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?

When followers form their leaders

An idea that has always challenged me is how followers have a profound impact on their leaders. The best depiction of this phenomenon for me is "The Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk. The sailors on the mine sweeping vessel rightly commit mutiny against their unstable and unsafe captain, Captin Queeg. In the court martial trial regarding their mutiny, they win their case. Clearly Queeg was rightly overthrown.

But the big surprise is that the sailors were the real guilty party. They had turned Queeg into the officer they rightly mutinied against. Their questioning and actions against a military hero (from previous days) pushed him over the edge.

It is so easy for followers to think and behave like victims when in reality they may be the ones determining the quality of the leadership they suffer under.

The article, "The Student as a Cooperating Consumer" (Kenneth Brown, Foundation Stones, September 1960) makes this very claim about students. That is, students have a huge impact over the quality of the teaching they receive.

So when we are tempted to complain about the quality of the leadership or teaching under which we must sit, we should consider the ways in which we are actually getting what we deserve.

Sincere yet vague intentions rarely materialize

Many people intend to do things different next time, yet they rarely do. I live there as well. "I certainly won't do that again," we say. Yet before we know it, we're doing it again.

I think there are many layers to this issue, but one of them is this:

Sincere yet vague intentions rarely materialize

If we don't make a specific plan ahead of time about how we will behave differently, by the time we're in the situation, we are almost certain to behave just as we have every other time we've been in that situation. It is too late to map out a different course because we don't have the ability to see the big picture. We're in the thick of it, and our well worn decisions will apply again.

So when we have an intention to live differently, we need to make a plan for how, specifically, we will behave differently. And it has to be specific. And the specific plan has to take into account the most likely things that will prevent us from implementing the plan.

Doing so radically increases the likelihood that we will actually behave differently the next time.

You have zero privacy. Get over it!

Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, stated in 1999: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." (http://www.pcworld.com/article/16331/private_lives_not_ours.html)

This is a challenging statement which raises a challenging issue. That is, language is inherently context dependent. Of course it isn't entirely dependent upon the context, but language is based on shared meanings. The less we share (e.g., common vocabulary or common culture), the more likely misunderstandings will be.

And the fact that what we say is so readily available to so many (whether it be statements on Facebook or a blog like this or an email that gets forwarded or a text that gets subpoenaed or (in my case) a sermon recorded online) raises great challenges. First, will people outside of the original context understand what I meant? And second (my focus here), will what I said create difficulty because it is available outside of the context in which I said it?

The claim I am making is that, given the connected world in which we live, whenever I speak or write, I must be conscious that my words can very easily be repeated in different contexts with different constraints. So a simple example is this: when I criticize others, it is as though I should imagine them hearing what I'm saying as I say it.

But then again, I think that this strategy is what a previous culture's perspective of honor included. I shouldn't criticize those who are not available to defend themselves. Of course offering constructive critique can be appropriate, as long as we understand the important difference between a constructive critique and criticism.

So for a person of old fashioned honor, perhaps things haven't changed as much as I originally thought. I should always stand ready to explain my words, particularly before those who would potentially be hurt or offended by them.

I should also be very careful to defend those situations where I am dependent upon the honor of the people who hear he to defend the appropriate privacy which at times still applies.

So when you speak or write, be careful about your words. They have significant consequences. It was always true. Now we are just more readily aware of it.

Trading moral and monetary motivation

An idea that challenged me this past week was that people can trade between moral and monetary motivations in surprising ways. It comes from the book Freakonomics.

The scenario is people picking up their kids from day care. The problem was that some people would come late to pick up their kids. In order to try to solve this problem, the day care providers imposed a fine when people were at least 10 minutes late.

So what happened? More people were late picking up their kids! Why would that be? Before the fine, people felt morally obligated to be on time. They felt guilty when they were late. But by imposing a fine, the moral motivation was gone. Now it was mere economics. They might reason, "I'm willing to pay the fine today because there's something else I want to do." Without the moral obligation, people just made a financial decision, and more people were late.

This has challenged me to think about what motivates me, and how I motivate others. It raises some fascinating questions about giving grades in school, or how parents raise their kids.

What I need to explore more is when I let go of moral obligation simply because there is a monetary motivation at the same time.

Judging by Appearances

An idea that challenged me this past week was that the error of judging people by appearances is but a step away from me. In fact, I caught myself doing it two separate times. The thinking that "I would never do that" is no guarantee that I won't. In an abstract sense, that's really the idea ... that I'm not immune to doing what violates my better judgment.

Of course I know judging by mere appearances doesn't make sense. I've been told this fact many times, and I've seen it repeatedly. The essence of what makes people who they are is not visible at first glance. What makes people valuable can't be captured by a snapshot.

But I know I did it. I made conclusions about someone based on nothing more than appearance. What is surprising is that "I should have known better" doesn't necessarily mean that I "do better."

One thing that helped me realize my error was to engage further with people and realize that my first conclusion was embarrassingly shallow and irrelevant to the significance underneath.

So I need to guard myself consciously about repeating this error, to train myself to look beyond mere appearances to see what is really there.