Tag: WW1

Stupid

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I was intrigued by this fascinating article by Sacha Golob in a recent issue of Aeon Magazine on the subject of being stupid.

“Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes.”

The example is given of the British high command, led by Field Marshal Earl Haig, during the First World War. Their mindset was formed from the cavalry battles of their youth, which actually hampered them in understanding what to do in the new situation of static trench warfare.

So we can be really smart people, yet act in a really stupid way if we do not have the right conceptual framework to work within. Now, we can see that humanity is behaving extremely stupidly in relationship to biodiversity and climate change, because basically it is operating from a conceptual framework that it is power and economics that really matter, to the detriment of both ourselves and our relationship with the natural world. So we have endless COPs that wring their hands, set a few targets, and then go back into the same comfortable mindset. Meanwhile, of course the problems get worse. The problem is the mindset itself!

Proponents of the need for a New Renaissance have often identified the need for a paradigm shift. In the terms of this article we ‘just’ need to stop being collectively stupid – another way of saying the same thing.

The article suggests that “stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals,” I’m not so sure – we all exhibit this phenomenon, so I suspect that most of us are stupid at times, individually as well as collectively.

I myself have recently become aware of a spectacular personal example. I was interacting with someone via social media, and thought I understood where they were coming from, becoming extremely confused when their interactions did not follow any pattern I could recognise, and which certainly did not coincide with my mental image of that person. It was only after much heartache that I realised that they were coming from an entirely different place, so that my responses themselves were totally imappropriate. I was being stupid.

How about you?

Featured image shows Field Marshal (Earl) Haig in Chantilly, France, December 1915, walking past French soldiers.
National Library of Scotland, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Geography and Stupidity

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The breakout of WW1 is a haunting occurrence for those of us born in the dying days of WW2, which finally brought an end to the European conflict begun in 1914, leading to the peace of the European Union since then.

How did that prosperous and confident Europe of the late 19C descend to such a self-defeating process?

It seems the answer lies in geography and stupidity. Read More »

Vanity and Happenstance

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand was heir to the Habsburg Monarchy, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. On 28 June 1900 he married Countess Sophie Chotek. The Countess was too lowly placed for an imperial Habsburg marriage, so did not become her imperial highness, and their children did not have the right of succession. She was not allowed to sit by the Archduke’s side on public occasions.

Franz Ferdinand was irked, but there was one loophole – his wife could be by his side when he was acting in a military capacity as Inspector General of the army. Thus it was that, in 1914 on their 18th wedding anniversary, he inspected the Bosnian army in Sarajevo, in an open carriage with his wife by his side.

With hindsight this was not a good plan. Bosnia was recently acquired by the Habsburgs and there was unrest from young men who wanted it to join Serbia instead. Several conspired, aiming to assassinate the archduke. They were young and inexperienced and there were several blunders.

By accident the archduke’s chauffeur took a wrong turning and had to turn round. One of the conspirators just happened to be there, saw them and shot the couple. Thus began a World War that was only fully resolved 31 years later.

Did it all really begin by chance? Some would say otherwise.

This story is told at the beginning of AJP Taylor’s book ‘The First World War’, an engaging read first published in 1963. I well remember Taylor’s articles in the Daily Express around that time – he was one of the great popularisers of history and then very controversial.

Periods of Renaissance

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In “The Heart of Man”, Erich Fromm relates social narcissism to the Roman Catholic Church and to the Renaissance, in an illuminating discussion on the nature of periods of Renaissance which might give us clues to the nature of a New Renaissance.

Humanism and Fanaticism

When considering narcissism in large groups, such as major religions, Fromm suggests that there are counteracting forces of narcissism and anti-narcissism at work. He uses the Roman Catholic Church as an example, the personal humility that is at the heart of Christ’s teaching being at the opposite end of the scale to the intense narcissism of a church that believes it is the only chance of salvation and its officers provide the only path to God.

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