{"id":223,"date":"2020-12-31T23:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caarchives.org\/?p=223"},"modified":"2021-07-22T14:31:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T06:31:42","slug":"did-somebody-say-stupidity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caarchives.org\/did-somebody-say-stupidity\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Somebody Say Stupidity? | Li-Chun Hsiao"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u3010<\/strong>by<\/em> Li-Chun Hsiao, Dec. 2020\u3011<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst the first waves of massive Covid-19 casualties across Europe (particularly in Italy and Spain) and shortly thereafter, in parts of the Unites States, the overriding yet unofficial response (to the extent it\u2019s acquiesced, if not encouraged, by the officials) of Chinese netizens was, I paraphrase by translating, \u201cthey\u2019re so stupid they don\u2019t even know how to copy our homework,\u201d or, \u201cjust copy my homework, you stupid,\u201d[1]<\/a> while the official mouthpieces touted a new narrative in which China emerged as a victorious survivor of the pandemic, having made sacrifices itself and standing ready to save the rest of the world from the ravages of the novel coronavirus whose purported origin in China it disputed. On a related note, though without the gesture of gloating, a Japanese academic reached out to the only two Taiwanese colleagues he knows, including me, to check on us, and, more importantly, to complain about the \u201cstupidity\u201d of the Abe administration\u2019s promotion of the \u201cGo-to-Travel\u201d campaign for the upcoming summer holidays, highlighting, at the same time, his praise for the Taiwanese government\u2019s handling of the pandemic situations in Taiwan that, as a sharp contrast, exposes the ineptitude of his government. As a Taiwanese working in Japanese academia who obviously cannot reap the benefits of the \u201cTaiwanese model,\u201d I\u2019ve often found that such talks about stupidity, rampant across the world this year and in nuanced forms and tones, tend to give me pauses (though the last example might have induced in me a sense of vanity or even some faint nationalistic pride). For one, it is unlikely to help the matters even if you\u2019re proven right that they\u2019re stupid: The \u201cgetting-back-at-you\u201d overtone of the Chinese netizens (because of those countries\u2019 criticisms of China\u2019s handling of the earliest outbreak in Wuhan) could turn people off; on the other hand, in very practical terms and at this late-breaking stage of the global pandemic, the \u201csuccess story\u201d of Taiwan, where no community transmission had been reported for months and any such case can still be contact-traced, isolated, and contained, simply cannot be \u201ccopied and pasted\u201d to Japan, or any country where local transmissions have been too numerous to be effectively contact-traced, let alone contained (though for health experts elsewhere, parts of the experiences in Taiwan can still be gleaned to shed light on their own efforts in combating the virus). Moreover, as we jokingly refer to Taiwan as a \u201cparallel universe\u201d now, what strikes me as alarming is not only the increasing disconnect between here and there (in experiential and affective terms, not in the sense of Taiwanese being unaware of what\u2019s going on outside of Taiwan), but also the mutual incomprehension and reverse stupefaction: Why can\u2019t they do the same thing and achieve the same result? If it\u2019s only worked there, it probably can only work there. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If stupidity is that which stops thought in its tracks or what short-circuits thinking, then such stoppage or malfunction likely also applies to those who call others stupid, on some front or another register. Stupidity as rhetoric doesn\u2019t seem to merit conceptual unpacking (it\u2019s a waste of the philosopher\u2019s time!), and those who call out others\u2019 stupidity don\u2019t even bother to define or clarify what they mean by stupidity (it\u2019s so plain to see\u2014stupid!) In fact, it may well sound stupid if one tries to theorize the term. Yet the talk of stupidity can give rise to more serious consequences than sheer rhetoric, especially in the contexts of the global health crisis. In what follows, my reflections on stupidity shall stay close to the coronavirus situations, without working from a definition from the outset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Un)timely Stupidity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I propose that it is timely to rethink stupidity, to give the figure of the stupid another chance to be reconsidered along with our deployment of the rhetoric of stupidity, precisely because of the ill-timed proliferations and infectiousness of stupid acts and the corresponding stupidity talks in the global pandemic contexts. First of all, there have been the widespread phenomena of stupefaction of different types and amongst various groups and locations, ranging from scientists to laymen, from the success stories of combating the virus to the tragedies of the hardest hit areas, or even the scales of casualties and the sense of defenselessness in the face of the latest wave after having kept the virus spread under control at one point in the earlier phases. We haven\u2019t learned anything from the coronavirus crises if we haven\u2019t realized that we may be on the brink of being rendered stupid as well as vulnerable by the pandemic situations, if not having been exposed so (momentarily at least) already. Second, with the stupefactions of experts come the uncertainty and the unknowns in science apropos of the coronavirus and the resulting inconsistencies of health policies, especially in earlier stages of the outbreaks\u2014a prime example being the WHO\u2019s and many governments\u2019 initial downplaying of the effectiveness of mask-wearing, which they now claim is quintessential in preventing the spread. Which proffers further opening for people\u2019s credulity to wild conspiracy theories, and the breeding ground for untimely and ill-advised distrust directed at measures that are based on the knowns and evidence-based science. Instances of stupidity with regard to the Covid-19 situations rarely present themselves as wholesale rejections of science, but, rather, as some amalgamation of popular science and pseudo-science: