Don’t Make Yourself Stupid

“Don’t make yourself stupid…” My dad said this to me a few times when I was growing up. I think this phrase was intended to remind me not to overcomplicate things, not to make small problems big, not to confuse myself with speculation, but to look for the best in others and just solve the problem at hand. Later in life, I learned James Whitcomb Riley’s maxim, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” Sure enough, this logic can break down, because things are not always what they appear to be, but the Indiana poet was being practical. Was this his way of saying, “Don’t make yourself stupid?”

In college, I learned about Occam’s Razor. “The simplest solution is most likely the right one,” or “Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity,” or more simply, “never make any unnecessary assumptions.” The more assumptions we make, the more our conclusions tend to be invalid, or dangerous. The more “ifs” a person believes, the more he or she can sound like a conspiracy theorist.

I’ve also learned about Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” This is an extension of Occam’s ideas. One of Robert Heinlein’s fictional characters said, “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.” I’ve added Murray’s Corollary: “Never attribute to nature, fate, or God that which is adequately explained by human stupidity or carelessness.” It’s easy to blame others – especially those who are not like us, or who disagree with us – when we multiply “entities” unnecessarily. So, we begin to think the other person, party, or candidate is the source of all that is wrong with the world.

When something bad happens, was it a deliberate attempt to do evil, or an accident, or a mistake? We can make ourselves stupid trying to find malice when we should be trying to learn from our mistakes. And it’s amazing what we can learn when we start with the premise that we need to understand what went wrong rather than decide who to blame. Even so, sometimes when bad things happen, we discover someone is indeed responsible, but that’s a topic for another essay.

In our emotionally charged political climate, our desire to confirm our suspicions is often stronger than our desire to see the truth. So, we make ourselves stupid. We believe we are in the dark while we have access to the light. We refuse to believe the truth because we have been “taken in” by those we should have been able to trust. We have become like the Dwarfs in “The Last Battle” from “The Chronicles of Narnia” by CS Lewis, who refused to see, smell, taste, touch, or hear any of the good that Aslan offered. They chose to walk in darkness, while others chose to walk in the light. Even Aslan could not change their minds.

“Aslan,” said Lucy through her tears, “could you—will you—do something for these poor Dwarfs?”

“Dearest,” said Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.” He came close to the Dwarfs and gave a low growl: low, but it set all the air shaking.

But the Dwarfs said to one another, “Hear that? That’s the gang at the other end of the stable. Trying to frighten us. They do it with a machine of some kind. Don’t take any notice. They won’t take us in again!”

After being offered a sumptuous banquet, the Dwarfs still believed they were trying to eat whatever hay, old turnips, and cabbage they could find in the stable. They even fought among themselves over the scraps. “…when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said:

“Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

The Dwarfs had made themselves stupid. They had been duped before and were afraid of being duped again. After hearing too many lies, they had concluded there was no truth but their own. Only their opinion counted. Only their faction could be trusted. Only their kind mattered. Anything else became an insult, an attack on everything they held dear. Was Lewis portraying the Biblical concept of “hardness of heart?” I think so. Still, it’s painful to learn that what you’ve been told is wrong, even if the way out offers hope.

Like the Dwarfs in Lewis’ story, we can make ourselves stupid. We can be confounded by unfounded theories. We can conflate all kinds of -isms even though doing so has no meaning relevant to the problems we face. We can falsely accuse others of being malicious – to keep or gain political power. We can be motivated by fear and the hatred inspired by that fear – some have killed others over mere assumptions and prejudices. We can believe it’s “us” vs. “them” and insist on absolute loyalty to our side. We can refuse to be “taken in” by ideas we don’t like or persons who question our comfortable world views.

On the other hand, we can open our hearts and our eyes, realizing we are not always right, and the other person is not always wrong. And we can make different choices. GK Chesterton reportedly replied to the question, “What is wrong with the world?” in just two words: “I am.” Each of us, in our own way, is responsible for “what is wrong with the world,” not the political or religious opposition, not those “other people,” and not those who are striving to have the same freedoms and rights as everybody else. Perhaps we can be a little less selfish, a little less proud, and a little less insistent on having our own way all the time.

In “The Weight of Glory” CS Lewis wrote, “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.” We can begin by keeping our assumptions and speculations to a minimum. We can seek honest, straight-thinking solutions to the problems we face. We can give others the benefit of the doubt. We can work together. We don’t have to make ourselves stupid.