The Cognitive Basis of Stupidity

James F Welles

Abstract

Human culture may be viewed in terms of a number of interacting component systems, each of which caters to a basic need. First and foremost culture is a belief system; there is invariably some religious commitment to a higher order of presumed powers or conjured beings. There is a subtle hint of stupidity as a common element which unifies culture into a disintegrating whole. For the past two hundred years, social scientists have been trying to impose some order of logic on the actions and interrelationships of these systems. Perhaps it is time to consider the very real possibility that such order and logic are, like astrological figures, invented and both the systems and their interactions are illogical, inconsistent and maladaptive to the point that culture may be characterized as stupid.