While Donald Trump\u2019s jaw-dropping enactment of the fantasy\u2014on live TV\u2014of bleaches cleansing our bodies of the corona virus may be an extreme example, it illuminates projections of desire, of what many want science to do for us, similar to the expectation that the vaccines will magically make the virus disappear\u2014which, as experts have warned, is not going to happen as quickly as people wish. Such a \u201cpassion for ignorance,\u201d which is as good a working definition of stupidity as any, and to which I shall return, reinforces itself and exerts its spell most powerfully when it averts confronting its groundlessness, when it sutures its ignorance with rationales, justifications, and bits or facades of scientific knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads us to the surprising entanglement of stupidity with rationality and intelligence. It is important to note that although Immanuel Kant characterizes stupidity in terms of a \u201clack of the power of judgment\u201d\u2014an incorrigible deficiency \u201cnot to be helped\u201d and \u201cnever to be ameliorated\u201d\u2014he nonetheless underlines the pervasiveness and inherence of stupidity in many, including the \u201cvery learned,\u201d intelligent people.[2]<\/a> While distancing myself from such a presumption about the \u201cpower of judgment\u201d (you either have it, or you don\u2019t), rather than one based on immanence (everyone has the potential to access it), I would go as far as to say that stupidity can be inherent, too, to the functioning of the human faculties, that the most brilliant people, whether possessing the transcendent judgment or not, can be susceptible to stupidity on some issues or certain facets of life, at least momentarily, at various points of their lives. For, as Levy Briant puts it, stupidity is \u201ca spectre that perpetually threatens thought,\u201d[3]<\/a> even if conceived as exogenous to us. The unfoldings of the coronavirus situations have laid bare the uncertainty or even helplessness of our assessment of the ever-evolving information and advices pertaining to the virus and protections against it, and have inevitably increased the wager of our trust. For instance, what critical faculties in the laymen of science who have done nothing but \u201clisten to science\u201d can assure themselves, short of a leap of faith, that the coronavirus transmissions are airborne\u2014a finding that had been resisted by experts in related fields for months but has now finally been accepted in these communities\u2014and therefore it\u2019s not necessary for us now to disinfect surfaces? The contingency and uncertainty of our threshold of trust is thus coextensive to the uncertain and blurred threshold of biological modernity, exacerbated by the virus\u2019s undermining of the kind of scientific certitude that also shored up and legitimized the state\u2019s biopolitical power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Stupidity to Subreption<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that stupidity cannot be disentangled from rationality and intelligence, and that everyone can be susceptible to stupidity, it is imperative to note\u2014lest I should be considered stupid\u2014that these givens don\u2019t mean it\u2019s okay to be stupid. Not all stupid acts are the same and result in the same scales of consequences, as stupidity manifests itself in varied forms and shapes. Instead of risking some rigid taxonomy of stupidity, I take my cue from Levy Briant\u2019s suggestion that we link stupidity to one of the three fundamental passions identified by Lacan and uncover \u201cthe paths of desire and the ways of life that actively invite stupidity.\u201d[4]<\/a> I venture to say it is subreption that needs to be called out, rather than stupidity. Why subreption? According to an OED definition, subreption means the \u201csuppression of truth to obtain indulgence.\u201d Its characteristic indulgence aside, we also need to highlight subreption\u2019s recourse to the unconscious as well as Kantian elaborations on it. In a theoretical move akin to that of Lacan\u2019s \u201cKant avec Sade,\u201d Joan Copjec argues that \u201cthrough subreption, a supersensible idea, that is, one that can never be experienced, is falsely represented as if it were a possible object of experience.\u201d[5]<\/a> In this light, the subreptitious act on a void or perceived lack of certainty<\/a>, turning an imaginary vision that is only supersensible or tends to elude consciousness into full-blown scenarios to make themselves and others believe. Subreption feeds on the same passion for ignorance, albeit with an acute self-consciousness of their own ignorance that, however, can function as if it remains unconscious: Recall the George Costanza character from Seinfeld<\/em>, who once offered a classic piece of advice on beating the lie detector\u2014\u201cit\u2019s not a lie if you believe it.\u201d In other words, the stupid are susceptible to being duped, whereas the subreptitious actively dupe themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what do the stupid want? They want to be stupid\u2014but don\u2019t want to know, or have not the capacity to know, that they\u2019re stupid. That\u2019s why they need the spark and the example supplied by the subreptitious to keep them from knowing that they\u2019re stupid, or shield them from confronting their stupidity by inciting or channeling antagonisms towards identifiable \u201cenemies,\u201d especially those who call out their stupidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

AUTHOR<\/strong>
Li-Chun Hsiao, Waseda University, Japan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/news.ltn.com.tw\/news\/world\/breakingnews\/3086868<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason<\/em>, translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge UP, 1998, B172.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Levy Briant, \u201cThe Pedagogy of Problems and the Figure of Stupidity\u201d in Larval Subjects, https:\/\/larvalsubjects.wordpress.com\/2007\/02\/25\/the-pedagogy-of-problems-and-the-figure-of-stupidity\/<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Joan Copjec, Imagine There Is No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation<\/em>. Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2002, 149.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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