Stuart Jeffries

A Short History of Stupidity

Sprache: Englisch.
gebunden , 336 Seiten
ISBN 1509563490
EAN 9781509563494
Veröffentlicht 12. November 2025
Verlag/Hersteller Polity Press
28,00 inkl. MwSt.
vorbestellbar (Versand mit Deutscher Post/DHL)
Teilen
Beschreibung

We are living, it is often said, in a golden age of stupidity, in which boneheaded, mendacious politicians get elected by voters who've become too mindless to realize their interests are ill served by narcissists, while vapid social media influencers corrupt their no less witless followers with groundless conspiracy theories and eye-wateringly foolish takedowns of scientific expertise. Our time, one might be forgiven for thinking,  is one in which the fool's gold of stupidity has become a desirable commodity, a must-have, with bumbling celebrities venerated more than those who have more than two brain cells to rub together.    In this book, Stuart Jeffries analyses how we got into this parlous state and wonders if the stupid, like the poor, are always with us, or if, rather, stupidity is like Japanese knotweed,  difficult to root out but to be exterminated with extreme prejudice. He considers what some of the greatest of minds - Socrates, Buddha, Voltaire, Arendt, and  others - have to tell us about the slippery nature of stupidity.     During a narrative that takes us from ancient Greece to artificial intelligence, and accompanied by such heroes of stupidity as Flaubert's double act Bouvard and Pécuchet, Jeffries casts a sceptical eye on attempts to root out stupidity by such means as IQ tests, eugenics, gene editing, and racist education policies,  finding each attempt to be more stupid than the stupidity they were ostensibly devised to eradicate. If today we are living in a fool's paradise, has our species become too dim to learn anything from its rich history of folly? We are living, it is often said, in a golden age of stupidity, in which boneheaded, mendacious politicians get elected by voters who've become too mindless to realize their interests are ill served by narcissists, while vapid social media influencers corrupt their no less witless followers with groundless conspiracy theories and eye-wateringly foolish takedowns of scientific expertise. Our time, one might be forgiven for thinking,  is one in which the fool's gold of stupidity has become a desirable commodity, a must-have, with bumbling celebrities venerated more than those who have more than two brain cells to rub together.   In this book, Stuart Jeffries analyses how we got into this parlous state and wonders if the stupid, like the poor, are always with us, or if, rather, stupidity is like Japanese knotweed,  difficult to root out but to be exterminated with extreme prejudice. He considers what some of the greatest of minds - Socrates, Buddha, Voltaire, Arendt, and  others - have to tell us about the slippery nature of stupidity.   During a narrative that takes us from ancient Greece to artificial intelligence, and accompanied by such heroes of stupidity as Flaubert's double act Bouvard and Pécuchet, Jeffries casts a sceptical eye on attempts to root out stupidity by such means as IQ tests, eugenics, gene editing, and racist education policies,  finding each attempt to be more stupid than the stupidity they were ostensibly devised to eradicate. If today we are living in a fool's paradise, has our species become too dim to learn anything from its rich history of folly?

Portrait

Stuart Jeffries is a journalist and author. He was for many years on the staff of the Guardian, working as subeditor, TV critic, Friday Review editor, and Paris correspondent. He now works as a freelance writer, mostly for the Guardian, Spectator, Financial Times, and the London Review of Books. He has written several books, includingMrs Slocombe's Pussy, Grand Hotel Abyss, and Everything, All the Time, Everywhere.

Das könnte Sie auch interessieren

vorbestellbar
19,99
Kelly Jordan
Das kleine Haus am Meer
Gebund. Ausgabe
vorbestellbar
15,00
Stephen Hogtun
LIEBE
Gebund. Ausgabe
vorbestellbar
17,00
Tara-Louise Wittwer
NEMESIS' TÖCHTER
Taschenbuch
vorbestellbar
18,00
Eva von Redecker
Revolution für das Leben
Taschenbuch
vorbestellbar
16,00
Anna Lippke
Eat what you need
Gebund. Ausgabe
vorbestellbar
25,00
Sebastian Fitzek
Der Nachbar
Gebund. Ausgabe
vorbestellbar
25,00
Walter Moers
Qwert
Gebund. Ausgabe
vorbestellbar
42,00
Ursula Krechel
Vom Herzasthma des Exils
Taschenbuch
vorbestellbar
18,00
Senlinyu
Alchemised
Gebund. Ausgabe
vorbestellbar
34,99