The 3 elements of stupidity, according to philosophy | Jonny Thomson: Full Interview — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00My name is Jonny Thomson. I'm a writer. I'm  a columnist at Big Think and I run the Mini
2. 0:04Philosophy social network where I explain  philosophical ideas to millions of people.
3. 0:09I am the author of the upcoming book, The  Art of Enough, where I explain epicureanism
4. 0:13and teach everybody how it can apply to our lives.
5. 0:21Chapter one, stupidity versus evil. So Dietrich  Bonhoeffer was a 20th century philosopher and
6. 0:29theologian and he's known for his writings but  also he's known for his resistance to the Nazi
7. 0:35system. He was born in the early 20th century to  a prominent quite elite family. His father was
8. 0:42um head of psychiatry at Berlin University, one  of the most prestigious chairs in the country.
9. 0:47When the Nazis came to power and began the German  Christian movement where they tried to co-opt
10. 0:51the Protestant churches, he ran a counter  movement known as the Confessional Church.
11. 0:57When the war broke out, Bonhoeffer was part of  the anti-Nazi intelligence where he would feed
12. 1:01information to the Allies and to the resistance  movements all over Europe and in Germany.
13. 1:07Eventually the Nazis found out about this  and he was imprisoned in 1943 where he wrote
14. 1:12a whole range of letters and diaries from which  we get these notes on stupidity which I'm going
15. 1:17to talk about today. He was associated with the  plot to kill Hitler in 1944 and he was executed
16. 1:24at Flossenberg concentration camp in 1945 few  weeks before it was liberated by the allies.
17. 1:32So in in Bon Hopper's letters he talks about  stupidity and he makes this slightly bold claim
18. 1:37that stupidity is a greater threat to civilization  than even evil. But to understand that we need
19. 1:44to really understand what he meant by stupidity  because it's different to how a lot of us use the
20. 1:49word stupid in our everyday lexicon. So what is  stupidity? Well it is not the same as foolishness.
21. 1:56Foolishness is when you do something silly,  reckless, imprudent. For example, if you put
22. 2:01diesel into a petrol car, or I, for example, put  washing up liquid in the washing machine and it
23. 2:08caused a disaster. Or I remember at my son's last  birthday party, he was gifted a plastic golf set.
24. 2:15And so I was desperate to impress all of the other  moms and dads, and so I got the golf club out,
25. 2:20and I whacked the ball as hard as I could, and it  went flying over our gate into the road outside,
26. 2:25hitting a passing car. That is an example of  foolishness. But it is not stupidity in the
27. 2:30Bonhoeffer sense. Nor is it the same as a lack of  cognitive ability. So sometimes in life you will
28. 2:36run up against tasks which are simply beyond what  you are capable of. In my own case, for example,
29. 2:40I find flatp pack incredibly difficult. So if it  comes to assembling any furniture or even fiddly
30. 2:46things like doing Lego, I'll often um pass it  on to somebody else. Even my 5-year-old son
31. 2:51is better at making Lego than I am. But nor  is stupidity the same as ignorance. Because
32. 2:58if you don't know something, that is either a  lack of education or a lack of exposure to that
33. 3:02fact. For example, if you don't know the capital  of Indonesia, that is an example of ignorance.
34. 3:08And then you go away and you find out that  the capital is is it Jakarta? I think it
35. 3:11might be the capital might be Jakarta. And that  resolves your ignorance. That is not stupidity.
36. 3:16So Bonhoeffer is careful to say that those three  things are not stupidity. But what is stupidity?
37. 3:24Now again um Bonhoeffer says that stupidity  can be defined by three different elements.
38. 3:29The first is when we outsource our critical  thinking to some kind of third party. It might
39. 3:34be a teacher, it might be a parent, it might be a  social media influencer or it might be technology.
40. 3:40And of course today a lot of people do  outsource their thinking to technology.
41. 3:45In 2014 a philosopher called Robert Howell wrote  a paper where he introduced a thought experiment
42. 3:50known as Google morals. And in the paper he  explains that we often use apps to do certain
43. 3:55things for us. The most common is is Google maps.  So even coming here today for example I use Google
44. 3:59maps to tell me where to go. I followed the the  blue line. It told me to go left. It told me to
45. 4:04go right. And hey presto, here I am. And most  people are okay with using Google maps. Even
46. 4:09if we use it for slightly imbecillic things.  So for example, if I want to go to Big Ben
47. 4:13and it's obviously there in front of me, people  will still use Google Maps to tell them where to
48. 4:16go to Big Ben in London. But we're okay with that  because navigation seems to be a thing that we're
49. 4:21quite willing to outsource to technology. But how  introduce an extra idea? He said, imagine that the
50. 4:26future contains an app called Google Morals. Now  Google Morals is an app where you would type in
51. 4:31a question and it tells you what you should do  in any situation. So let's go suppose I go to
52. 4:36a burger bar or a burger restaurant and I say,  "Is it right for me to eat the meat burger
53. 4:42or the halumi burger?" and the app does its  worring and it tells me okay you should do this.
54. 4:48Now the point isn't whether Google morals does  the the reasoning properly or not. The point that
55. 4:54Robert Howell is saying is that we shouldn't  be outsourcing our moral reasoning to an app.
56. 4:59Now this was written in 2014 and it doesn't take  a rocket scientist to point out the fact that
57. 5:03a lot of people use chat GPT and claude and AI  today to answer these kind of questions for them.
58. 5:08Is it right to do X? Is it right to do Y?  Should I cheat on my partner? Should I stay
59. 5:12with my partner? Should I do this job or  should I do that job? We are using AI to
60. 5:17do the critical thinking for us. And that's an  example of what Bonhoeffer would call stupidity.
