Human stupidity is nothing new in politics | Letters

As part of my academic paper How Could I Have Been So Stupid?, I argue that, throughout history, human stupidity has always been a relevant issue, with enormous political consequences (A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0, 2 October). Much of what we believe to be “rational” is shaped by delusion: we cling to simplified explanations, even when evidence proves them false.

Human beings have always lived with a psychological structural stupidity, a kind of symbolic impoverishment contained within our intelligent capacities, a tendency to mythologise events, distort memory and behave as if half aware of our own misperceptions. We idealise leaders, invent grandiose theories and develop conspiracy stories hoping that they will all fulfil our deepest yearnings; they feel real enough to shape collective behaviour, whether in politics, religion or social movements.

Psychologists map this terrain with concepts such as “bullshit receptivity”: the readiness to accept superficial slogans, pseudo-scientific claims or comforting myths, rather than engaging in critical thinking. As the historian Rick Shenkman observed, this manifests either as “wooden-headedness” (believing what we wish were true) or “bone-headedness” (succumbing to cliches and stereotypes). None of this requires malevolence, but it demonstrates an unacknowledged wilful attitude.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in 1943 that under the spell of rising power, people cease to act autonomously; they become vessels for slogans and catchwords. In today’s politics, this is painfully familiar. The challenge is to confront the universal and stubborn presence of stupidity in all of us, an enduring part of our intelligence, which makes us susceptible to propaganda, delusion, pseudoscience, being gaslighted and self-deception.
Gregorio Kohon
London

William Davies’ article on stupidity touched on the rich lexicon that has arisen during the Trump era. Examples such as “post-truth”, “alternative facts” and “fake news” were given as examples. There’s another word which should surely be used in common parlance and it’s been around for a while. That word is “trumpery”. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “trumpery” first appeared in English in the mid-15th century with the meaning “worthless nonsense.”. Less than 100 years later, it was being applied to objects of little or no value.

There is a noteworthy example of its use in 1851 when the opening of the Great Exhibition was drawing near. The English-born King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover thought that the exhibition was a bad idea, and he wrote to Lord Strangford about it: “The folly and absurdity of the queen in allowing this trumpery must strike every sensible and well-thinking mind.”
Vaughan Dean
Ampthill, Bedfordshire