A mad world. Homo sapiens turns out to be a cancer…
Homo sapiens turns out to be a cancer.
No more, no less.
The ability to create beauty and harmony is now almost a detail compared to the ability to create garbage.
However, this beauty exists and is proper to Homo sapiens.
But one day it will fade away, and perhaps with it the being that perceives and understands beauty.
I hope that there will always be a core of intelligent people on Earth.
And if it takes power, so much the better, because I hope that one day it will want to change, before we get to the point where we have to choose between humanity and Earth.
The only thing that makes me lean towards the survival of the planet is the thought that it can survive without us.
But that humanity cannot survive without it.
I believe that the beauty that humanity has been able to create will last forever.
In fact, there are still those who know how to create beauty and harmony, although they are a distinct minority.
But how many Leonardos, Michelangelos, Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius – how many innovators and geniuses have there been?
Few.
Over time, they have always been few and, above all, inconvenient.
Yet they were able to leave an indelible mark.
That is my hope for humanity.
As long as it can create beauty and harmony, it will retain the hope of salvation.
The central thesis of Pino Aprile‘s book, The Eulogy of the Imbecile, is that most people behave like imbeciles, so fighting stupidity is futile.
It is useless to pick on imbeciles, and it is ridiculous not to understand this, especially after globalization has spread stupidity as an epidemic on a global scale.
We could say that the world has lost its mind, if it ever had one, but the staggering number of stupid people makes us wonder why there are so many stupid people, why we have become so tolerant of stupidity, and, above all, whether stupidity has any use.
According to the law of natural selection, only the fittest survive, and since humans are the fittest, they have managed to survive through intelligence.
On the planet, the rule of selection is number or strength : the species that is too strong must have few representatives, while the weaker species must be supernumerary.
Observing nature, we see fewer predators than prey : lions are stronger but there are few of them, while antelopes are many because they are preyed upon; clearly, there is no future for the few and the weak.
It is our intellect that is man’s weapon and has allowed us to dominate the planet, despite the fact that we are the weakest and most defenseless compared to other animal species.
Intelligence saved us from extinction, but now the situation is reversed because our numbers have become too great and our mental potential is becoming a danger to the planet.
According to ecologist James Lovelock, planet Earth is a living thing, so the most reliable assumption is that it will be the planet that destroys man in order to prevent man from destroying the planet.
To think otherwise would violate every evolutionary principle and the biological law that you can have either numbers or strength, but not both.
Man becomes dangerous only when he is sapien, while when he is imbecile, the planet can better withstand the impact of the human species.
Therefore, the stupid man only becomes dangerous when he multiplies too much and too fast.
Perhaps intelligence has exhausted its natural function and usefulness ?
Perhaps it is as useless to man as fur, fangs and claws are to a cruel killer, as recent history shows ?
Our species now suffers from hypertrophy, says Ernst Jünger, and has lost all harmony with nature.
Intelligence has become too dangerous an endowment, and man seems to have renounced it.
Clear evidence for this assertion is Alzheimer’s disease, an evil that kills brain cells.
The function of Alzheimer’s seems to be to limit intelligence, in fact it affects memory, language ability and abstract thinking.
This disease is the humiliation of intelligence : it is responsible for one in two cases of dementia, i.e. one in two elderly people.
Our society is already at risk of dementia, and the world is becoming increasingly stupid as it ages, so modern man is living to rebel : senility is taking on increasing proportions as age and life expectancy increase.
A great Soviet scholar, Jury Lotman, argues that culture is the brain of society, and therefore selection tends to become cultural, because it is culture that can increasingly reduce human intellectual capacity.
Man is a social animal and we are made to be with our fellow men ; in fact, in addition to nature, culture also acts on us.
In fact, culture is accumulated and transmitted through social life.
Being together is a characteristic that helps the human species, because the fruits of individual genius are shared by all, and intelligence produces benefits for the whole species.
When it is genius that produces human progress, the benefits obtained can be exploited even by imbeciles, for notions and ideas become a common heritage and are passed on through culture.
It is only through culture that the best and most gifted men produce improvements that remain as the heritage of mankind, but even the dumbest man can use the inventions of geniuses.