61. 5:23Now the second element of stupidity is when we  are willfully ignorant. I mentioned earlier how
62. 5:29ignorance is itself not a form of stupidity. But  if you are continuously ignorant and you don't
63. 5:33take any steps to resolve your ignorance,  well this that is an example of stupidity.
64. 5:39There is an example um in the ancient Greek world  where the oracle of Delphi was once reputed to
65. 5:44say that the wisest man in the ancient world was  Socrates. Socrates famously said that the only
66. 5:49thing I know is that I know nothing at all which  is an example of ignorance. But the reason why he
67. 5:53wasn't stupid was that because he spent his life  devoted to trying to resolve that. In his works
68. 5:59the Nicomachean Ethics and the politics Aristotle  says that one of the worst things that can befall
69. 6:04any society is what the ancient Greeks called  amathia. Now amathia is willful ignorance. It's
70. 6:09when somebody celebrates the fact they don't know  something and they take no steps to resolve it.
71. 6:14And in the ancient world we can trace a line from  Socrates to Plato to the Stoics which associates
72. 6:19knowledge with immorality and being wrong. The  idea was that the more you know the better you
73. 6:25become. And so Amathia is the great curse.  It's a great contagion because there is this
74. 6:29rise in people who no longer want to know things.  They celebrate the fact they don't know things.
75. 6:34And there is a kind of inverse elitism where  those who do know things are mocked and ridiculed.
76. 6:39So that's the second example of stupidity  according to Bonhoeffer. Now the third element
77. 6:45of stupidity is conformity. And this is what  Bonhoeffer saw from his prison cell in 1943.
78. 6:50He saw people who he grew up with people who  were educated in the same university systems,
79. 6:55people who went to the same schools as him and  suddenly they became part of this Nazi operation.
80. 7:02And so with conformity it reminds me of something  that nature says in his work beyond good and evil.
81. 7:07In his work beyond good and evil, nature has an  entire chapter devoted to truth. And in the work
82. 7:12nature argues that philosophers and academics and  writers often become obsessed with this idea of
83. 7:18truth that truth has a value in and of itself. And  he says if you look at the history of humanity,
84. 7:25if you look at where we are today,  people don't care about truth as a thing.
85. 7:30What matters more is loyalty and  what matters more is identity.
86. 7:35So for example in 2022 a philosopher called  Chris Rali wrote a paper about indoctrination
87. 7:42and he was trying to answer the question what  is it that makes somebody indoctrinated? How can
88. 7:47we define indoctrination? And Rali argues that  indoctrination is not defined by believing one
89. 7:52thing or believing another thing. It's when you  close your citadel to any alternative positions.
90. 7:58It's when you associate your belief with an  identity. You are that belief. And so you see
91. 8:03any rivals to that position as a kind of test of  faith. You see any rivals as a kind of temptation.
92. 8:11So the indoctrinated person doesn't belong to  any one camp. It's not the atheist. It's not
93. 8:15the believer. It's not the right wing or it's not  the left wing. It's how you keep those beliefs.
94. 8:20And what Rali is saying is what Bonhoeffer  was saying as well that when we conform
95. 8:24to some kind of group think we are surrendering  our own ability to do critical thinking
96. 8:29and we are offloading it to somebody else  to do for us. A writer and a philosopher
97. 8:33called Robert Musul developed a distinction  between what he called ordinary stupidity
98. 8:38and intelligent stupidity. Now ordinary stupidity  is what a lot of people might associate with
99. 8:43cognitive ability. Some people just can't do  certain things. I can't do flat pack very well.
100. 8:48But intelligent stupidity is when  somebody who is otherwise incredibly able,
101. 8:53somebody who is otherwise incredibly talented,  articulate, erudite, uses their abilities for
102. 8:58some foolish end. And what Musul and Bonhoeffer  were writing about and what they were talking
103. 9:04about was of course Nazism. Here you had a system  that was populated by intelligent people and yet
104. 9:09they were using their abilities for an incredibly  foolish end. So the reason why Bonhoeffer says
105. 9:15that stupidity is a greater problem than evil  is because with evil you have a known problem.
106. 9:21There is some intention to the malice. So when you  have the evil person we're thinking the dark lord
107. 9:26Sauron from Lord of the Rings you know dressed  in black with orcs and fiery volcanoes that's
108. 9:31obviously evil. But likewise in our world we have  people like who are serial killers or genocidal
109. 9:36tyrants or people who we know to be evil. And  when you can point to something which is evil,
110. 9:42what happens is that the good of the world  can rally around and they can resist the evil.
111. 9:47Bonhoeffer has got this quotation where he says  that evil contains within it the germ of its own
112. 9:51subversion. Because once you know something  is evil, the good people of Minas Tirith can
113. 9:55gather around and they can fight the dark lord  Sauron. But there are two problems with stupidity.
114. 10:01The first is that as a society, we are much more  tolerant of it. If somebody says they don't know
115. 10:06something and they don't want to take steps to  know that thing, we kind of brush it off. We say,
116. 10:10"Oh, that's what they're like." And we kind  of accept that. But the second problem with
117. 10:13stupidity is that it's far harder to identify.  So, for example, not everything is the Dark Lord
118. 10:19Sorrow. Not everybody is a serial killer.  Not everybody is a genocidal tyrant.
119. 10:24But in our time, of course, we have real life  evil people. For example, I'm thinking in the UK,
120. 10:28we had the Jimmy Savile scandal. In 2012, Jimmy  Savile was exposed as abusing children. And of
121. 10:34course, that is an evil. And the good of the  world rallied round. The judicial system and
122. 10:39the police and all of the witnesses came out and  they opposed this very obvious explicit evil.
123. 10:44In 2017, you had Harvey Weinstein. Similar there.  The good of the world rallied around. The judicial
124. 10:49system worked. Police came out. Harvey Weinstein  was arrested. He is now in prison. And of course,
125. 10:54very recently, you have the Epstein files.  These are obvious evils. And in each case
126. 10:58you have somebody who is evil eventually being put  into prison or in the case of Savile he was dead.
