The Attractions of Stupidity

There is a universal law in life: 'stupidity always wins.' Such is the startling claim of Howard Mumford Jones who published a fascinating article called "The Attractions of Stupidity." (Howard Mumford Jones, “The Attractions of Stupidity,” The Tuftonian, IV (Summer, 1944), 78-79)

What Jones means is this: most of the time, most people find it hard to think. So we do the best we can to avoid thinking. We try to get other people to do it for us. In doing so, we choose the path of non-thinking (aka, stupidity). Thinking takes time and work, and it can make us less satisfied in life. Yet thinking is essential to being human. Jones quotes the statement: "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." It is better to have troubling thoughts than to be reduced to an unthinking animal.

In the academic setting, Jones says that students fit perfectly into this mode. Their goal is to pass a class with as little mental effort as possible. They say things like, "Will this be on the test? Will we be graded for this? Is this reading required?"

In contrast it is the job of the instructor to get people to think more than is actually required. Jones says that the vision of the university is to overturn this universal law!

So we know we should think more, but you can't think deeply about everything. The question is, do we think deeply about the right things? Are we game to ask hard questions when it matters most?

In part that is what I'm hoping to challenge people to do through my involvement with http://theDialoguesAtMSU.org. I want to be sure that my limited mental effort is spent at least in part on the core questions of life, questions of ultimate meaning and of how I will handle my own death. How about you?