If you make mistakes, you are not a stupid person. We all make mistakes, all the time. But you are stupid if you make the same mistake over and over, expecting different results, as Einstein said. Within this concept, a mistake is a choice which brings harm to others, as well as to your own objectives. In other words, someone may hurt you deliberately, say 'sorry', and admit that it was 'stupid', but he or she actually had every intention to bring you harm, and profit from it. Such a person is not stupid, but criminal.
IQ and the level of education are irrelevant. You may not 'get' it, because you can't comprehend the concept presented to you, or because you lack relevant information. You are *not* a stupid person. This general concept of stupidity was laid down in an essay written by an economics professor, as a critique of the dogma within his own profession, which assumed that all people were 'selfish', looking after their own best interest at all times. And because the dogma (the basic assumption) was wrong, it was no surprise that the entire 'science' was bogus. Ouch!
At the time he was basically ignored, but when the Israeli psychologists Kahneman and Tversky said the same, providing proof within their scientific discipline, they received accolades, and Kahneman was rewarded with the Nobel price (in fact no such thing exists, because Nobel didn't recognise economy as a science. It is an award set up by the Swedish Central Bank). Tversky didn't, because he had passed away by then. All of this had a major impact on the academic analysis of how the economy functions, with a monumental shift towards 'Behavioural Economics'. But that is not the focus of this essay, though I will touch on it later. The original thought, as put forward by Carlo M. Cipolla, claimed that there were *always* stupid people in any group. That they outnumbered the 'intelligent' people by a significant margin, and that stupidity was a trait someone was born with. Given a choice, he claimed, these stupid people would invariably pick an option which would be bad for society, and for themselves.
Think 'Zelensky', or the 'Coalition of the Willing', I would say. Every move makes things worse for them, if you subscribe to the idea that 'history' will not look down on them favourably, since they brought ruin, death and destruction to Ukraine as well as the whole of Europe. Obviously there will be scores of admirers who completely disagree with me, and they themselves will simply ignore me, because I am spreading 'Russian disinformation'. Time will tell, and I'm afraid that we do not have to wait all that long to find out, but is there a way to determine if they qualify as stupid individuals before the conclusion?
Well, no, not really, because within Cipolla's concept they may very well not be stupid, but criminal, or hapless. One thing they are not though, and that is intelligent, within that same concept. Why? Because intelligent people are focussed on finding 'Win-Win' solutions, and the leaders of the NATO countries, and the EU, with Zelensky on tow, never had *any* intention to allow diplomacy to run its course. They openly schemed and conspired to overextend and unbalance Russia, and isolate China, and they lied about *everything* to advance that project. I *do* understand that you may consider that smart, but within that framework Cipolla proposed it would not be intelligent, but criminal, if successful. Or stupid if it fails, while that was predictable, and the person in question has a history of stupid choices.
Because these individuals got elected to the highest office, or were selected by these elected individuals, or their predecessors, to run the EU into the ground when we include the EU-Commission, you may throw at me that they were obviously *not* stupid, since reaching that pinnacle of power brought them recognition, power, and personal wealth, certainly if we include their earnings after they step down. Unless the ruins they left behind destroy their own chances to benefit as well as ours in their lifetime, or when some sort of revolution, or war, will destroy everything they worked for. Hitler did some smart things, but within this concept presented here he was stupid. He ended up death, through suicide, and will be remembered by most as a villain. Even though way too many people within the support group of the 'Coalition of the Willing' still admire him and his closest aids, certainly in countries like Ukraine, Finland and the Baltics. They have monuments and museums in their honour. And in Canada the entire Parliament offered a standing ovation to one of the last remaining Nazi's who actually fought on the side of Hitler.
That incident was listed by some as a mistake. Not stupidity. Nor the expression of criminal intent. I refer you to the introduction of this essay when I say that we all make mistakes. So yes, I *do* understand that there will have been people in that crowd who lacked the education to know that someone who fought against the Russians during the Second World War was a Nazi. But he or she was accompanied by stupid people, and criminals, who *did* know, but stood up and applauded anyway. And I include Zelensky here, as well as the German ambassador, also present at the event. Same thing where people like that will ignore that the new head of state in Syria was a wanted man, with a ten million bounty on his head, because he is a leading Muslim extremist who killed scores of opponents, 'our boys' among them. Stupid, hapless, or criminal.
Yes, it is 'complicated', but anyone unwilling to look for a 'Win-Win' solution shouldn't be allowed to rule a country. If the elected president of Russia steps up to the microphone in Munich, 2007, Security Conference, and warns his NATO-friends, who rejected his suggestion that Russia might join their alliance, that they urgently need to talk to avoid war, because expanding an obviously hostile NATO to its borders is posing an existential threat to his country, and NATO not only ignores him, but doubles down, that is the definition of a blatant lack of intellect within Cipolla's concept.
Now, you, and scores of others, including plenty of 'Realists', like John Mearsheimer, may object to my approach, because I seem to ignore 'Big Power Politics', which is how the world 'works'. Essentially the same schism between John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs, in which I side with Sachs, without too much conviction, because I'm not blind to Mearsheimer's objections. The fact that Sachs is an economist is likely the most important reason why he is 'biased' towards this 'Free Market' ideal of a 'Perfect' mechanism driven by the 'Selfish' people Adam Smith proposed as the driving force behind growing wealth for the Nations who adopted his thinking. Of which Cipolla said that Smith ignored the stupid, the criminal and the hapless people. Which is valid criticism. In fact, even as Adam Smith proposed his ideas based on a 'Free Market', the American 'Founding Fathers', who sympathised with the concept, and used it to advance the United States as a 'Classic Capitalist' society, corrected the concept by introducing a Constitution, to avoid ending up in a tyrannical 'Free for All' democracy, where the 'Cult of the Day' would rule supreme. Or in a 'Vulture Capitalist' society they called a 'Monarchy'. Feudalism, in other words. As Benjamin Franklin put it, they gave the American people a Republic, and he added: 'If you can keep it'. Because the pull to allow 'majority rule', even where the Constitution says the government can't go, is a force of evil in a society where the majority of the people is either stupid, hapless or criminal.
In short, what a Constitution imposes, is a dictatorship of the 'Wise', reflected in Cipolla's remark that we can only hope to be smart enough to elect intelligent people. Again, within his concept, people looking for 'Win-Win' solutions, irrespective of their IQ, level of education, or ability to influence people into believing they are 'God's Gift to Mankind'. Such a society is these days perceived as 'authoritarian', and blocking attempts to arrive at an egalitarian society, which is correct, because it favours individual liberty within the confines of a country, since that has been identified as the best way to secure a wealthy *nation*. Which does not preclude investment in laying a solid foundation under this society, as long as everybody profits from it, and the costs will not collapse the Free Market economy altogether.
The very concept of creating a global police force, a NATO sucking up funds like there is no tomorrow, to impose your will on the global population, qualifies as either stupid, hapless or criminal. What it isn't, is intelligent. And we're on course to find out. Why? Because stupid people elected stupid and criminal people to collect our reward after we 'won' the 'Cold War', and won't let go. In fact that should have been obvious already a long time ago, when NATO was outsmarted by a 'Gas-station-with-Nukes' in 2014, but we keep doubling down. Making mistakes, and repeating them, while expecting different results.