127. 11:03But the question that comes after that is who  knew about what was going on? Who are the people
128. 11:08who didn't ask questions? Who are the people who  were willfully blind? Who were the people who were
129. 11:13stupid in the Bonhoeffer sense? Because in the  Nazi regime there's a character called Albert
130. 11:18Shar who embodies this quite well. Albert Shar  was a very intelligent and educated person and he
131. 11:23was Hitler's architect. He ended up becoming the  minister for munitions and production in the Nazi
132. 11:29system. And when it came to the end of the war  and he was put on trial at the Nuremberg trials,
133. 11:35he said he didn't know anything. He said he  didn't know about the Holocaust. He didn't
134. 11:38know about all of the trade. He didn't know  about all of the evils of the Nazi machinery.
135. 11:43And the people at Nuremberg said to him, "This  is ridiculous. You are an intelligent person.
136. 11:48There is no possible way. You didn't know  what was going on." And so he was arrested
137. 11:52and he was put in prison. He wasn't executed  like some of the Nazi regime were executed,
138. 11:57but people said that you should have known better.  Your stupidity in that instance was not an excuse.
139. 12:03So that's why stupidity is such a harder  thing to find and it's why Bonhoeffer thinks
140. 12:08is actually worse than evil because it's part of  the system and it drags down institutions and it
141. 12:13makes everybody far more corrupt and worse off. So  there's a great quotation which has been floating
142. 12:19around the internet for a very long time now from  the earlier days of the internet. And it says that
143. 12:23um debating an idiot is like playing chess with  a pigeon. You can play as well as you want but
144. 12:29the pigeon will jump on the board. It'll crap  on the pieces and it'll go back to its flock
145. 12:33declaring victory. And it's a brilliant quotation  and it's a brilliant visual because it is so true
146. 12:38as to what it feels like when you are debating  somebody who is stupid in the sense of Bonhoeffer.
147. 12:43When you're debating somebody who is stupid in  the sense of Bonhoeffer, they don't question their
148. 12:47own beliefs and they are unwilling to accept any  contrary position to what they actually believe.
149. 12:51They're playing by different rules. You might  approach them with facts and the most logical
150. 12:55arguments you can possibly devise, but they  will see you as an enemy. They will see you
151. 13:00as an other. They will see you as a kind of  temptation. And so it's very interesting that
152. 13:06in our language we often have a few examples  where people will try to repel any contribution
153. 13:11using certain words and these can belong to  whatever different denomination or different
154. 13:16ever belief system. So for example, if somebody  says trust a science. Now if we dig into what
155. 13:20trust a science means, it makes sense. You go away  and you look at some peer-reviewed papers. You
156. 13:25look at what the consensus of the experts are  saying. You look at some studies online, whatever.
157. 13:30When someone says trust a science is often used as  a kind of batting away of any opposition to you.
158. 13:35Another example might be do your own research.  Again, on paper looks like a good thing. Go
159. 13:40away and Google and find out what's going  on yourself. But if somebody says do your
160. 13:44research is often used as a way to try to reduce  you as an alternative position. So the reason why
161. 13:50debating an idiot is so difficult is because  they are playing by a different rule system.
162. 13:55In Aristotle's rhetoric he actually makes a  distinction between three different types of
163. 14:00persuading somebody or three different ways that  people often come to believe something. He talks
164. 14:04about logos which is rationality. It's reason and  it's using good debate and facts and evidence.
165. 14:11He talks about ethos which is somebody's  character, their reputation, their status and the
166. 14:15ability to persuade you. And he talks about pathos  which is emotions. It talks about feelings. And
167. 14:21Aristotle even in the ancient Greek world this is  you know the epitome of the rational philosopher.
168. 14:26He is well aware that logos plays second place to  your ethos and your posthos as well. So if we pull
169. 14:32it up to the modern time the same thing is at play  here. That when you are debating somebody you may
170. 14:36think that you are both playing by logos. that if  I lay out my argument in premises to conclusion,
171. 14:41if I lay out all of the evidence, this person  is going to bow to me and say, "Well done. You
172. 14:45are so brilliant. Your position is better and  I will believe what you are saying." And what
173. 14:50Bonhoeffer is saying about the stupid person, the  pigeon on the chessboard, is that they don't even
174. 14:53care about the logos. They care about the ethos.  They care about the pathos. And so, you need to
175. 14:58play it according to their game if you're going  to have any kind of proper debate and discussion.
176. 15:03So, when we're talking about stupidity, we often  imagine somebody in our heads. We often imagine
177. 15:08a certain type of person. It might be somebody  in our own life. It might be somebody that we've
178. 15:11met quite recently. But Nathan Balentine who's  a philosopher, he actually argues that stupidity
179. 15:17can take many different forms and it can come  from many different angles. And he talks about
180. 15:21a particular phenomenon known as epistemic  trespassing which exists within academia.
