On Stupidity: The Trouble with Systematic Thinking

Flaubert said “Stupidity lies in wanting to draw a conclusion.” By this he meant any attempt to reach a conclusion stops the act of thinking when there remains something to be thought. Qualifying something as systematic also points to providing a framework that can explain problems and speedily reach conclusions. This form of reasoning, at times closely associated with rationality, is opposed to stupidity. The task of this course will be to question the grounds on which this opposition stands. Therefore, we will study four portraits of systematic thinkers to show that, as Flaubert said, the stupidity lies in the conclusion. These portraits, which include the bourgeois, the bureaucrat, the fanatic and the copyist, present a commonality: they assume their intelligence. Yet, there is stupidity in their acts. We will see that by closely examining stupidity alongside rationality, different facets to thinking and more importantly learning rise to the surface. Stupidity, unthinking or unlearning, become equally matters of concern. There might, after all, be merits to stupidity, unthinking and unlearning! Readings will mainly be borrowed from philosophy and literature as we focus on Nietzsche, Flaubert, Musil and Arendt amongst others. An important guiding inquiry that the course will be returning to is that of knowledge acquisition on the one hand and that of thought generation on another. Through these portraits, we will look at what it means to “make sense,” and the problem with common sense. Based on discussions relevant to that question, the Pedagogy LAB will be producing a dictionary of stupidity. The dictionaries we are accustomed to are trusted sources of correct and “intelligent” information. Here our aim will be a dictionary written from the standpoint of stupidity, one that goes against common sense. This will be an opportunity to consider more seriously how the nonsystematic manifests itself in knowledge production.