Somehow it is intelligence that contributes to the waste of the species, and the consequences make the situation more dramatic, since culture, contrary to expectations, tends to inhibit the use of intellectual faculties because it is hostile to reflection and innovation.
Mental potential is dulled when too many are content with accumulated and shared knowledge, becoming mentally lazy and inert. Indeed, method stifles ingenuity by replacing it with ready-made answers.
“We think for you. So you don’t have to”, says the chilling inscription that occasionally flashes in the corner of the screen when I select the “Science and Science Fiction” channel on the TV.
Pretty much what those damn computers (I hate them) do when they correct mistakes and even make suggestions. This frees you from having to know “consecutio temporum” and spelling. It also relieves you of any sense of responsibility and leads to dullness.
Ergo, people stop thinking. Or they think without thinking themselves.
The spark of genius shines, says April, and culture captures this flash, but uses it to blind the mind, because it forces the repetition of the method ad infinitum; therefore repetition becomes a deadening of mental resources.
Trivial exercises diminish intelligence, because it needs constant stimulation and to keep itself in activity : in fact, like any physical organ, it is strengthened by use, but by immobility it atrophies.
When culture favors immediate reactions, ingenuity, refined by necessity, regresses and then declines.
Technology reduces all the difficulties of life, so that geniuses become useless and the cultural mechanism puts solutions at the service of imbeciles who multiply.
The cultural tools are the technical tools, but also the logical methods and forms of social organization.
All this is the product of the genius mind, but it can also be used by the idiot.
The selection of the idiots will thus be made : they will go to slaughter themselves.
The world becomes imbecile-friendly when it hands over its most complex and dangerous machines to insane, psychopathic people, because they are afflicted with disorders in the use of wisdom, intelligence, tolerance, altruism and solidarity.
Man is the only being who provides his fellow man with the necessary tools to ensure his survival.
It is intelligence that has made this paradox possible: the sediments of knowledge are in fact handed down from father to son, so instinct should help to avoid in the future the same mistakes made in the past.
The experienced man of the world realizes that the planet is full of idiots and that this comes from human organizations themselves.
Although one may believe that man always chooses what suits him, he actually chooses on the basis of reasonable criteria.
A limitation of intelligence is to believe that the world works for good and behaves according to this assumption, but this applies to mentally healthy people, while imbeciles do not function that way.
The real question is how the world can still function, and the answer is in the structure of human organizations: imbecility has taken the place of intelligence in the direction of the world.
A mad world. Le gerarchie usano la burocrazia che ama la stupidità…
Human structures are hierarchical, and hierarchies use bureaucracy, which loves stupidity.
In fact, stupidity sustains the bureaucratic structure and ensures its future.
In this sense, bureaucracies become positive because they bring people together and make them completely idiotic.
If wars succeed in exterminating the best, bureaucracy, which is the obvious representation of human social instincts, knows how to bring brains together to exterminate them faster, because it makes a fierce fight for intelligence, and this war characterizes our whole culture.
Bureaucracy exploits hierarchies, and hierarchies behave obtusely, not so much because they are made up of stupid people, but because if you are in the hierarchy, you have to behave according to the rules.
Hierarchical behavior is subject to the rules that everyone shares, so the rules have to be obeyed : there is a way of doing things, and all you have to do is follow that way.
The human mind is prone to criticism and novelty, likes to challenge its own abilities and ask why it does what it does, wants to know how something is done and if it could be done better.
Hierarchy loves the same process, so when a sharp and inquisitive mind comes along and asks too many questions, it begins to disrupt and there is a risk that nothing will move forward.
Discussing things, refuting behaviors and procedures paralyzes the system and undermines the organization, so the genius becomes a subversive when he or she does not apply the norm but questions it, because it causes the system to break down.
Intelligence and critical spirit slow down the functioning of society, and mental acumen produces confusion and social subversion, so the system reacts and prefers the stupid individual.
Stupidity is necessary and becomes vital for society, because only on the legs of the imbecile can a dull rule march.
Therefore, the task of the hierarchy is to increase stupidity.
The social structure forces the individual to conform to appropriate behavior, producing a powerful levelling down.
Thus, the critical spirit and intellectual gifts become increasingly depressed and dulled ; indeed, the genius embedded in the hierarchical structure is rendered harmless.