181. 15:27So the most intelligent, the most able, the most  educated people you know can also be guilty of
182. 15:31this intellectual stupidity. Banitine talks about  domain specificity which is where you know your
183. 15:37area particularly well. So for example it might be  that an astrophysicist is incredibly knowledgeable
184. 15:43about stars about black holes about the movement  of planets. But epistemic trespassing is when the
185. 15:48astrophysics thinks that because they know so much  about this one area they will also be able to tell
186. 15:54you about another area. So epistemic trespassing,  for example, is when the astrophysics thinks they
187. 15:58know about political science, but it could be  also when a car mechanic thinks they know about
188. 16:03tree surgery. It could be when a doctor thinks  they know about economics. Epistemic trespassing
189. 16:10according to Banitine often has two causes. The  first is what he calls intellectual pride. If you
190. 16:16are at the top of your game and you've got all of  these accolades, you've got all of this praise,
191. 16:20you get these awards, you get this kind of body  of students who are waiting on your every word,
192. 16:26that's a kind of ego boost. It's a kind of  encouragement. You get this intellectual pride
193. 16:31from all of that. And so you therefore think  that you can walk into different disciplines,
194. 16:36different areas, and you can tell them what is  true and what is false. And the second problem is
195. 16:42an overestimation of what is called transferable  skills. So transferable skills are things that
196. 16:47will apply across a whole range of disciplines.  So at a basic level, the ability to read
197. 16:53is a transferable skill. The astrophysicist can  read, the economist can read, the neuroscientist
198. 16:59can read, the tree surgeon can all read. These are  all transferable skills. But also writing an essay
199. 17:04is a transferable skill. The ability to analyze  data is a transferable skill. So Valentine argues
200. 17:10that epistemic trespassers are often guilty of  overestimating their own transferable skills. They
201. 17:16assume that just because they can analyze data  in one area that they can analyze data in another
202. 17:21area without considering the wider knowledge  that is required to make sense of that data set.
203. 17:28So what Bitan is saying is that stupidity isn't  limited to any one particular type of person. It
204. 17:32can be anywhere. It can be in the academy.  It can be an incredibly intelligent person
205. 17:37who steps outside of their lane. So Chris  Finalei in 2022 wrote a paper into indoctrination
206. 17:44and he was trying to look at the factors that  make somebody indoctrinated and he is quite clear
207. 17:51early on in his paper to make the distinction  that anybody can become indoctrinated. It doesn't
208. 17:56matter whether you are a Christian or an atheist  or leftwing or right-wing or a meat eater or a
209. 18:00vegan whatever. Anyone can become indoctrinated  in so far as how they hold their beliefs.
210. 18:07Now the difference is that the indoctrinated  person will see every rival to their belief
211. 18:12system as a kind of enemy. They are so used to  associating their belief with a certain identity
212. 18:19that if anybody comes along and challenges  that belief, they will see them as a kind of
213. 18:24opposition. For example, in the online  discourse, it's very common to attack
214. 18:28what's called mainstream media. Now, there is a  certain brand of conspiracy theory which will say
215. 18:33that if any evidence, any article, any position  is presented to them from the mainstream media,
216. 18:39well, the mainstream media are the enemy. They'll  immediately discount this information. They'll
217. 18:44immediately discount this article because it was  written by a certain person, by a certain outlet,
218. 18:49by a certain publication. That's an example  of what Rali would call indoctrination.
219. 18:54They are so used to viewing the enemy in certain  areas that they will not take anything that they
220. 18:59say as worth considering. Now that's the first  part of Rali's paper. But the second part of
221. 19:04Rali's paper asks the slightly more difficult  question. How can we resolve this? Because if
222. 19:09we are aware of indoctrinated people in our lives  and we have to be aware that we also ourselves
223. 19:13might be indoctrinated in certain key areas.  I suspect that most people watching this and
224. 19:17myself included are indoctrinated in certain areas  that I will reject information. I will reject
225. 19:23evidence if it's presented to me by a certain  person in a certain way or about a certain topic.
226. 19:29And so Ral is asking how can we resolve that? And  the clearest example is to give a kind of off-ramp
227. 19:35because challenging your beliefs is difficult.  And challenging your beliefs is very difficult
228. 19:39when you associate those beliefs with a certain  identity. And so you need to create an environment
229. 19:45where criticizing a belief or doubting a belief is  considered to be safe. Now, this is where we have
230. 19:50to lean on our friend Aristotle again because  in this case, logos will only get us so far.
231. 19:55Rationality, logic, laying out evidence will only  take you up to the door. But to go through the
232. 20:00door, you need to have a certain ethos. You need  to have a certain character. You need to have a
233. 20:03certain warmth of personality. And so when we're  discussing ideas with somebody, we should always
234. 20:08bear in mind how important it is to have that kind  of warmth to develop a relationship with someone
235. 20:14where you can criticize or discuss these ideas in  an open way without it feeling confrontational.
236. 20:20So there are many examples of when stupidity can  be funny and particularly when it's associated
237. 20:25with ignorance. For example, at Christmas, my  stepbrother turned to me and said, "Do reindeer
238. 20:30exist?" I said, "Yes, they do exist." And we all  had a laugh. And if somebody says, for example,
239. 20:34what was Hitler's surname? That's funny. We  might have a bit of a giggle about it. Those are
240. 20:39examples of harmless ignorance. Now, Bonhoeffer  says that isn't the same as stupidity. Now,
241. 20:45stupidity becomes dangerous when it  walks through the corridors of power.
242. 20:50Stupidity becomes dangerous when we surrender  our own critical thinking and we outsource it to
243. 20:56somebody else. It's when we let a political party,  a group, a tribal identity do the thinking for us.
244. 21:04Because what happens then is you kind of  go through a kind of zombie state where you
245. 21:08will be pushed along by people who may  have malicious intent. So for example,
246. 21:13if somebody is sharing a conspiracy theory  in the pub with you over a few beers,
247. 21:17they talk about being a flatearther for example,  that might be funny. You might joke about it.
248. 21:22But if an education board is teaching flat earth  to students, that's when it becomes a problem
249. 21:28because the institution itself is allowing a sense  of willful stupidity where you accept not knowing
250. 21:34as the default and that's when it becomes a  problem in the sense that it occupies power.
251. 21:39If we agree with Bonhoeffer, if we even partially  agree with Bonhoeffer that stupidity is a greater
252. 21:44danger to society than evil and we agree with  Aristotle that a mafia is the greatest threat to
253. 21:49civilization, then how can we resolve that? What  steps can we all take to remove stupidity from
254. 21:56society? Well, I would argue that there are three  things that we can do. There's a personal thing
255. 22:01we can do, there's an interpersonal thing, and  there's a societal institutional thing we can do.
