Will Homo Stupidiligence determine our future?

Our common understanding of our self-knowledge builds on liberal ideals: Freedom of expression and the ability to shape your life and fulfil your dreams in reality. However, this self-knowledge is out of touch with the facts and reality we face. As human beings we need to understand that our privileged but ruthless exploitative life style is no longer sustainable. We need to develop a new self-knowledge.

BY BENJAMIN KATZ

In our part of the world we tend to overrate the rationality of human beings, the free will and capacity to learn from our own and other peoples’ experiences and thus we fail to learn from our reflections and mistakes. This is caused by our upbringing – and influenced by our humanistic and individually focused way of life. But the time has come for ending this blind and tremendously damaging humanistic outlook on life. The time has come for presenting a new and sustainable paradigm.

Most psychologists with long term practice know the irrational zigzag courses that influence many individuals, groups and institutions. We behave in a stupid and short sighted way regarding wars, the climate changes, the increase in population, our financial affairs, health in general and as a consequence we jeopardize the future of our grand-children. However, we consistently act in a stupefying way, and this – in my view -makes us Homo stupidiligence rather than Homo sapience.

This homo stupidiligence is characterised by short term behaviour as he possesses a troublesome and unstable combination of intelligence and darkened stupidity. This mental deficiency may result in the demise of our species.

We should have acknowledged this mental deficiency a long time ago and we ought to have come up with a strategy for reducing its ill effects.

Below I will present seven psychological mechanisms that characterise Homo stupidiligence. We need to learn how to identify and fight these psychological mechanisms in individuals, groups, institutions and the society at large if we intend to secure a future for our grandchildren.

Seven psychological characteristics

1. Short term gain- long term pain: Homo stupidiligence is very poor at long term planning with long term perspectives. Generally he will choose the short term benefit even though it results in severe long term problems. The financial crisis of our time is a clear example of peoples’ short sighted behaviour based on greed and instant gain.

Likewise our physical health suffers. More and more people are harmed by hormone-like drugs that exist in our foodstuffs, beverages, shampoos and creams. At the same time the agricultural businesses increase the use of pesticides. These are a few examples of the combination of cynicism, laissez-faire and short sighted stupidity as well as greed that characterises Homo stupidiligence.

2. Homo stupidiligence is subject to the The tragedy of the commons, meaning that each individual person will aim at gaining his own short term goal and interest rather than the long term interests for the common good and thus eventually create major collective catastrophes. In the sixties Garret Hardin recognised this psychological mechanism and its scary but inevitable occurrence.

In our civilisation we have degenerated into a serve-your-self-mentality. Unrestrained we consume of the globe’s limited resources just like pigs in a pigsty. When it comes to tangible and independent action people behave in a greedy and ruthless way regarding our common future; we cut down trees in the Amazon and exhaust and pollute our drinking water reserves. Only a minority of the population is willing to sacrifice their own individual interests in comparison to the common good for our future for all. Recent research has revealed that four out of five Danes state that they are willing to relieve the global problems as long as it does not reduce their own living standards.

There are numerous examples of the validity of this tragedy – we will see the next examples already at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, in December 2009, where the interests of national states most likely will triumph and supersede a sustainable solution for the common good for all of us.

Illusion and self-promotion (ego-cultivation)

3. Homo stupidiligence is subject to a compulsive search for reasons where no coincidences actually exist. This is the foundation for all religions and the transcendental manifest explanations that millions of people accept. This is how we create meaning and cope with the unpredictability of life in order to restrict the need for questions so that we avoid the insurmountable aspects of life. Yet the problem with this train of thoughts is that it is based on an illusion and as such not compatible with the complex and dark reality we have created and live in. Our escapism and lack of will to confront reality causes us to fall over our own legs time and again. Had my family members in Poland not believed in and put their faith in God as a guarantee for justice on earth and the salvation from the Nazis, then they might have had a chance of survival either by fighting or fleeing.

4. The world wants to be deceived so it is deceived. Homo stupidligence is subject to this premise. We possess an impressive talent for legitimising our absurd actions to ourselves and as a consequence we voluntarily wander into traps and blind alleys. Equally is – as problematic as our religious escapism – our self-promotion and fantasies of our own omnipotence, our escape into drinking and doing drugs, overeating etc. We glorify our society as being the best in the world while criminality and the numbers of criminal gangs are growing fast in our midst. We have become masters of deceiving ourselves and denying our problems.

