By Hossam Badrawi<\/strong><\/p>\n Some books are large in size, while others are small yet leave us with big questions. One of the latter is The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity<\/em> by the Italian economic historian Carlo M. Cipolla.<\/p>\n Alongside it is A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity<\/em> by Walter Pitkin.<\/p>\n The first book has a title that may make us smile, but it opens the door to reflection on the causes of our losses and on the distance between possessing knowledge and using it well. What particularly holds my attention is the danger of poor judgment when the person making it has authority over other people\u2019s destinies\u2014and then closes the door to reviewing and correcting that error.<\/p>\n Carlo M. Cipolla was born in 1922 and died in 2000. He was an economic historian and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and received the Balzan Prize for Economic History in 1995. In this book, he used satirical language and a model of gains and losses to raise a question about the effects people have on themselves and others.<\/p>\n This approach is what caught my attention: trying to understand behavior by looking at what it produces. A decision may sound respectable in its wording, persuasive in its presentation, and come from a person of standing\u2014yet its outcome may be a waste of time, money, and trust.<\/p>\n Wisdom teaches us that an elegant explanation does not guarantee a sound action.<\/em><\/p>\n The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity<\/em> is built around five laws that Cipolla formulates in a satirical spirit:<\/p>\n Cipolla explains his idea through four types of people: someone who gains and also benefits others; someone who gains at others\u2019 expense; someone who loses while others benefit; and someone who harms others without gaining anything. He calls these types the intelligent person, the bandit or exploiter, the helpless victim, and the stupid person.<\/p>\n In this model, gains and losses include psychological and emotional effects as well as material benefits.<\/p>\n The idea is simple, but unsettling. We may be able to understand the exploiter\u2019s behavior: they want to benefit themselves, even if someone else pays the price. But someone who damages other people\u2019s interests while damaging their own leaves us facing behavior whose logic is difficult to understand.<\/p>\n Sometimes, a stupid person sees only an immediate benefit and fails to grasp the future harm.<\/p>\n In my view, however, a bad outcome alone is not enough to accuse someone of stupidity.<\/p>\n I would first caution against equating a bad result with stupidity. A person may make a reasonable decision based on the information available, only for events to turn out differently than expected. Someone may take a risk for a worthwhile goal and lose. Someone may sacrifice a personal interest to benefit their family or community. Such actions cannot be judged through a quick calculation of profit and loss.<\/p>\n We must ask: What did the decision-maker know at the time? What alternatives were available? Did they recognize the risks? Did they reconsider their position when new information emerged?<\/p>\n Mistakes are an inevitable part of life. What worries me more is when a mistake turns into stubborn insistence, and protecting the maker\u2019s image becomes more important than correcting the consequences. We may make a mistake because we do not know enough, then persist because we do not want to admit it. At that point, the problem goes deeper than a lack of information.<\/p>\n I agree with Cipolla that scientific or social status should not exempt anyone\u2019s behavior from evaluation. A person may excel in a particular field and then assume that this excellence qualifies them to judge every matter.<\/p>\n However, I disagree with the author\u2019s tendency to treat stupidity as a fixed, innate trait and to generalize that it is independent of education. These are propositions presented within his satirical framework; I do not regard them as established scientific laws.<\/p>\n Education that trains people to ask questions, review evidence, and consider consequences can give them better tools for judgment. By contrast, education that focuses only on memorization and reproducing expected answers may produce extensive knowledge without a comparable ability to use it.<\/p>\n One test of a person\u2019s intellect, in my view, is how they respond to evidence that contradicts them. Do they examine it, or immediately look for a way to dismiss it? I do not need to know everything. What matters is knowing when I need to learn and when I should listen.<\/p>\n What stands out to me in Cipolla\u2019s definition is what happens when it moves from individual relationships into the decisions that shape nations. If stupidity, in his definition, is behavior that harms others without benefiting its perpetrator\u2014and may harm the perpetrator as well\u2014then its danger grows in proportion to the authority that person holds.<\/p>\n An individual may squander their money, damage a relationship, or disrupt a small project. A decision-maker, however, may squander a nation\u2019s resources, weaken its institutions, and close off opportunities that entire generations could have had. Millions of people then bear the consequences of a judgment they had no part in shaping, and those consequences may continue long after its author has left office.<\/p>\n In major powers, the actions of a foolish decision-maker may cause a nation to lose its standing, erase its positive contribution to uniting humanity around human rights, and undermine the leadership it has built over six consecutive decades\u2014as may be seen in the United States in our time.