256. 22:06On the personal level, I think we can all dig up,  scrutinize and analyze our beliefs. We can accept,
257. 22:12we can reject or modify our beliefs. And I  think we can do this in three different ways
258. 22:16each with varying degrees of intensity. The  first step is I think we can take a leaf from
259. 22:21KL Pupa's book. Cole Popper introduced this idea  of falsification where he says a theory is good in
260. 22:28so far as it can resist any falsification and if  there is no falsifying data available to it or you
261. 22:34do not present that theory with falsifying data  then the hypothesis the theory the belief is bad.
262. 22:40So for example I think that all of us have  certain beliefs that we are not entirely sure on.
263. 22:46For example in my head I'm not entirely sure about  my meat eating. I'm not entirely sure whether I
264. 22:51should be eating meat or whether it's right or  whether it's wrong. And so PA would say what you
265. 22:54need to do is go away and you need to introduce  yourself to as many falsifying arguments as you
266. 22:59possibly can. Read arguments from vegans. Read  arguments from vegetarians. Maybe look at some
267. 23:04kind of information about battery farms or  the latest biology about animal sentience.
268. 23:09Go away and challenge your own belief. That's  the first thing we could all do individually.
269. 23:14Escape your echo chamber. The second thing  is interpersonal. And this links back to
270. 23:18what Chris Rali was saying about indoctrination  is that when we are talking with somebody else,
271. 23:23appreciate that beliefs are not just specimens  on the table that we can dissect and poke.
272. 23:29They are deeply personal. We are all involved in  our beliefs. And certain beliefs are so personal
273. 23:34to us that we will reject them viscerally.  When somebody challenges certain beliefs, we
274. 23:39object to them because we feel as  though they are attacking who we are.
275. 23:43For example, when I was growing up, Pluto was  a planet. I'm not even sure if it is a planet
276. 23:47anymore. Whether it's an exoplanet, whether it's a  star or moon, I don't even know. But the point is
277. 23:53that's what the philosopher William  James would call a dead belief to me.
278. 23:55My life goes on. I don't really care if Pluto is  a planet or not. And I can I can go about my life
279. 24:00quite happily not knowing it is. But there  are certain beliefs which do matter to me.
280. 24:04And there are certain beliefs, for example, about  parenting, about my family, about my friends,
281. 24:09about my work life, and about exercise and  about eating, about whatever. These things
282. 24:13do matter to me. So these beliefs are important.  So we should always appreciate that when we are
283. 24:18discussing those live beliefs and those important  beliefs and what James calls momentous beliefs,
284. 24:24we should always appreciate there is a degree of  personality to them. We should be personable. We
285. 24:28should be warm. We should allow people to defend  themselves and not make the debate an issue of
286. 24:34personality. Now the best way to do this and  the best person that embodies this is Socrates.
287. 24:40If you look back in Plato's dialogue, Socrates is  somebody who discusses the conversation in a very
288. 24:45non-confrontational way. And he does so by asking  open questions. He's not saying you're wrong.
289. 24:51He's not offering counterpositions. He's not  calling anyone named. He's not calling you stupid
290. 24:55or idiotic or or evil. He's asking questions.  And over the course of the dialogues, you know,
291. 25:02they are condensed dialogues. In some ways, it  might be a very romanticized account of what a
292. 25:06Socratic dialogue looks like. But over the course  of the conversation, both parties are better.
293. 25:12Both parties have analyzed their beliefs. Both  parties have stronger beliefs as a result of it.
294. 25:17So that's the key element there in interpersonal  belief systems. Always approach it from a Socratic
295. 25:22position. I would argue now the third thing is  institutional and this is where we need to allow,
296. 25:29we need to create and we need to  foster a culture of dissent and debate.
297. 25:34In 2018, two writers, Steven Dvitzky and Daniel  Ziblit, wrote a book called How Democracies Die.
298. 25:41And they were laying out the various factors  that lead to the collapse of a democracy.
299. 25:45They looked at history. And of course,  they applied history to the modern day.
300. 25:49And two key elements jump out for me. The first  is an abuse of power. This is when a president, a
301. 25:55prime minister, a Congress, a parliament oversteps  their constitutional or their historical power.
302. 26:02But the second and and to my mind more important  element is where we illegitimize an opposition.
303. 26:09It's when you start to say that the opponents  are monstrous. They are evil. They are satanic.
304. 26:14They are demonic and they should be struck  off. We shouldn't allow any descent within
305. 26:19this organization. We shouldn't allow any rival  positions in this Congress in this parliament.
306. 26:25So what they're arguing in how democracies die is  when those two factors emerge, democracies will
307. 26:30suffer. But of course we see it in institutions  as well. We see it in corporations and businesses.
308. 26:35We see it when leaders will make decisions without  any consultation whatsoever. So what I would
309. 26:40argue is in an institutional level we should think  about committees. We should think about debate. We
310. 26:44should invite and welcome dissent. I interviewed  a philosopher called Sebastian Purcell a few weeks
311. 26:49ago about Aztec philosophy. I don't know anything  about Aztec philosophy and Purcell introduced me
312. 26:55to an idea that I can't really get out of my head  actually and I love it. It's known as the Aztec
313. 26:59decision circle. And Purcell taught me that when  an Aztec was confronted with a difficult decision
314. 27:05or they didn't know what to believe or what to  do, they would consult their decision circle.
315. 27:10It might be four, five, six very close friends,  relatives who will offer them advice, but
316. 27:15crucially they will offer them dissent. They will  offer them an alternative position. And Purcell
317. 27:20has an entire chapter in his book saying the wise  do not think for themselves. And I love that idea.
