It is entirely coincidental that while listening in to my mother and sisters argue passionately whether or not it was right on part of a leading Malayalam actor to dump his wife of many years and marry a much younger creature, I was on the phone with my friend Dr Anurag Misra, a psychiatrist based out of out of New Delhi.
Exasperated, I told him, it wasn’t just them — but all of the people in Kerala seemed to be besotted by his shenanigans. Why do people spend as much time discussing inane issues, I asked. He laughed and pointed me to a paper that sounded intriguing: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla.
Their fascination, he said, proves Cipoll’s First Basic Law: Human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
What else can explain how my family — and for that matter, the most literate state in the country — had come to a standstill because of a marriage?
Incidentally, Cipolla taught at the University of California in Berkeley and died in 2000, aged 78. A scholar of much repute, he is most known for this treatise of his. It was a national bestseller in his native Italy, was immortalized in a play in France, and translated into English as well.
The paper got my attention right away. I read all of it and laughed through it. I was wondering what Anurag’s larger point was. How could I possibly use it to interpret what I see around me?
While the paper is indeed humorous, it was also intended to be a deeply philosophical one. And the First Basic Law had just been proven a night after we spoke. All said and done, I spent some time on it and wondered if there is indeed some merit in what the paper articulates. Turns out, there is.
The Second Basic Law: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
I’ll tread with caution here because by way of evidence I cannot divulge names. But this much I can assert in my defence. Perhaps, 25-odd years down the line, if I have the mental muscle left in me to write a memoir on the back of the many hundreds of interviews I have conducted over my career with business leaders, I can think up quite a few icons who would tumble.
Two come to mind right away. What binds both is that even though they are part of different industries, they transformed how India lives.
The first name attracts fanatical devotion. The entity he took over and the jobs his entity offers are prized. If the entity’s brand name is stamped on anything, it is by any yardstick considered the gold standard for quality, ethics and transparency. He was always dignified and handed the baton over to a man of impeccable pedigree and intended to spend his retirement in introspection and search for a higher truth.
But as things turn out, he is also stupid. Because over the years, when he was at the helm, for reasons best known to him, he was surrounded by a “coterie". How ironic. Because he had started his career out by disbanding a firmly entrenched “coterie". What ought to be have been his golden years are now turning into a tumult. Egged on no doubt by a coterie who was at a loss without him around. What else explains his emergence from what ought to have been his sunset years?
The second name is one that evokes images of the patriarch. His voice has often been the final word in many high-profile discussions that have needed an intermediary of impeccable integrity. The institution he created is the subject of much awe. If you were to ask me to read a eulogy to him in a single line, it would be this: “He was the Bhishma Pita Maha of all things you can ascribe to modernity in Indian business."
But the institution closest to his heart, and one he passed to the one who met with approval from both him and the board, is now cracking. The leadership is in exit mode. Private conversations with some reveal details of an ill thought out succession plan. I have it from them that when faced with a crisis, he would often freeze, and it was left to his lieutenants to take over.
What he couldn’t see, though, was that they had an agenda to push. Because when it was time for him to pass on the mantle, they fought a fierce battle behind the scenes. It was a dirty one, and he was completely oblivious to it.
Whether he was willfully blind is not known. Whatever be the case, the successor turned out to be among the most manipulative. The others left and have since moved on to head entities now sniping at the top dog’s heels. How else do you describe this, but stupidity on his part? This, in spite of all of his brilliance and foresight.
The Third (and golden) Basic Law: A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
This may sound preposterous. Before getting into some examples of how it plays out in life, let us carefully go over what Cipolla presents in his paper.
“When confronted for the first time with the Third Basic Law, rational people instinctively react with feelings of scepticism and incredulity. The fact is that reasonable people have difficulty in conceiving and understanding unreasonable behaviour. But let us abandon the lofty plane of theory and let us look pragmatically at our daily life."
“We all recollect occasions in which a fellow took an action which resulted in his gain and our loss: we had to deal with a bandit. We also recollect cases in which a fellow took an action which resulted in his loss and our gain: we had to deal with a helpless person. We can recollect cases in which a fellow took an action by which both parties gained: he was intelligent. Such cases do indeed occur."
“But upon thoughtful reflection you must admit that these are not the events which punctuate most frequently our daily life. Our daily life is mostly, made of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm. Nobody knows, understands or can possibly explain why that preposterous creature does what he does. In fact, there is no explanation—or better there is only one explanation: the person in question is stupid."
And Cipolla laughs it away. If you think about it for a while, it is not something to be laughed away. Because what Cipolla is eluding to is something very fundamental. And one that all of us are susceptible to.
Imagine a situation where you are walking through the aisles of your workplace and you happen to listen in to your boss tell the people on the human resources team that your pay be raised by, say, Rs5,000. For no apparent reason. And it is not even appraisal time. Undoubtedly, you would be happy.
Now, imagine, yourself walking down the same aisle. But this time around you hear that your pay is to be deducted by Rs5,000? What happens to you? How do you feel?
In the first instance, the money has not come to you. In the second instance, the money has not been deducted from you. They were suggestions. What if they were pranks being played on you by somebody who had no better way to expend time?
In any case, the individual managed to grab your attention and wear you out. How much more stupid can you get? But this is also the beginning of the theory of loss aversion. And out of it emerged a startling discovery that has been deployed to great effect by marketers to manipulate our minds to part with money.
There are various studies that have documented around it—most notably by the neurobiologist Dean Buonomano in his book, Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives.
In the brouhaha after demonetization, many of us went and signed up for e-wallets of all kinds. But did you consider this? All wallets are only as good as the network they operate in.
You deposited your monies there. It earns no interest for you, unlike it would in banks or even post offices. And you can use these networks only at places that accept them. I followed the herd and deposited some money in two e-wallets.
Many roadside vendors sport their stickers—including my chai wala. When I offered to pay him through the wallet, he said he doesn’t have it yet. I conducted an informal survey of vendors around the place I live in. Apparently, though many have the stickers they don’t have the systems in place. Some of those who do have yet to figure out how to operate it.
Who’s stupid? The vendors for allowing the e-wallet companies to plant stickers on their stalls to attract customers? People like me who loaded wallets up to ease life because we’ve run out of cash? Or e-wallet companies trying their damndest best to grow and incurring heavy expenses on advertising and putting into place an infrastructure that can meet demand?
As things are, I might be the stupidest of the lot, because my monies now lie with entities still scaling up and what I have on hand are IOU notes to vendors who don’t know what to do with them.
The Fourth Basic Law: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
I have nothing else to ask here other than why is it that non-stupid people engage in stupid arguments on social media and with vocal anchors on prime-time television?
The Fifth Basic Law: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
In spite of knowing about all of these, I routinely violate it.
What it means is, there is a thin line that separates ignorance and stupidity. While the ignorant can be forgiven for not knowing better, a stupid creature understands everything in theory, but chooses to behave in totally asinine ways. That makes a stupid person a very dangerous creature.
Much like those who wield political power right now.