<\/p>\n For this reason, I believe that evaluating the rationality of public decisions should begin with three questions: What benefit is expected? Who bears the cost? And how will we know when the decision needs to be changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n Imagine a decision that drains resources into projects disproportionate to people\u2019s needs or the economy\u2019s capacity, despite the availability of more useful alternatives. If the decision weakens services, increases burdens, and at the same time undermines citizens\u2019 confidence in the decision-maker and their ability to achieve their stated goals, it approaches Cipolla\u2019s definition: harm to others without benefit to the person responsible, perhaps accompanied by a loss for that person as well.<\/p>\n A decision-maker may take a measure intended to protect stability, yet close channels of expression in the process, depriving themselves of knowledge about what is happening in society. Problems accumulate without their signals reaching those in power, and addressing them becomes harder and more expensive. The decision-maker has then weakened, through their own decision, the very stability they wanted to protect.<\/p>\n Still, we must be cautious in our judgment. The benefit may be hidden, short-term, or confined to a narrow circle. What appears to be a loss for everyone may benefit an individual or a group. This is where distinguishing stupidity from exploitation becomes essential.<\/p>\n According to Cipolla\u2019s classification, someone who gains at others\u2019 expense is closer to the exploiter type. Someone who harms others without gaining anything is closer to the stupid type.<\/p>\n In the governance of nations, the two patterns may overlap. A decision-maker may obtain an immediate personal benefit while weakening the institution that protects them, the economy that funds their power, or the trust on which their rule depends. They gain today while destroying the conditions of their own survival tomorrow.<\/p>\n That is why we must specify the time frame over which we measure outcomes. A decision that seems useful to its author over a few months may become a source of loss for both that person and society over several years.<\/p>\n Even so, I would not conclude that stupidity is always more dangerous than corruption. Organized corruption can be profoundly destructive. My point is that good intentions alone cannot adequately protect society. An official who is sincere about their goals can still cause widespread harm if they misunderstand reality and then refuse to reconsider their position.<\/p>\n Nations need integrity from those who govern them, competence, and a system capable of correcting mistakes.<\/p>\n I do not regard every failed decision as proof of its maker\u2019s stupidity. Decisions are made amid incomplete information, competing interests, and changing circumstances. A choice may be reasonable when made, only for the results to differ from what was expected.<\/p>\n The difference emerges afterward: What does the decision-maker do when facts reveal the shortcomings of their judgment? If they review their assumptions and change course, they are fulfilling their responsibility. But if they conceal the results, change the criteria for success, or accuse everyone who alerts them to the harm, they turn a correctable mistake into an ongoing policy.<\/p>\n At that point, protecting their image becomes a burden on the nation. Additional resources may be spent proving that an earlier decision was right, even though those resources could have been used to address its consequences. Experts may be sidelined because they warned of losses, depriving the state of the knowledge it needs to recover.<\/p>\n I believe one of the most dangerous moments in governance is when admitting a mistake becomes more difficult for an official than making the public bear the cost of continuing it.<\/p>\n A decision-maker cannot know everything. But they are responsible for how knowledge reaches them.<\/p>\n If they surround themselves with people who agree with them and treat questions as challenges to their status, they may end up making decisions within an incomplete picture created by their own system. They hear more about success than setbacks, and more about public satisfaction than people\u2019s hardships.<\/p>\n No one may need to tell an outright lie. It is enough for employees to learn that delivering bad news harms their future, and they will begin to filter what they report. Authority then becomes more confident as it becomes less informed.<\/p>\n This is a dangerous paradox: confidence that should come from testing a decision instead comes from the absence of voices willing to test it.<\/strong><\/p>\n In public decisions, losses are not limited to wasted money. There are opportunities that never materialized, expertise that departed, institutions that lost their capacity, and trust that is difficult to restore.<\/p>\n A weak education policy may affect an entire generation before its consequences become visible. Weakening a research institution may deprive society of years of innovation. Ignoring the decline of an essential service may make its eventual repair much more costly.<\/p>\n Therefore, we should not measure a decision only by what was inaugurated or announced. We must also ask: What are people now able to do? Has society\u2019s ability to learn, produce, and adapt improved? Success may look impressive in public, while losses accumulate in people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n I believe the ethical responsibility of a decision-maker increases when they do not personally bear most of the costs of their decisions.<\/p>\n An official may decide on an economic measure that does not affect their own standard of living, while families are forced to reorganize their spending on food, healthcare, and education. They may delay repairing a service for which they can find an alternative, while citizens have no such alternative.<\/p>\n That is why the people who experience the harm must be heard when it is evaluated. A decision-maker cannot unilaterally declare a cost acceptable when someone else is paying it.<\/p>\n Respect for human beings requires their lived experience to be included in the calculation and requires them to have a genuine opportunity to express the decision\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n In my view, protection does not come from searching for an infallible leader. It comes from building a system in which mistakes can be detected and corrected.