318. 27:25I love that idea of a decision circle. I love the  idea of consulting people who will also dissent.
319. 27:36Chapter 2. How power cultivates stupidity.  Intelligence according to Bonhoeffer is
320. 27:43measured by the ability to think critically.  It's measured by the ability to take evidence,
321. 27:48to condense it, and to take on what is good and  to reject what is bad. It's to think for yourself.
322. 27:53Don't outsource your thinking to technology.  Don't outsource your thinking to an influencer,
323. 27:58an academic, a teacher, your parents,  whatever. And so what do you see in power?
324. 28:03What do you see particularly in democracies?  What you see is that when people are elected,
325. 28:09they no longer are individuals. They're no longer  seen as individuals. They are seen as part of
326. 28:14a party system. So what you see in political  party democracies such as the United States,
327. 28:20such as United Kingdom and all over Europe  is you have these party democracies where
328. 28:25people are expected to surrender their own  critical thinking for the wider party. You
329. 28:31have to tow the line. In the UK, we have something  called the the threeline whip where you have a
330. 28:36whip, which is the title you give to somebody  within your political party who will go around
331. 28:41all of the politicians and will say to them, "You  know which way you're voting, don't you today?
332. 28:45You're not going to vote the other way, are you?  You know exactly which way you're going to vote,
333. 28:47don't you? Now, it might be that each of these  individual politicians has their own beliefs. It
334. 28:52might be that they have their own thought process.  They have applied their critical thinking to the
335. 28:57issue, but what they have to do is they have to  vote according to the party political lines. They
336. 29:02have to obey the whip. There are versions of the  whip across all sorts of political parties. And
337. 29:07Bonhoeffer is saying that when you get power,  you are expected to tow the line in this sense.
338. 29:13In 1969, an author called Lawrence Peter  gave us something called the Peter principle.
339. 29:17And what Peter was arguing was that when you're  part of an organization or a company, you are
340. 29:23expected to have certain skills and a certain  knowledge base that gets you to the next step
341. 29:28and you get promoted. Well done. And you go up  the ladder. But the Peter principle argues that
342. 29:33you will reach a point where you can no longer get  promoted because your skills and your abilities
343. 29:37can no longer get you any further. Now what we're  seeing with Bonhoeffer's argument is almost the
344. 29:42inverse of the Peter principle. What Bonhoeffer  is saying is that to become elected, to become
345. 29:48powerful, you have to be intelligent. You have  to have a certain degree of critical thinking.
346. 29:52But when you occupy the position of power,  when you walk through the corridors of power,
347. 29:57you are expected to now tow the line and to  sacrifice your critical thinking for what
348. 30:01somebody else is saying. And so you outsource your  thinking to what your leader is saying or what the
349. 30:06political party whip is saying instead. So in  his work beyond good and evil, nature devotes
350. 30:11an entire chapter to truth where he says that  philosophers and academics and writers have become
351. 30:17obsessed with this notion of truth that truth is  a thing that we should value in and of itself.
352. 30:23Bon says if you look at how people actually  consider truth, it is not something that is
353. 30:28valuable in itself. It is a tool in a box to be  used. This makes sense on an evolutionary level
354. 30:34because there are sometimes when obviously knowing  the truth helps you. It's good to know that that
355. 30:37red snake is dangerous. It's good to know that  that mushroom will kill you if you eat it. It's
356. 30:42good to know that that mushroom will give you  calories. Truth in that case is very useful
357. 30:45evolutionarily. But what about conformity? N  talks about how truth often plays second place
358. 30:51to conformity because it often pays to be part  of the pack. The tall poppy gets cut down first.
359. 30:57And so what we see is when we're talking about  institutions and corporations and organizations,
360. 31:02truth is less important than towing the party  line. It's actually better to be seen as good.
361. 31:08It's better to be seen as somebody who knows  their stuff rather than any concern for the truth.
362. 31:13This relates to actually something that the  philosopher Harry Frankfurt talks about in his
363. 31:16famous paper on [ __ ] Frankfurt talks about the  distinction between the liar and the bullshitter.
364. 31:23Now the liar on the face of it seems to be a bad  thing. But what Harry Frankfurt is saying that the
365. 31:27liar is actually better than the bullshitter  because the liar still is concerned about the
366. 31:32truth. When somebody lies to you, they are  trying to warp reality. They are trying to
367. 31:36make this thing seem like it is true. They want  you to believe that this thing is true because
368. 31:41they recognize that being called true has a value.  There is a cache, a prestige to being called true.
369. 31:48The bullshitter though doesn't even care about  truth. They will say whatever they can, whatever
370. 31:52they want to try to get to their own ends. They  will say whatever they can to win. So if you
371. 31:58call them out on their lies, if you call them  out on their [ __ ] they will smile. they will
372. 32:02shrug and they will just say I don't care let's  move on. Frankfurt says this is actually a worse
373. 32:08problem because what this does is it normalizes  lying and it normalizes a disregard for the truth
374. 32:13and when that happens you have conformist and  according to Bonhoeffer you have a world which
375. 32:18leads towards something like Nazi Germany. Now  Frankfurt wrote this article in 1986 and he argued
376. 32:24back then that there was a rise in [ __ ] and I'm  sure many people today will think that we also
377. 32:28have a rise in [ __ ] today. And so the question  then becomes why are we seeing such a rise in
378. 32:33[ __ ] And I suspect one of the reasons is that we  are all expected to have an opinion on things. We
379. 32:39all are expected to have an opinion on politics,  on the latest celebrity drama, the latest movie,
380. 32:43the latest album release, whatever. But of  course, we cannot possibly know everything about
381. 32:48everything. We cannot know enough to talk about  things confidently, competently, and articulately.
