(Note: By “National Viability” in the post title, I am not referring to the late, great United States. Which of course, as we all know all too well, is already dead, or at least in its final death throes.)
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned here before, at least in passing, Carlos Cipolla’s essay titled “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.” The first time I read the essay was approximately fifteen years ago, and it came to me as a recommendation from what some of you might think of as the most unlikely of sources. Namely, our eldest son, who was (then) only twenty years-old. Most twenty year-old young men, as y’all know, tend to have their heads stuck straight up their hindparts and only care about partying and chasing women, fast cars and stuff like that. In other words of “sewing their wild oats.” But our son has always been at least semi-exceptional in that respect; he was certainly heads above where his father was at that tender, transitional age between late-stage adolescence and full manhood.
For those of you who have not as yet read it, I highly recommend Mr. Cipolla’s essay. For some of you, like my younger self fifteen years ago, it will serve to confirm much of what you’ve already figured out about human nature and human stupidity but have heretofore not been able to articulate very well or very satisfactorily. For others of you, it will serve to provide credible witness to what might otherwise seem incredible and counter-intuitive, given our typical biases about education and its ability to (unilaterally) make smarter people, wiser people, more moral people, better citizens and all that. None of which is necessarily true, but that is a subject for a different article. In any case, once you’ve read the essay, you will have it in your repertoire to which to refer in explanation of why otherwise apparently intelligent people so often conduct themselves and act in such incredibly stupid ways. Or at least to explain why you should not be surprised by this when you witness it in action.
The bottom line of Cipolla’s essay is that societies cannot function well and will ultimately collapse under their own weight if not by some other means when the stupid people of the society(s) in question – who always and invariably make up a greater proportion of the population than anyone can ever accurately predict (see the 1st Law) – are allowed political power and influence. The “universal franchise” is a prime example of what Cipolla means by this; and we all know that the U.S. Capitol probably contains the greatest concentration of truly and irredeemably stupid people the world has ever seen. How did they get there? They were elected or appointed of course. By whom? By people who are equally as stupid, if not in fact moreso, than they themselves. Note that I did not say Congress is inhabited by “uneducated” people, but by stupid people. Educated people and stupid people are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories. See Cipolla’s 2nd Law for a fuller explanation of why this is, always has been, and ever shall be. Dr. Dabney wrote a lot about this as well. Read him.
I hope you will read Mr. Cipolla’s essay attentively and will glean some important insights from it, dear reader. I said above that I have likely mentioned it here before in passing at least, but I’m not at all sure I’ve ever provided a link to it in those “honorable mentions.” I’ve certainly never written a blog post about it, at least not here at Identity Dixie. Until now. However it comes that we Southerners form our own independent and viable nation sometime in (hopefully) the not-too-distant future, one thing we will simply have to take into consideration and strictly account for is the problem of human stupidity and its ability to destroy a nation when allowed to wriggle its way into positions of power and influence. There can be no “universal franchise” in a Free Dixie, for example. And etc.
God Bless y’all, and God save the South!
See also Hanlon’s Razor and Idiocracy.
Thanks, Edward, I’ll give it look-see.
As noted in Mr. Cipolla’s essay, stupid people are the same fraction of the university professors as of the working class. One may encounter stupid physicians, physicists, etc. etc. I’ve worked as a secretary to more than one mind-bogglingly stupid attorney. People who see me seething over stupidity often try to comfort me with words about how I, as a supposedly high IQ woman, am having a hard time dealing with the majority, who are mostly stupid.
But if I am such a high IQ person (the tests in high school placed me in the top half of the top one percent academically), then why have I done such stupid things? The only part of me that seems to me myself to be all that all-fired smart is that I seem to more quickly catch on that I’ve just done or said something stupid.