<\/p>\n Multiple sources of information, independent expertise, freedom of discussion, clear accountability, and measurement of results all help limit the spread of poor judgment. Where possible, testing policies on a limited scale also allows learning before harm is extended more widely.<\/p>\n Fair accountability requires distinguishing between a decision that was carefully made but failed and one that ignored evidence or continued despite its harmful effects. If we punish every failure, we encourage people to hide it; if we exempt everyone from responsibility, we encourage its repetition.<\/p>\n I believe a strong state is one that can change a decision without destabilizing its institutions, and listen to criticism without treating its existence as a crisis.<\/p>\n This brings me back to education, because it is where people can learn how to disagree and reconsider their own views.<\/p>\n When we punish a child for asking questions and then expect that child to become an innovator as an adult, we demand a capacity we have constrained from the beginning. When changing an answer is treated as a sign of weakness, we train children to defend their mistakes.<\/p>\n I want an education that gives children the right to ask questions and teaches them the responsibility of seeking evidence. An education that links freedom with respect for others, and self-confidence with a willingness to learn. Intellectual humility does not diminish a person; it expands their ability to understand.<\/p>\n The most dangerous way to read this book is to come away with a list of people we consider stupid, while feeling certain that we are not among them. The more useful reading, in my view, begins by questioning ourselves: How often have I clung to an opinion to defend my image? How often have I ignored the cost of my decision to others? How often have I treated disagreement as evidence of someone else\u2019s lack of understanding before giving their view a chance?<\/p>\n I do not want to use this book to condemn humanity, but to examine what we do, how we build our institutions, and how we raise our children.<\/p>\n When I read Cipolla through the lens of nations\u2019 destinies, I find that the most important question goes beyond the intelligence of a prime minister or official: Does the system of government allow knowledge to reach it, mistakes to become visible, and decisions to change?<\/strong><\/p>\n Individual abilities, however great, are not enough on their own to protect a society. An official with extensive knowledge may become a source of harm if they believe their knowledge makes listening and reconsideration unnecessary.<\/p>\n For this reason, I would add a meaning to the definition of stupidity in public life that I consider essential: the most dangerous forms of poor judgment are those that wield extensive power, make others bear the cost, and then close the doors to correction.<\/p>\n Nations pay the price of a wrong decision, but they pay an even greater price when continuing the mistake becomes necessary to protect its author\u2019s prestige.<\/p>\n When we reflect on human history, we tend to tell its story through great discoveries, the civilizations that arose, and the ideas that changed the world. But another history runs alongside it: the history of recurring mistakes, missed opportunities, and decisions for which people pay despite having better means of understanding and choosing.<\/p>\n This is the subject raised by A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity<\/em> by the American writer Walter B. Pitkin. Its title appears satirical, but it poses a question worth pausing over: Why does the expansion of knowledge not always lead to better judgment?<\/strong><\/p>\n Walter B. Pitkin was born in 1878 and died in 1953. He taught philosophy and psychology at Columbia University before becoming a professor at its School of Journalism. He wrote on a wide range of subjects related to learning, happiness, writing, and life. Among his best-known books is Life Begins at Forty<\/em>.<\/p>\n This diversity offers a way to understand his interest in stupidity: he considers human beings as creatures who think, learn, and communicate, yet may fail to use these abilities productively.<\/p>\n I believe this question remains relevant in our lives: What happens between possessing an ability and putting it into practice? Why can someone excel in one field yet display serious limitations in another?<\/p>\n A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity<\/em> was published by Simon & Schuster in 1932. It runs to 574 pages, making the description \u201cshort introduction\u201d an arresting paradox from the outset.<\/p>\n In the available excerpts, Pitkin draws attention to the cumulative impact of errors, biases, and fanaticism when they are expressed by large numbers of people who do not necessarily have mental disorders. He sees the social danger of stupidity as arising from its spread, from the presence of stupid people in positions of authority, and from the possibility that high ability can coexist with severely deficient judgment.<\/p>\n He discusses politics, finance, industry, and journalism, criticizing poor financial and production decisions and the concealment of painful truths in a context that refers to the crisis of 1929.<\/p>\n Here his approach differs from Cipolla\u2019s, discussed above. Cipolla presents a specific model of gains and losses, while Pitkin\u2019s excerpts open up a broader question about human limitations and their social consequences. I therefore do not transfer one author\u2019s definition to the other, nor do I treat the two books as a single theory.<\/p>\n In my view, ability is no guarantee of wisdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n What most interests me in Pitkin\u2019s argument is the possibility that great ability may coexist with poor judgment.<\/p>\n A person may have a powerful memory, eloquent speech, and mathematical skill, yet fail to assess the impact of their decisions on others. They may succeed in a specialized field and then speak about society with confidence that exceeds their knowledge.