382. 32:54And so into this world where we are expected to  have opinions, the bullshitter is naturally going
383. 32:58to rise. We have to [ __ ] because we are expected  to have an opinion and those who don't have an
384. 33:03opinion are considered to be stupid or ignorant.  But what Bonhoeffer, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
385. 33:08are all saying is that those who admit they don't  know something are actually the wisest of all.
386. 33:14I think a better reflection of the mechanisms  behind stupidity today can be found in an
387. 33:20essay from George Orwell written in 1946 known as  politics and the English language. In the essay,
388. 33:27Orwell makes the point that the language we use  around economics and politics has become hollow.
389. 33:32It's become flatter and vague. And as a result,  our thoughts about politics and economics has
390. 33:38become flatter and vague as well. Orwell  argues that when we are asked our opinion
391. 33:43on a certain issue, we are often presented with  a menu of cliches and ready-made platitudes.
392. 33:50And so we are limited to only rattling off these  platitudes. For example, it might be that somebody
393. 33:55goes on to camera and they say that we have  to make some necessary sacrifices. Necessary
394. 34:00sacrifices is a cliche and it's a euphemism for  you are worse off. But no leader is going to say
395. 34:06to the camera, you the people are worse off  and so they say necessary sacrifices instead.
396. 34:11It might be that you say something like negative  growth. Negative growth is a cliche and it's a
397. 34:17euphemism for a recession. The economy is much  worse off. But rather than say that, they retreat
398. 34:22to this euphemism. And Orwell says that we see  this all of the time in our language. We see
399. 34:27this flattening. We see this regression to the  cliche. But it's not just seen in the political
400. 34:32world. It's also seen in our institutions. For  example, if the boss calls you in and they say,
401. 34:38"We're going to have to make some efficiency  gains." That's a euphemism. That's a cliche
402. 34:43for the fact they've laid off 10% of the company.  And Orwell would say they are hiding behind that
403. 34:47language. They are hiding behind the cliche.  Here they are hiding behind the platitude.
404. 34:52Of course, this makes sense because it gives  our leaders a degree of plausible deniability.
405. 34:56We have entire teams devoted to storytelling  and messaging rather than truth and clarity
406. 35:01because it's easier to say negative growth  and necessary sacrifices or collateral damage
407. 35:06than to accept the stark truth that civilians  have been killed or that you are worse off.
408. 35:12So, social media has a whole range of problems.  Um, of course our attention span, of course,
409. 35:18the lack of real life connection. But one of the  often ignored casualties of the social media age
410. 35:24is a lack of proper debates, the lack of  proper discussions. In ancient Greece,
411. 35:302 and a half thousand years ago, Plato attacked  what's called the sophists, who were these paid
412. 35:35philosophers who would teach people how to argue.  They would teach people how to win an argument.
413. 35:40And Protagoras who is known as the the greatest  of all the Sophist has his famous line where he
414. 35:45says that man is the measure of all things. And I  think that Protagoras and the Sophist would love
415. 35:49the social media age because what we are seeing  in the social media age is the age of assertion.
416. 35:56We think that if somebody says something in 140  characters or in a 90-cond reel or on on social
417. 36:01media that that is enough to be considered a  debate. But of course what Plato was saying in the
418. 36:07ancient world was that a debate needs more time  and it needs the maturity of thought to challenge
419. 36:12ideas in a space which is not about identity in  a space which is not confrontational. And so what
420. 36:19we're seeing today is a rise in debate and not  enough dialectic. And there is a key difference.
421. 36:26The online world encourages reposting.  It encourages status. You get a kick of
422. 36:31dopamine every time somebody likes what you say.  And so as a result, if you occupy an echo chamber,
423. 36:36you are encouraged to say certain things  even though you might not believe them,
424. 36:40even though they might not be true, even though  you haven't possibly thought them through.
425. 36:45And so when you say these things to your echo  chamber, you are rewarded by your community,
426. 36:50by the tribe, by your niche of the internet. Now,  this is a great example of what Bonhoeffer talks
427. 36:56about as stupidity because what you have here are  people who are valuing conformity and the tribe
428. 37:03more than their own critical thinking abilities.  So, what you see with social media is millions of
429. 37:07people who are perfectly capable of independent  thought suddenly outsourcing their own beliefs to
430. 37:13other people. This might be a friend that they see  posting something on social media. But of course,
431. 37:18we are seeing the rise of the influencer. We  are seeing the rise of people who are telling
432. 37:23their followers what to believe. I believe this  and if you are like me, if you want to belong
433. 37:28to this pack, you also have to repost. You  have to like, you have to comment on my reel.
434. 37:34And so what this encourages is that degree of  group think. It encourages that sacrifice of your
435. 37:40critical thinking to become part of that group. So  what we see with social media is we have a puppet
436. 37:46master without a furer. We are presented with  certain things that we should see that we should
437. 37:51believe and things that we should say and so we go  along with it because the algorithm tells us so.
438. 37:57So whenever I post on social media about stupidity  the lack of critical thinking or the rise in group
439. 38:02think they often do very well. People will  repost them and they will say oh look it's
440. 38:06you guys over there. Oh look it's those people  there. And of course what Bonhoeffer is saying,
441. 38:12what Aristotle, what Plato and what all the  philosophers are saying is that we should also
442. 38:17apply the same logic to ourselves. We also need  to introspect and say well hang on am I guilty of
443. 38:23being indoctrinated in the Chris Finalei sense.  Do I hold any belief which I haven't questioned?
444. 38:30Now the archetype of self-questing is a man known  as Rene Descartes. In Descartes' meditations, he
445. 38:37says that everybody should at least once in their  life question everything that they believe because
446. 38:43it's so easy to walk through life inheriting our  beliefs. We say things that our parents said. We
447. 38:50will repost stuff that our friends have posted.  And so a lot of our beliefs are given to us. They
448. 38:55are implanted in our heads. And so what Descartes  says is that we should occasionally throw all of
449. 39:00those beliefs out because Descartes says that  it might be that one, two, three, or many of
450. 39:05our beliefs are corrupt. He gives an analogy of an  apple basket or an apple barrel. He imagines that
451. 39:12there's a big barrel of apples and we know that  within this barrel somewhere is a rotten apple.