My late sister was not like me. I was merely slotted in as “gifted.” Little sis was certified genius. When we were teenagers, it grieved her that she knew no one who could discuss black holes with her to her own interested satisfaction. She also never graduated from college, barely graduated from high school, never formed a true friendship, never married, and repeatedly and obnoxiously refused to see the good in anything at all. She finally succeeded in her lifelong ambition of drinking herself to death when she was 50. As far as I can tell, 40 points down the IQ scale from her, she was the smartest person in mathematics and music that I have ever known. But yet — utterly unable to perceive the good, she was incredibly stupid in the sense Mr. Cipolla is talking about — she continually – you could count on it — hurt herself while hurting everyone around her and all to no point. It’s not like she sacrificed those of us who loved her in the service of any greater cause than procuring more bourbon.
Given that the stupid are everywhere, in every social class, in IQ level, what is the point again about restricting suffrage? There are plenty of the stupid among aristocrats and among the supposedly high IQ. There are plenty of stupid days even for those of us who are intelligent the majority of our days. Stupidity is just part of the curse, part of original sin. Restricting the vote to certain classes of people just allows the stupidity in any given group to shine forth more obviously. Before women could vote, we weren’t entirely aware of just how stupid woman can be. But if only men can vote, then the stupidity of men will be more apparent for all to see.
I don’t know what the answer is, but there isn’t any way to reliably know who the stupid are. There just isn’t.
Hello again, Jane. I had a feeling you would comment to this article.
The point of restricting the vote is similar to the point of restricting immigration. Indeed, the two are intertwined. Question: Do you agree with me/us that immigration should be greatly curtailed? Question II: Can we at least agree that the “baby vote” should be abandoned in a free and independent Dixie?
Yes, it’s true that we all do stupid things at times. But not all of us do stupid things all the time, or even a majority of the time.
You shall know them by their fruit.
I’m not dogging your sister, but let me just say that I have one, too, who is very close to my age and who has done one stupid thing after another during the course of her life, and is currently in the process of drinking herself to death as well. Neither she, nor your deceased sister when she yet lived (RIP), should be allowed within a country mile of a Dixian voting booth.
BTW, I personally do not think that having the “sacred franchise” has served to convince the average woman since 1920 of just how stupid women can be. But maybe I’m wrong.
You write:
“not all of us do stupid things all the time, or even a majority of the time.”
(This may be true, but you haven’t met the administrators where I work).
Also, I don’t suspect Jane Doe is stupid, but if she attributes any real value to suffrage today the evidence will begin tilting against her.
(I’m tempted to share Cipolla’s Laws with management where I work, but they’d probably be confused, and then incensed … and I’m already on thin ice with them).
If they’re as stupid as you let on (and I am in no position to question that they are, nor do I doubt your word in any case), then they’re probably too stupid to become incensed by it. Indeed, they’d likely mistake themselves as members of the intelligent set, and others not themselves (including you) as members of the stupid set. So, it would probably play to their (stupid) egos, and might actually put you back in their good graces as a matter of pitying you. Ha, ha.
Thanks to both you and Jane Doe for the interesting comments, sir and ma’am.
It was the line about the complete lack of “relational intelligence” that really resonated with me. I’ve frequently, with a real desire to see a renaissance in the workplace tried to respectfully point them towards a leadership consultant (Mike Myatt) I like very much … pointing out how his counsel is also in THEIR best interest. Nope, not interested.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/12/26/the-most-misunderstood-aspect-of-great-leadership/?sh=1e01ab227a11
RE Jane Doe: in all fairness towards your sister, today’s society *is not* accommodating or empowering towards people who aren’t normie-like or NPC-like, or who can’t at least fake it.
Culture is geared towards the lower classes, everything’s dumbed down, White things are chided while non-White are lauded, etc.
Fun fact: opiod misuse correlates positively with increased intelligence. Yes, you read that right. If you’re above average intelligence, you’re *more* likely to get addicted to oxycodone / heroin / fenatyl / etc.
More intelligent people generally need a telos or zeitgeist to get motivated and be all they can be in life, whereas the less intelligent people, who live life on autopilot tend to just adapt / improvise / overcome and go along with literally anything.
Example: who would have gotten into more trouble during the Covid lockdowns (1) a normie who wore the mask and got the vax, or (2) an intelligent/critical person who saw through the BS and wouldn’t and subsequently was harassed at the grocery store and fired from their job
Interesting thoughts, Benjamin. You wrote:
Yeah, I had several bad experiences right after they shuttered everything – one with a State Trooper who refused to shake hands with me because of COVID. Although I knew he was just following orders from on high, I was still insulted by it and let it be known by instantly becoming very aloof with him. Which made him visibly uncomfortable until he finally left me with a “well, have a nice day, sir.” To which I answered, “yep.” I probably shouldn’t have acted that way towards him, but I knew the damage that COVID insanity was creating so it was easy to be insulted by that sort of thing. Also, one of my brothers was fired from his long-time job for refusing the vaccine. He worked for me part-time for a few months to help out with the loss of income until he landed another job steady job closer to home. Besides a few other incidents I won’t mention, it’s mostly been “smooth sailing” in my neck of the woods, where very few of us ever wore a mask in public, even early on.
Thanks for the comment.
Thank you for posting this link Mr. Morris. As someone who is behind enemy lines, this article is refreshing to review.
You’re very welcome, sir. Stay tuned; I have a couple of articles “on tap” that relate to this one one way or the other. Plus, I have several (longer) articles not yet edited for publication that I think you might like as well. Your comments are always appreciated, sir.
Oh BTW, I am pleasantly surprised you’ve become a contributor. Congratulations brother!
Thank you, sir. I wasn’t ignoring your other comment, btw, I just haven’t had a chance to read the article you posted the link to yet, and I wanted to read it first before I replied.
I would say (sadly), the collapse of the empire is nowhere near in my opinion and in the opinion of Niccolo Soldo he explains in his great article „Turbo-America“, which can be found here: https://open.substack.com/pub/niccolo/p/turbo-america-is-beginning-to-resonate?r=n6g87&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
On education, just like the case with the military, it’s not incompetence, but it’s reconstructed for a specific purpose.
Best wishes!
Hello, Dixie Serb. I read the article you linked to with interest. I notice therein that Mr. Soldo refers, profusely, to current elitist American actions with regard to Russia and China as “hubris.” I agree with his terminology, but disagree with his conclusions therefrom. “Hubris,” to me, essentially means “overconfidence,” or, “misplaced confidence,” if you like. This means, to me, that TPTB have essentially exceeded their limit inasfar as they are able to understand the true limits on their power on a global scale. I could be wrong, of course; I’ve said more times than I care to count that I can see how this could go on for half a century or more before the ultimate collapse occurs. I don’t expect it will go on that long at this point, but I can see how it could. Another thing I liked about the article, or, rather, its author, is that he understands, like I do, the fact that “American” TPTB could care less about “public opinion” on any matter whatsoever. …
Many things in life can be fixed, but stupidity is unfixable.
“You can’t fix stupid” as most of our fathers taught us.
Quite. That is precisely what I was taught during my formative years, both by my father and my grandfather, et al. I’ve also heard the principle stated slightly differently – that “you can’t *cure* stupid.” That iteration has never quite taken with me for some reason; I think it’s mostly because the term “cure” in the place of “fix” more indicates (at least for me) that the problem with “human stupidity” is something comparable to a virus instead of a broken part. Viruses are incurable, for sure, but they’re also communicable; I tend more to think of human stupidity as proceeding from a broken wheel or a cog, or a tension spring or whatever, that happened by “accident of birth” that simply will not permit the person(s) in question to think logically and rationally, as a matter of course, and to act accordingly, or in their best interests; to say nothing of acting in the larger society’s best interests.
Thanks for the comment, sir.