When society requires adherence to rules, the intelligent person can pretend to be an imbecile, while the reverse is impossible.
It is clear that the intelligent can understand that making societies less idiotic is based on the misunderstanding that it is possible to make social organisms less idiotic, because they only function if they remain idiotic.
Humanity, April tells us, is divided into two categories : the first consists of those who are committed to changing society, while the second consists of those who have realized that everything works if it remains as it is, so they adapt to what they find and submit to it.
The intelligent person may adapt to structures, but then, in his spare time, he cultivates his true passions, devoting to them the time that everyone devotes to their favorite pastimes.
Sometimes some succeed in changing things and become true reformers, but they also escape the category of intelligent because they are so much more : the general norm is that social structures carry only limited doses of intelligence, critical sense, and innovation.
If they left room for these traits, the whole thing would collapse, because the hierarchy does not need people who are too capable.
In fact, in the hierarchy, there is a parcelization of functions, as abilities are fractionalized to the point of having simple, jerk-sized tasks.
There is no limit to the parcelization of tasks, which is created so as not to put incompetent people in crisis, so the imbecility can only increase until a moron-sized world is created.
A structure of imbeciles can only expand because the entry requirements are so low that anyone can join, so their numerical limit is infinite, even though no imbecile is willing to admit to being part of it, especially if he or she occupies a position of responsibility.
Even in positions of power we find representatives of this category : morons tend to vote for those who look like them, because they can best represent them.
This insane way of doing things is unconscious, because everyone does it to the best of his or her ability ; in fact, people see that things are going on, so they adapt to what they find.
Human societies are living organisms and, as such, exhibit the same survival instincts as living things : they want to feed themselves in order to grow.
We often do not understand this power strategy, but it is easier if we know that all organizations want to survive, so companies say that the solution is to expand because it is a natural fact.
It is true that growth is natural, but even the most majestic trees never reach the sky because they know that branches that grow too high will not receive enough nourishment to thrive.
Becoming too big is tantamount to becoming too vulnerable and thus condemning oneself to extinction, which is something we want to avoid: everyone has his or her own limits, and intelligence understands when to come close enough to touch them so as not to have to go beyond them.
Man is risking his survival because of the stupidity of the masses, but intelligence retains its potential : with reason we can make decisions that are not conditioned only by instinct.
Cooperation between intelligent people multiplies these abilities and is not an exception: in fact, in all societies there has always been a minimum number of people who have fought to reduce stupidity and stimulate the use of intelligence.
A mad world. In every historical era there has always been a core of better people…
In every historical era there has always been a core of better people, because in a few it is easier to discuss, to listen, to reflect, to be heard and understood without the risk of humiliating intelligence.
These cores are not a detriment, but the healthiest part of human organizations, because they increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the organizations’ responses.
These minimum units must be maintained to prevent the total reincarnation of the society of which they are a part, because dictatorships suppress freedom of thought, but so do democracies, because it is easier to get the votes of people without critical thinking.
All forms of power try to create a consonance of thought and desire in order to massify people, so they use imbecility-this is the essence of power and is also the result of the cultural choices of societies.
Borges argued that the sharper the mind, the more talented people are forced to feel that they are contemporaries of people of the past, because to find people of their own level they have to go back centuries : even Homer, Borges says, was forced to narrate facts from previous centuries.
The human species evolved, but then stopped its intellectual development.
It is time for nature to reassert itself over culture, says April, and for our species to re-enter the balance of life on the planet and stop upsetting the Earth before the planet understands that it must defend itself against man.
But all of this requires intelligence, while our lives are increasingly mean and subservient to rampant stupidity, oppressed by widespread vulgarity and marked by the indifference with which the most beautiful things are destroyed.
The best human qualities, such as kindness, caring, and concern for others, are being destroyed because our species is so stupid as to be self-destructive.
Our species is so vicious to itself that it has planned the extermination of whole categories of people : for even intelligence can be misused.
Evil comes when we know that there is a line that must not be crossed, but the line is crossed with impunity : we must become aware of this if we do not want to move towards ruin.
This would also be useful to show that intelligence has not completely disappeared, otherwise in the future man will no longer be studied by psychology, but by archaeology.
