We live in the age of the stupid. It’s not that people were not stupid before, or that we don’t have brilliant people in our midst anymore. The difference is that stupidity is now mainstream and legitimate. There’s not only a palpable sense of intellectual stagnation but non-serious individuals who would have earlier remained on the fringes of societal decision-making are now setting the agenda and exercising power. It is important to explore how this has happened.
Institutions of knowledge have been traditional sources of intellectual authority in society. Such institutions attracted the best and the brightest and provided a platform for collaboration and intellectual advancement. However, there has been a decline in the quality of institutional leadership across sectors and geographies. This decline has more to do with lack of integrity and moral courage than deficits in intellectual ability — but the resultant compromises have had an inevitable impact on the intellectual output of these institutions.
Moreover, institutions as a whole have struggled to keep pace with the rapid changes in society, in part due to rigid hierarchies and bureaucratic processes that have made them appear insular and unrepresentative. These factors have led to a widespread erosion of trust in institutions and loss of institutional credibility.
In this vacuum of intellectual authority, social media — with its global reach and assiduously value-blind approach to content — has powered the rise of a new class of individuals who are able to shape public opinion without necessarily having the depth of knowledge or experience expected from intellectual leaders. Serious engagement with the world and its constraints pushes thinking forward; however, the discrete, ad-hoc, and transient nature of social media requires not deep thinking but constant visibility. In any case, most of these individuals are not renegades looking to stand up to institutions or create a counter culture but social media influencers telling people what to buy, do and think. This modern-day evangelism has suffused our discourse with the gospel of stupid.
While this may describe our world right now, the question is what about our society has led to such a precipitous decline in the quality of institutional leadership. One aspect of this is the erosion of shared values which has created a pervasive atmosphere of moral relativism in which there is no clear demarcation between what is right and wrong. This moral relativism has been accompanied by the concomitant veneration of an ends-justify-means culture, in which wrongdoing is not only free from societal repudiation but is actually admired as long as it leads to success. Closely related to this is the sense that leadership positions are merely a vehicle for personal prestige and enrichment instead of imposing any responsibility for maintaining standards or greater collective good. These shifting societal mores have made opportunism, insularity and spinelessness virtually cost-free. The rise of partisanship has further dealt a blow to the intellectual foundations of our society. In a world where everything is viewed through the lens of “us vs them”, the aim of winning power takes precedence over intellectual honesty. This has led to a decline in the quality of discourse and a lack of internal questioning within partisan groups.
Given this context of moral relativism and partisanship, the way institutions select and promote leaders almost always leads to sub-par leadership. Institutional leaders are not chosen for their brilliance or moral courage but are selected through a process or nominated in an exercise of delegated power. In the first instance, those who excel at navigating internal power structures or manipulating institutional processes are often deal-makers not big thinkers. Those who get picked for leadership in a form of delegated power must necessarily stay within the confines of that power structure and are thus de-facto status quoists. Power factions necessarily choose leaders who are focused on propagating a particular point of view instead of engaging with multiple perspectives, thus lowering the intellectual bar. This has led to the rise of illiberalism, the suppression of dissent, and has contributed to intellectual stagnation in our society.
The second question is what has fuelled the rise of opportunists, charlatans and hucksters on to our public discourse. It is true that the rise of infotainment, the fragmentation of media, and the increasing polarisation of our politics have all contributed to a situation where stupid ideas by genuinely or wilfully stupid people can quickly gain traction and influence. However, this is not just an organic process. Real money and power is backing this through creator funds and delegated power in a bid to consolidate their own money and power. In each of these instances, there is no value judgement on the quality of what is being said or done as long as it is serving the instrumental purpose — increased engagement or partisanship — of the backing authority. Moreover, traditional sources of intellectual authority have lost credibility and gatekeeping power. This has made it possible to have real careers on the back of nonsense while also giving nonsense mainstream legitimacy in society.
These issues are not insurmountable yet we do not see a concerted effort from the powers-that-be to fix them. This is because there is a feeling among some political and corporate powers that the age of stupid can be instrumentally harnessed for their own agenda. They believe that as long as the world at large is engrossed in stupidity, their own endeavours can continue without interference; others believe they can ride the wave of stupidity to shore up their own interests. This tells us that ultimately, this surfeit of stupidity is not a crisis of intellect but a crisis of values.
The writer is the executive director of Future of India Foundation.
