A New Scientist Best Book of the Year

Stupidity. There’s so much of it around nowadays. It often feels like it is killing us softly with its song. But is there really more stupidity than ever before? And what exactly is it? Are we sure we know it when we see it? It’s not quite the same as folly. Or ignorance. Or error. How should we define it? How has it been defined over the centuries? Is it something we learn to be? Is it something we can learn to stop being? Is it an instinct? Is it a defence? Can it be a policy? Can it be a political force? Are we safer being stupid together or alone? Should stupidity be resisted or ignored? Does it change, has it evolved? Stupidity, what is it good for, doh?

All these questions and more Stuart Jeffries asks in a scintillating, serious and only intermittently silly study of a much-derided, much-lampooned, much-remarked, but under-analysed aspect of the human condition that we neglect at our peril. He puts his questions to the likes of Aristotle, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Huxley, Adorno, and Kraus, to see how their answers tally up. The arithmetic of stupidity is taxing, but we must master it if we are to avoid failing the test of being human. Let this book be your revision guide.

'From Shakespeare’s fools to Donald Trump, this exhilarating read considers stupidity in its many forms. It’s not all straight philosophy. Jeffries gives us affectionate readings of Don Quixote and Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pécuchet, dips into the rich menu of stupidities available in King Lear, as well as making the odd excursus into cognitive science. And the abstract question of whether rationalism is the greatest stupidity of all is given concrete force in Jeffries’s chapters about IQ tests (their inventor, we discover, would have been horrified by the stupid way they came to be used), eugenics, the “mass stupidity” of totalitarianism and the “structural stupidity” of life under late capitalism.'

Sam Leith, The Guardian

‘With an impressive range of reference from Schopenhauer and Foucault to Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, Stuart Jeffries’s book succeeds in being both deeply serious and very funny, without ever sounding sneering. The fight back against stupidity begins with this fiercely intelligent book.’

Professor Joe Moran, author of Queuing for Beginners and Armchair Nation

'A Short History of Stupidity is bracingly clever, densely didactic, and intimidatingly well-informed. I doubt that anyone who spends some time with Jeffries’ book won’t feel a little less dumb than hitherto.'

Telegraph

‘This book is lively, provocative, witty and – not least – intelligent.’

Professor Peter Burke, author of Ignorance: a global history

'Lively and at times bitingly funny... In a series of thematic chapters, Jeffries explores with brio the ways throughout history, from Plato on, in which thinkers and societies have formulated and conceived of stupidity. It is a phenomenon, be it permanent or temporary, that he says is big business, the necessary grist for scammers, marketers, advertisers, algorithmic engineers, and not a few politicians, to keep their lucrative wheels turning.'

The Irish Times

'In his A Short History of Stupidity Stuart Jeffries treats idiocy with humour, intelligence and (relative) brevity. Jeffries made his name as a writer who can tackle serious topics with a disarming and sometimes deceptive levity. These skills are most clearly on display in his book on the Frankfurt School, Grand Hotel Abyss. He walks a delicate line between a fear of taking himself too seriously and a desire to treat his subjects seriously enough. At his best, he uses humour to spice up his intelligence, not to disguise it.'

Julian Baggini, Literary Review

'Jeffries’s quest to understand stupidity is a historical, political and global take, so we’re off on a great philosophical adventure, through Plato, Socrates, Voltaire, Schopenhauer – and multiple obscure and less obscure thinkers. Also included are various schools of Eastern thinking (Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and more), which take a different view from the West, in that the pursuit of intelligence may get in the way of personal development or the enlightenment Buddhists call Nirvana. All in all, there are no signs of stupidity in this delightful and unexpected book.'

Liz Else, New Scientist

'A wide-ranging exploration not only of stupidity, but also wisdom, epistemology and their cultural manifestations.'

Morning Star

'It seems undeniable that something is out of joint in our collective intellectual life. The current political situation makes this “a good time to write about stupidity,” Jeffries writes. When he notes that a central trait of stupidity is that it “can be relied upon to do the one thing expressly designed not to achieve the desired result”—or “to laughably mismatch means and ends”—he makes “stupid” seem like the perfect way to characterize our era, in which many people think that the key to making America healthy again is ending vaccination.'

Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker