacturing Consent,” a book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, explores how the mass media in the United States functions as a system for disseminating propaganda. It argues that the media, rather than acting as a neutral watchdog, serves to manufacture public consent for the policies and agendas of powerful elites.

His target was (of course) business and the media and not the state. But his thesis was, and is, powerful and relevant here. In ways he could not have foreseen at the time of writing. Chomsky also wrote of institutional stupidity.

https://chomsky.info/201401__02/

Organisations full of apparently intelligent people can be stupid. This is a form of system stupidity. And, ultimately, system evil.

Can we outsource our critical faculties? What of so-called rational ignorance? Can this be an excuse for the public’s abandonment of critical thinking in relation to (often complex) policy issues? AI’s definition explains it:

Rational ignorance is the decision to not acquire knowledge when the perceived cost of obtaining that information outweighs the potential benefits it would provide. It’s a common phenomenon where individuals choose to remain uninformed about certain topics because the effort required to learn about them isn’t worth the expected value of that knowledge.

Well, no one could argue that any of the above examples constitute rational ignorance. Being duped isn’t rational. It is merely lazy. And very, very costly. Trading off individual autonomy for presumed convenience is about as head-in-the-sand as it gets.

Here is another comment at The Psyche:

We didn’t lose critical thinking. We traded it. For comfort. For speed. For the illusion of certainty. Most people aren’t brainwashed — they volunteered. They wanted to belong more than they wanted to understand. Wanted safety more than truth. And now we live in a world where questioning makes you dangerous, and silence makes you virtuous. The scariest part? The cage was built in plain sight. And we locked the door ourselves.

Apatheism, indeed. But this raises another question. Is stupidity the same as voluntarily choosing the path of least resistance? Even if we lose our freedom. This might be termed the “putting food on the table” argument. A rationale for simply keeping your head down, even if you are in the know. It is a close relative of rational ignorance. Well, when it means that we become prisoners of the state, when we pay our taxes into a vast pit of policies of which we do not approve, the answer is “yes”.

Excuses for inaction abound. Learned helplessness might be seen as another excuse for taking on the powers that rule us with bad laws. The AI definition states:

Learned helplessness is a psychological phenomenon where individuals, after repeated exposure to uncontrollable negative situations, develop a belief that they are unable to influence their circumstances, even when opportunities for control arise. This can manifest as a passive acceptance of negative outcomes and a reluctance to try to improve their situation.

Anyone out there wish to defend call centres? Or defend our polite (or not) acceptance of them? We don’t always get a positive deviant within the call centre system to actually solve problems. All we get are people urging us not to be angry with them. HR fascism? Simply because we have been beaten into the ground, and don’t know how to resist. Or do not have the energy for the fight. Or see resistance as futile. Totally understandable, but unhelpful in the age of management creep.

Who benefits from collective stupidity? No prizes for guessing here. Bad governments benefit. Evil governments benefit. Corporates benefit. The beneficiaries of the state’s largesse benefit. The insider class benefits.

What are the prospects for a turnaround?

The coming absurdity of the age verification for accessing areas of the internet – possibly the whole of the internet – will be a timely test of our collective stupidity. For here is an issue that might, pretty quickly, become the digital age equivalent of the old “hip pocket nerve”. It will not bite you in the wallet, but …

Finally, there is another podcast comment with a message:

In a time where opinions are louder than understanding, critical thinking has become almost rebellious. As [Carl] Jung and [Alan] Watts both hinted—when the individual mind dissolves into the collective, discernment disappears. We’ve traded contemplation for reaction, and wisdom for echo chambers. The rise of collective stupidity isn’t just frustrating—it’s dangerous.

It decidedly IS dangerous. Critical thinking as rebellion? A little like displaying an Australian flag in public.

An interesting and perceptive observation. And an implied challenge. The message is, I think, we now have a duty to do our own critical thinking and to do it (loudly and persistently) in the public square. Whatever the temptation of the Benedict option and the retreat to the proverbial cave. We do have a duty to protest morally bad laws.

What might be gained from push back and insurgent behaviour? From a revival of collective intelligence? Two things might be achieved – moving the Overton Window, that is, expanding the area of permitted public debate, and influencing those who still think critically but need more and better information. Building and motivating coalitions of the smart and the willing.

Not many among the ruling elites will be moved by popular pushback. We already know they don’t care what the people think. Just think of the voice referendum. Or endless popular appeals for a slowdown in migration. So far, so bad. This is at least partly because we have mostly stayed at home and listened to right wing podcasts.

But …

We might assume that about a quarter of the population are in synch with the globalist progressivism of the age. And that somewhere between a tenth and a fifth are awake to what has gone on. That leaves are large bunch of the ignorant/undecideds. They would be the target of any campaign from more of us using our critical skills and good information to move the middle group to righteous anger.

Now, it will be countered that many voices of reason have already be doing this, for a long time, without apparent impact. And, also, that arguments from the facts fall on the deaf ears of those who decide things on emotion. Hence the whole piece on collective stupidity. But maybe we just need to find better, smarter ways to fight back. The alt-right, the Make Australia Great Again brigade, has had its own experience of collective stupidity and the abandonment of critical skills.

Burchell Wilson might have something to say on this.

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