452. 39:18Now what should we do? Yes, we could take the  long diligent time to pull every apple out and
453. 39:23to look for the rot. But what Descartes is  saying that what you should do is throw all
454. 39:27of the apples out and start from scratch. Because  when you're growing up, so many of your beliefs
455. 39:33are given to you. When you're 5 years old, you  do what your parents say. But when you are older,
456. 39:38you have a sense of rationality. You have  your adult critical thinking abilities.
457. 39:42So it's now that you can assess your beliefs. This  isn't easy. In fact, Daycart himself says it is
458. 39:48often difficult to challenge your own beliefs on  this universal scale, what's called radical doubt.
459. 39:54But we need to do it because if we don't do it,  then we can't be sure that we don't ourselves
460. 39:59hold these beliefs which are indoctrinated. And  we can't be sure that we don't hold these beliefs
461. 40:03which are unquestioned and possibly wrong. And  the other thing is to reconsider our relationships
462. 40:09with other people that our social media algorithms  are very good at throwing us into these echo
463. 40:14chambers. And the worry is that we are replicating  that in real life. That we surround ourselves only
464. 40:20with yes men and people who are ideologically  pure. The people who agree with us on everything.
465. 40:27And what philosophy is saying is that we  should have people in our friendship group,
466. 40:29people around us who genuinely believe other  things. If you are pro-war, find somebody who is
467. 40:34anti-war. If you are an atheist, find a believer.  If you are a vegan, find a meat eater. And so on.
468. 40:40Don't occupy real life echo chambers because if  you do that you'll never be able to challenge your
469. 40:44own beliefs and you can never be sure that those  beliefs are true, right, and good. So there's
470. 40:50often a thought experiment I like to suggest  for those who want to analyze their own beliefs.
471. 40:55And this is where I ask, what would you do if  the entire world suddenly hated your belief? What
472. 41:01would you do if you would lose your reputation,  your status, your job for believing something?
473. 41:06For some things such as 2 plus 2 equals 4,  it's hard to imagine surrendering that belief.
474. 41:12But what about your other beliefs? The thought  experiment is designed to highlight something that
475. 41:16nature was saying. Do you believe these things  because they are true, because they are right,
476. 41:21or because they are socially advantageous? Now, it  might be that once you've analyzed those beliefs
477. 41:26that they are socially advantageous, but that  doesn't necessarily mean you need to jettison
478. 41:30them. But what it does mean is that you need to  look at those beliefs carefully and see whether
479. 41:34they are actually worth holding. When you're  debating an idea or a belief with someone,
480. 41:38it can often degrade into a kind of argument. It  can often become confrontational. And so I'm often
481. 41:44asked how it is that philosophy can help this.  Because philosophy is unique in that it presents
482. 41:49ideas in an objective way. And so I'm often amazed  that when I am discussing an idea with somebody,
483. 41:55how honest and open people are with me about  their beliefs. Because when you're discussing
484. 42:01something that you read about in Simone  de Beauvoir or when you're reading about
485. 42:04something that Bonhoeffer says or when you're  reading at something that Descartes says,
486. 42:07you aren't discussing yourself, you're discussing  yourself in a roundabout way. And so by dissecting
487. 42:13these arguments, by dissecting the philosophy,  you are actually dissecting your beliefs in a way
488. 42:18which is non-confrontational and is far close to  what Aristotle and Plato would have approved of.
489. 42:24The third thing is something that we can learn  from the ancient skeptics. Now the ancient
490. 42:28skeptics were a Greek school of philosophy who  were concerned about happiness and in particular
491. 42:32the word ataraxia. How we can be less mentally  disturbed, how we can find that peace of mind,
492. 42:38that tranquility of thought. And the skeptics  made quite a bold claim. They said that you
493. 42:44can be free of anxiety and distress if you  get used to saying the words I don't know.
494. 42:50If somebody asks your opinion about something,  say I don't know. If somebody wants to know what
495. 42:55you think about a movie or a political policy or  a geopolitical position, whatever, you say, "I'm
496. 43:02sorry, I don't know enough about the situation.  I don't know enough to give a good answer."
497. 43:07So, what the skeptics are saying is, if you  want to be happier, if you want to be calmer,
498. 43:10and you want to get on with more people, you  should get used to saying the words I don't
499. 43:14know from time to time. So, what can we all do to  reverse what Bonhoeffer was seeing in society and
500. 43:21what Frankfurt was seeing in society? what Renali  is pointing out in his work on indoctrination.
501. 43:26I mean, the first thing is to  model what we want to change.
502. 43:30We can all be better at saying I don't know. We  can all take a leaf out of the skeptics's book and
503. 43:35recognize that we just cannot know a great many  things. And so saying I don't know is a courageous
504. 43:41act. And by doing that, you invite other  people to also say they I don't know as well.
505. 43:46In my experience, when I come across somebody who  says, "I don't know," I actually respect them more
506. 43:51than somebody who is happy to [ __ ]  about a topic they know nothing about.
507. 43:55But the next step is to appreciate what Bonhoeffer  was talking about what real stupidity means.
508. 44:00And this is to challenge those who are willfully  ignorant. Because to stay ignorant about
509. 44:06something, ironically, takes determination and  commitment. You have to stay ignorant by avoiding
510. 44:12any information that might correct you. And so  as a society we need to be less accepting of
511. 44:18those who say I don't know and I don't care about  not knowing. For Bonhoeffer that is the greater
512. 44:24problem. And for Aristotle in his politics  it might even be the death of civilization.
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