Is Stupidity Innate?
Is Stupidity Innate?
This is a question people are too polite to raise. We can just about ask whether intelligence is innate, wholly or partly, but please don’t ask whether some people are born stupid! Can it be responsibly maintained that some people are condemned by their genes to a life of stupidity? And here I mean common-or-garden stupidity, not the clinical kind; I am referring to ordinary adults and their opinions—political, scientific, philosophical, ethical, practical. Some people are very intelligent compared to others as a result of their genes; could some people be very stupid compared to others as a result of their genes? Could you be born a stupid person, as opposed to acquiring stupidity from the environment in which you were raised? Is there a stupidity gene that some people have and others don’t?
It might be replied that this is trivially true, since some people are less intelligent genetically than others; if we call these individuals “stupid”, then, yes, they are innately stupid (i.e., on the low end of the intelligence spectrum). Just as some people are born brighter than others, so some are born stupider than others, with some just straight-out stupid. But that is not what I mean; I mean “stupid” in its colloquial sense. Admittedly, this is not easy to pin down (as is the concept of intelligence): the OED gives us only “lacking intelligence or common sense”. But what is stupidity more positively characterized—what is its specific nature? Interestingly, Roget’s Thesaurus gives us a long list of synonyms, which I will not repeat, thus suggesting a clear and distinct psychological trait identifiable by any normal person. What emerges is that stupidity is poor judgment, proneness to error, rashness of opinion, foolishness, unthinkingness, gullibility, unreflectiveness, and logical ineptitude. People are often said to be stupid in matters of love and money, but also in their political attitudes (various kinds of prejudice, in particular). I think we know it when we see it. I want to know whether thisconstellation of traits might be innate—caused by a stupidity gene. It would be possible to have this gene but be quite intelligent otherwise; there might even be stupid geniuses! You could be super-smart at math but remarkably stupid in politics or practical matters.
From a lifetime of observation, I am convinced that stupidity is likely inborn. You just have to talk to people to notice it. It seems to run in families, like its opposite. It is correlated with other traits that are plausibly regarded as innate—emotionality, conformity, impulsiveness, verbal crudity, anger, hot-headedness. People who latch onto wild conspiracy theories fit the profile perfectly, as well as people who never see anything coming (like Austin Powers about Liberace’s gayness). They also seem humorless, or at least humorously simple-minded. It seems like a positive lack, if I may put it so; it’s as if they have something definite in them that makes them stupid, and they like it that way. There doesn’t seem to be much intermediate ground between them and their less stupid brethren; you are either stupid or not stupid, never a bit stupid or only when tired or drunk. Stupidity doesn’t come in degrees, like intelligence in the IQ sense. It is a kind of congenital blindness (“reason blindness”). There is a marked reluctance to reason from facts and logic. It doesn’t align exactly with the right and left in politics; there is plenty of left-wing stupidity (and tons of right-wing stupidity). It is really like a genetically determined syndrome. Logic is powerless against it; facts wash over the victim’s countenance. Vehemence replaces cogency. I would like to see a psychologist do some research on this subject instead of focusing on intelligence all the time; twin studies would be the place to start.[1] I don’t think we would find any racial or national preponderance of the stupidity gene; I think we would find a common incidence across peoples and cultures. What is the proportion of people that harbor the stupidity gene? Now that is an incendiary question: I am going to say anything between 30% and 70%, but that estimate may be influenced by spending my life among professional philosophers (cooks might do better). In any case, it’s a hypothesis to ponder; it would be stupid not to.[2]
[1] Do identical twins reared apart score high on a stupidity test if one does? Does stupidity appear earlier ontogenetically than can be explained by environmental factors? Can it be remedied by intensive anti-stupidity training?
[2] I suspect that this is an extremely taboo subject for a number of reasons, some good and some not so good. Who would want to take part in a study of human stupidity? Who would want to be told they scored high in the stupidity rankings? How might such information be used? What if the CEO of an important company were to be revealed as really quite stupid? What if people from Yorkshire were to be rated as markedly stupid? We might need a euphemism for marketing purposes, say “neuro-variant”.
Stupidity may be innate but it is also the case that societies tend to be structured in such a way as to encourage, sustain and foster it. The manifestations of inborn stupidity wouldn’t be nearly as noxious if we at least tried to create social arrangements that encourage people to freely use whatever intelligence they were given by Mother Nature—instead of stamping out people’s natural intelligence and independence, as well as filling their heads with nonsense that is useful to the powerful.
I quite agree: stupidity is always useful to evil governments and is encouraged by them. But the soil is remarkably hospitable to their efforts, at least in some people. I myself was engulfed in a sea of stupidity not long ago with minimal provocation.
The trait you are calling stupidity — “poor judgment, proneness to error, rashness of opinion, foolishness, unthinkingness, gullibility, unreflectiveness, and logical ineptitude” — seems to be, not the opposite of intelligence, but the opposite of wisdom.
I remember learning to play Dungeons and Dragons as a child, and wondering why there were separate character statistics for intelligence and wisdom, and what the difference was. As a forty-something-year-old who has made his share of poor judgements, errors, etc., I think I have a better handle on the concept now!
That’s roughly right, but we shouldn’t restrict the term “intelligence” to what IQ tests measure (scholastic aptitude?).
I’m not sure how this might fit into the questions you’ve raised. But after reading this blog post a thought popped into my head. Howard Gardner identified 8 (or possibly 9) core types of intelligence. Might there not be core types of stupidity too (not necessarily corresponding to those types of intelligence Gardner identified)? (Just thing out loud.)
There might well be, though the concept seems to have more unity than intelligence.
I have a hypothesis about the prevalence of stupidity, not directly about to what extent it is innate or learned. It’s one of those propositions the truth of which is obvious and would be accepted to some extent by anyone it was put to but which is not dwelt on sufficiently, which is that the prevalence of stupidity is due to the willingness to tolerate stupidity. Most people have a kind of truce with stupidity. They learn very early that it is not practicable to consistently try to think intelligently, to subject every assumption to rational scrutiny; also, it is natural to acquiesce in appearance, whatever its origin. People who try to consistently bring intelligent thought on whatever is brought to their attention stand out as awkward, disagreeable characters, the exception rather than the rule. The reason why there is so much stupidity is because of the willingness to think and act stupidly instead of intelligently. The fact that everyone thinks it is acceptable to make peace with stupidity has disastrous consequences. Acquiescing in nonsense should be a moral sin. Being firm in our adherence to standards of intelligent thinking, whatever the situation, should be the policy we aspire to be guided by, a duty that is at once intellectual and moral.
I quite agree: we are discouraged from calling people (ourselves included) stupid. It is felt to be the height of bad manners, however true. I myself make a point of calling myself stupid every day, several times. What constantly amazes me is the utter stupidity of people supposedly in charge, e.g., university administrators.
What do you think about adding levels of ego (see Loevinger, Cook-Gartner, Kegan, Piaget) to the filters you are using to assess stupidity?
I’m afraid I don’t know those authors so I can’t say (they were not part of my psychology degree, apart from Piaget).