It is hard for me to for me to say because I was not around in the mid-1400s when Greek scholars gathered up their books and collective knowledge and left Constantinople for Florence, Italy.  Behind them was the on rushing Ottoman Turk army that just toppled the Byzantine Empire and was sweeping out of the Middle East and into Europe. 

Florence, Italy.  Home of the Renaissance.  Before the rebirth of knowledge Europe was stuck in what we commonly known as the Dark Ages or Medieval times.  A time of feudal lords, knights in armor and the “Black Death” (Sounds familiar). It also was a time when one institution controlled just about all knowledge, information and arts and science: The Catholic Church. (Today it could be argued its FaceBook.)

From that time of rebirth, human knowledge and understanding started to move forward. Take Galileo Galilei, for instance.  He did more with a homemade telescope than most of us could do with an App and a smartphone. Probably the biggest thing he did was challenge the Catholic Church on the Biblical belief that the Earth was the center of the universe. He was not the first to propose this radical change in theory to a heliocentric solar system. Nicolaus Copernicus developed a mathematical model that moved the sun to the center spot in the universe. Later, Johannes Kepler expounded on elliptical orbits punching more holes in the geocentric Ptolemaic system where the sun, the moon and the stars revolve around the Earth. But it was Galileo who took the Church head on over its dogma. His stubborn belief put him under house arrest for the latter years of his life for pushing heliocentric heresy.

The Pope, Urban VIII, along with eight other men disagreed with Galileo’s theories. In the context of today’s reality, we know the Pope and his friends were way wrong in their thinking. In the reality of the time Galileo’s theory showed a lack of faith in established beliefs. But then, from their vantage point, it could easily be argued the Earth was flat.

In today’s scientific thinking, a theory, according to Dictionary.com is a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation. Or, a logical explanation on what is going on in the universe. These observations at times can be incorrect as in the case of Ptolemy’s geocentric theories.

The problem is that anybody can string together a series of cause-and-effect observations and facts trying to explain just about anything. The question is, are the cause-and-effects actually meaningful. A scientific law, like the law of gravity, is proven true and predicts what will happen–not likely. In gravity’s case, it is simply what goes up will come down. We all know this and do not dispute this. It is not a theory but a law.

Through time we have used the scientific investigations to increase our knowledge and understanding of the universe. We moved through the Reformation. A time that loosened the grip of the Catholic Church on civilization (for the lack of a better word) only to throw half of Christendom over to the Protestants and their puritanical ways of thinking.

Eventually this gave way to the Enlightenment. This was a time when philosophical thinkers like Hobbs, Descartes and Spinoza challenged the traditional political, social beliefs and privileges put forth by religious leaders, monarchies and nobility of the time.  Adam Smith, the Scottish economist and philosopher, and author of “Wealth of Nations” the father of modern economics, put forth new economic concepts still practiced today. Descartes and Rousseau  brought forth new concepts of government. Locke and others gave us the belief in the rule of law—that no man was above the law. (Concepts put into law and still practiced today–even if in theory.) Newton gave us his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy—his three laws of motion.

Human technology has moved us from the wheel to rocket ships. Social enlightenment has done away with rigid caste systems of the past, and Medieval thinking like the “divine right of kings.” But somehow it seems in the last several decades we have gotten more stupid with the increase of technology that science has given us. According to Merriam-Webster the essential meaning of stupid is: “not intelligent: having or showing a lack of ability to learn and understand things; not sensible or logical; slow of mind (obtuse); given to unintelligent decisions or acts; lacking intelligence or reason in an unintelligent or careless manner real understanding.”

I may have gone overboard on the definitions but it seems to define certain groups of our elected leaders today. We lack a real effort to do any individual critical thinking. Instead, we snag onto onto non sequitur statements and conclusions proposed without an ounce of investigation like a barnacle on pier post. We hypothetically make things up as we go along; like a nationwide election goes from rigged to stolen. Then we snoop around until we find enough observations to form a fallacious argument as law. This despite court rulings based on legal standards as being false.

It was once believed that Aristotle was the last man to know everything. Today we have vast amounts of information in our hands.  And yes, technology has brought out some extraordinary brilliant people–but your wacky, conspiracy-nut neighbor is not one of them. I don’t believe there are more stupid people today than in any time in the past. They are just more visible. Stupidity is probably a constant just like left-handed people. In fact, it could be argued that we have more educated people in the world today, hence we should have less stupidity around. Sort of a herd immunity protecting us from stupid. It also could be argued that technology has put more information in the hands of some extremely stupid individuals making our times more dangerous than ever before. 

