what is a stupid person?

A&E are brilliant when you have an emergency. But less good when you have a chronic health problem. A&E procedures follow rules and checklists and work very well indeed. But many problems are chronic and need a different approach. To use the wrong approach is stupid.

Of course we are all stupid from time to time.

But a long term stupid person is one who is wedded to either the notion of rules or the notion of incentives.

This includes very many so called clever people- and of course the majority of politicians.

A left wing politican believes that with the right rules for business, and the right incentives for poor people, solutions to long term chronic problems will be found. The right wing politician believes that with the right incentives for business and the right rules for poor people long term solutions for chronic problems will be found.

Both ignore the obvious- with chronic political problems (which is most problems in the developed West): rules and incentives have been proved not to work. The fact is, in politics as in life, you also need practical wisdom to act without being stupid.

Sometimes a rule should not be followed. Sometimes an incentive won't work. But how do you know when? You have to suspend your robot mind and use your intuition- based on experience, observation, balance and foresight.

When stupid people face a problem that can't be obviously solved by rule or incentive, and, since they have become so rusty they can't sense useful intuitions, they fall back on emotion (backed up by clever rationalisation- ie. big data). This describes a large number of people in positions of authority. And this is why most people have a poor opinion of authority figures.

The single biggest useful development in education is to encourage people to develop the third path- that of practical wisdom- the path between rules and incentives.