Consumerism and Bullshit

5. Homo stupidiligence is subject to a conspicuous consumerism. This phenomenon was brought to light by the Economist Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class. It is characterised by: a) people buy and use status symbols in order to draw attention towards themselves and to project wealth and success and surpass others; b) people with this behaviour demonstrate indifference towards waste and pollution. We are used to throwing away useful items and instead buying new prestigious items. This environmentally damaging behaviour and monkey-see, monkey-do-attitude is widespread and most of us recognise it within ourselves. This trait of stupidiligence, consumerism, is now threatening our future existence.

6. Homo stupidiligence produces noise pollution which promotes his own stupidity. We have created and maintain a gossip culture with numerous confusing, treacherous and stupefying information and signal-overflow. You need only listen to a news and debate program a single evening in order to establish that many participants are either mentally deficit or seem to think that we as listeners are. With such a flow of banal absurdities and insignificant information it is no wonder that more and more people become pacified. The amount of information bullshit people are exposed to, confuses and decomposes the human brain.

A search for meaning

7. Homo stupidiligence seeks transcendental meaning in life but takes the road of escapism towards it. Basically we strive at achieving “nobility of our soul” by transcending our earthly life. But since we are forcefully restricted by the previously mentioned psychological mechanisms, it is extremely difficult for us to focus on the real way of achieving this nobility, namely: to take on the long term, concrete challenge for our survival and well-being. Instead many people focus on religion as means of transport to the life “beyond” or they hunt for superficial fame. We invent a world of clever ways to boost our feelings of importance and try to fill our very ordinary lives with meaning.

Our individual limited mental mechanisms create what I label a “stupidiligence syndrome”. Most modern people have been infected by it. It manifests itself as an institutional stupidity with worldwide consequences for our societies, consequences we have witnessed on a global scale already during the latest decades.

The showdown of a paradigm

Mainstream psychology presents us with self-knowledge that does not confront the seven mental deficiencies which I described above. Our common understanding of self-knowledge builds upon the liberal ideals: Freedom of expression and the ability to shape your lives and fulfil your dreams in reality. However, this self-knowledge is out of touch with the facts and reality we face. Once we accept that our current paradigm is useless and can no longer be changed so it works – and that our privileged but ruthlessly exploitative lifestyle can no longer continue, – we need to teach people a new self-knowledge. This should be build on the pressing necessity of present times, sustainability, self-control, self-discipline and a fair amount of will to sacrifice e.g. our lifestyle in relation to factual projects that aim at improving the common good for all on a long term basis. Only with a show-down and conclusion of our values of self-destructive consumption, and a realisation of our failed humanitarian attitude can we learn to stay clear of the abyss that our stupidiligence behaviour is taking us towards and as a result provide us with a realistic possibility – through our actions – to achieve genuine nobility of the soul.

Benjamin Katz is a clinical psychologist and the author of “The Fifth Narrative, The Wiser Ascent of Icarus”. Authorhouse. 2004, and of “Global Psychology. Solving Eddie`s Dilemma”. Xlibris. 2008.

I slutning af 2009 forlader jeg Psykologcentret Trekanten frivilligt efter næsten 25 års arbejde og vil starte op som free lance samtidigt med at jeg vil skrive 3 bøger som “I the Mutant, and the Praise of Folly” er den første i rækken.

Fra begyndelsen af 2010 kan du komme i kontakt med mig enten ved at skrive e-mail: katzbenja@gmail.com eller sende sms til min mobil: 40767357.

Min nye klinik´ adresse fra 1.1.2010 er: Østerbroggade 142.1th. Den er placeret i en læge praksis(Lise Willumsen) og der er mange transportmuligheder såsom bus nr. 14 fra Nørreport Station eller 1A fra Østerport Station, eller bus 18 der kører gennem Jagtvejen. Man kan også køre til Svanemøllen Station og gå . gåturen tager knap 8 miuntter. Der er også parkeringsmuligheder for dem som foretrækker at komme med deres bil.