The Natural History of Stupidity

Here's a book that should be translated into a K through 12 curriculum in every language, with periodic examinations required before graduation into adult society. Scores on examinations could appropriately determine the level of responsibility warranted for individuals, providing of course, the right to re-testing at any time. Immigrants could be expected to achieve a passing score as well, and even driving licenses of various kinds could be proscribed. Those who do not trust the idea of a panacea and who are skeptical of utopian-sounding notions should be comforted knowing that the human potential for stupidity is apparently boundless, there will always be ample material for the satirist. The subject of the book is the enormous damage wrought by sheer stupidity. It comprehensively describes the awesome loss and damage due to stupidness. Distinctions covered include the purpose and stupidity of greed and prejudice and the sources and corruption of power. These abstractions are defined in a comprehensive review of the history of stupidity. I propose that this book and its ample bibliography be used to form a new and thorough curriculum for childhood education. With a policy I call, No Idiot Left Behind (NILB), those with lower scores on their Stupidity exams (who are relatively more stupid) could graduate and still enjoy creative pursuits as they do today, including economic opportunities and they may sell drugs and procreate freely (racial and ethnic prejudice supports the myth that stupidity is a genetic difficiency) but would have to specially qualify for levels of social responsibility or to become licensed pharmacists. Implementation of this curriculum would entail limiting access to technology of all kinds, voting privileges and participation in endeavors requiring a high degree of ethical, moral or technical judgment; such as, police work, education, child care, medicine, food preparation, law, government, zoo-keeping, driving heavy machinery, military, etc. (Taking on any significant level of responsibility requires a high resistance to and comprehension of stupidity both in oneself and others.) Those who wish to keep domestic animals or to build a human family and who test too stupid to nurture such relationships could be rewarded for learning to understand their limitations in remedial work in a core group of understandings, and hands on training with dolls and Steiff bears. (This could take the form and place of AA groups, NVC counseling, and so on.) Individuals who harm themselves or others, whom we presently incarcerate and stigmatize as "felons", demonstrate that they are too stupid for privileges of trust pending remediation and restitution as appropriate. (This class should probably be expanded to include most currently incumbent elected officials and the management levels of all government bureacracies as well as those of large corporations, at least for two generations.) In this context "mental illness" is a con-game: a