Carlo M Cipolla, a professor at the University of California Berkley, wrote in 1976 “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.” In the book he comes up with five universal laws of human stupidity that are very evident today. 

His first law states that: Alway and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. Before the advent of social media platforms stupidity was basically confined to local communities. Every town had a village idiot (or idiots) of some sort. But now, the nation at large is subjected to a meteor shower of local stupidity raining down upon us. Take Rudy Giuliani. He once was a leader during 9/11, America’s Mayor. Now he is plays the role of the “nation’s idiot.” Thanks to modern social media platforms we are constantly bombarded with the stupidity of Florida men. If something stupid happens it usually reads: “Florida man”… “arrested after using wanted poster as FaceBook photo.” Social media has put stupidity on steroids.

Tip O’Neill once said that all politics is local. This statement can include stupidity–up to a point. Social media has given local stupid a rallying point. From stupid’s home in “Your Town USA,” social media can muster up and gather like-minded people from across the country. Take the witless, moronic behavior of the January 6th’s assault on the Capitol. People as far as Alaska came to Washington to participate in a “theory” that the Presidential election was rigged and then stolen.

The Capitol attack is also an example of Cipolla’s Third Law of stupidity that says, “A stupid person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.” The collective mindset of those individuals during 1/6 had no redeeming value at all. It resulted in five dead and effected many other people irrevocably. And for what? To feed the egoistic desires of man who could not face, as ABC Sports once proclaimed in its Wild World of Sports: “the agony of defeat.” It happens every day. As Danny O’Keefe once sang: Some gotta win, some gotta lose
Good time Charlie’s got the blues.

Then there is Cipolla’s Second Law that says: “The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristics of that person.” This also reminds me of the Mark Twain saying: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” With today’s erratic logical thinking, and social media, this can be accomplished easily as witnessed by Senator Ted Cruz leaning into a debate on Twitter over vaccinations with Big Bird, a Sesame Street character. Can it get any more stupidly absurd.

But wait, maybe it can. Take Missouri Senator Josh Hawley recent speech to the National Conservative Conference in Orlando. He proves what Cipolla writes that “that whether you move in distinguished circles or you take refuge among the headhunters of Polynesia…you always have to face the same percentage of stupid people.” Hawley claims that “the Left” has a national “deconstructionist agenda.” That this agenda is an “assault on manhood” and it “has been sharp and prolonged, it has not succeeded” (Thank God). He said the “deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men.” This sounds reasonable if you are a man who lost his job when corporate America began shipping their factories overseas. Or maybe the drunk Florida man carrying an alligator into a liquor store–what needs to be deconstructed in getting a six pack for you and your gator buddy.

It is not my intent on summarizing Hawley’s speech or his theory on “the destruction of our republic.” It is his theory and he takes us all down a “slippery slope” of fear mongering. His hypothesis is based on generalized observations that cannot really be proven or disproven. They just sound good to some people. His assumption of “the future’s uncertain, and the end is always near” plays well. It is sort of a Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc or “After this, therefore because of this” If you deconstruct the American male, then all shit breaks loose.

Now Senator Hawley, is a University of Stanford grad and a graduate of Yale Law, a man of letters, and a supposed person of character as is Senator Cruz, a thoroughbred Ivy Leaguer with degrees from Princeton and Harvard. But it now looks as if both are headhunting with the natives, or at least stoking the roasting fires for the main meal spouting off half truths. But, then again, they are lawyer and lawyers are arguers for half-the-truth. Far be it for me to call sitting US Senators stupid. But without a doubt Hawley’s male deconstruction theory will be picked up as law, an Ad Ignorantiam law: or an “argument from ignorance, and passed along from stupid to stupid on social media.

The problem today is we are not doing anything to check the advancement of stupidity. We accept some yammering squawking head’s conglomeration of unproven illusions and delusions as a universal truth. All of these unproven and untested hypotheses gets passed along in a careless manner as real understanding. I would add one more component to the definition of stupid. It is one thing to lack the ability to think straight. It is another thing altogether in not wanting too. As American theatre critic Brooks Atkinson said: The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.” So, look out for stupid with an unproven theory.