<\/p>\n I believe the danger lies in allowing confidence earned in one field to spread to every field. Success gives a person a deserved standing, but it may tempt them to believe they no longer need to ask questions.<\/p>\n A scientist deserves respect in their area of expertise, and has a duty to recognize the limits of that expertise. An official has the right to make decisions within their area of responsibility, and a duty to listen to knowledge they do not possess.<\/p>\n Wisdom requires recognizing the limits of one\u2019s abilities, as well as possessing those abilities.<\/p>\n I find the idea of accumulating errors especially important.<\/p>\n We notice a catastrophe when it occurs, but may fail to notice the small decisions that prepared the way: a warning that went unread, information that was withheld, a measure that continued despite its failure, and an experienced person who withdrew because no one would listen.<\/p>\n Each incident seems limited when viewed in isolation. But when they recur, they become a way of working.<\/p>\n In my view, institutional decline sometimes begins with becoming accustomed to inadequacy. Delays become normal, complaints become an annoyance, and searching for causes becomes a threat to those who have grown comfortable with the status quo.<\/p>\n Then a major crisis arrives, and we imagine it appeared suddenly, although it had been taking shape for a long time in details we ignored.<\/p>\n I do, however, have reservations about Pitkin, because I do not believe that criticizing stupidity justifies contempt for human beings.<\/p>\n Some of Pitkin\u2019s excerpts use harsh language that classifies people in ways that diminish their humanity and portrays the relationship between them and others as a struggle of exclusion. I am uncomfortable with this language, regardless of how sharp a critique the author intends to make.<\/p>\n If discussion of stupidity turns into a division between people who deserve respect and others deemed inferior, we have created a new prejudice while criticizing prejudice.<\/p>\n I prefer to identify the specific action we consider deficient, the causes that led to it, the effects that followed, and the opportunity for correction. This is more precise than issuing a sweeping judgment about a person.<\/p>\n I also reject the use of the word as a ready-made explanation for everything we do not understand. Fear, conflicting interests, incomplete information, or a system that rewards obedience and punishes initiative may lie behind a behavior. Each cause calls for a different response.<\/p>\n I believe society needs institutions capable of turning mistakes into knowledge.<\/p>\n That requires results to be open to scrutiny, information to reach decision-makers, experts to be able to disagree with them, and clear accountability when evidence is ignored.<\/p>\n It also requires an education that trains children to think about the reasons behind their answers and to change those answers when stronger evidence emerges. If we tie achievement from an early age to repeating what an authority figure says, we should not be surprised later by a lack of independent judgment.<\/p>\n In this context, freedom gives society a way to discover its own shortcomings. A different opinion may reveal a cost the decision-maker failed to see, or an alternative they did not consider.<\/p>\n I do not want to finish Pitkin\u2019s book more ready to call other people stupid. I want to be more alert to the possibility of my own limitations, and to the conditions that make those limitations correctable.<\/p>\n Modern tools can execute a decision quickly, but they do not guarantee that the purpose for which the tools were chosen is sound. The greater our capabilities become, the more carefully we must consider what we use them for.<\/p>\n That is why the question I consider more important than how many stupid people there are is this: Are we building a society that allows reason to examine itself, or one that rewards certainty even when the results prove it wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n The progress of nations requires knowledge, the courage to admit what we do not know, and institutions that prevent one person\u2019s mistake from becoming a fate that others are unable to change.<\/p>\n Carlo M. Cipolla<\/strong>, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity<\/em>, Doubleday edition, 2021, with an introduction by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s page and summary of the laws: Author biography and excerpts from the book: Walter B. Pitkin<\/strong>, A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity<\/em>, Simon & Schuster, 1932.<\/p>\n Book record on Google Books: Excerpts from the book:The Book: Who Gains and Who Loses?<\/h2>\n
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When a Decision-Maker\u2019s Stupidity Becomes a Danger to Nations<\/h2>\n
When a Nation Loses\u2014and the Decision-Maker Loses Alongside It<\/h2>\n
Corruption and Stupidity: Two Paths That May Converge<\/h2>\n
When a Mistake Becomes Policy<\/h2>\n
When Power Is Cut Off from Knowledge<\/h2>\n
Harm That Extends Beyond the Present<\/h2>\n
The Danger of Turning Citizens into Subjects of an Experiment<\/h2>\n
How Nations Can Protect Themselves<\/h2>\n
Education and Intellectual Humility<\/h2>\n
The Book as a Mirror\u2014and the Question It Leaves Us With<\/h2>\n
The Second Book: A History of Human Stupidity<\/h1>\n
A Reading of Walter Pitkin\u2019s Book<\/h2>\n
The Author<\/h2>\n
The Book<\/h2>\n
Stupidity That Accumulates Without Noise<\/h2>\n
How Nations Learn from Their Mistakes<\/h2>\n
The Question I Take Away<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\nSources on the Authors<\/h2>\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/639356\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com\/book\/?isbn=9780385546478<\/a><\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Wx1WAAAAMAAJ<\/a><\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.deuceofclubs.com\/books\/109stupidity.htm<\/a><\/p>\n