I guess it depends on what you classify as stupidity, I’d wager the reason is a mix of:
People use intelligence for different things in different eras. Just as language, music, art changes over time, so does thinking. I’m just not keeping up, and assuming because kids these days can’t dance the mental Charleston that they can’t dance at all.
and
What I’m interpreting as rising stupidity has been the collapse in power and status of that clique and the political obsolescence of the variety of “truth” and “rationality” I internalized as a child. Those pomo philosophers were right all along.
The arguments here are many and long, so let me point of a few:
“Intelligence”, as was viewed “back in the day”, is associated with a corrupt meritocratic ssystem and thus people don’t want to signal it. See “The Tyranny of Merit”, I believe it explains this point much better, or for a quicker listen the PEL disucssion with the author.
You are not looking for intelligence, you are looking for “signals” of intelligence that have changed. You’r definition of an “intelligent” person probably requires, at minimum, the ability to do reasonably complex mental calculations, the ability to write in gramatically correct <their native language>, the ability to write (using a pen), and a college degree (or at leas the ability to sit still and learn in a college style education). But all those 4 skills are made redundant and thus potentially harmful for those who still hang on to them instead of, .e.g: Using a computer which include a spellchecker, using a programing language for complex computational problems, learning in short and efficient bursts from varried sources depending on your immediate interests. An 18th century puritan would think you are somehwat dumb for not knowing a bit of Greek or Latin and having not read at least one version of the bible in both those language.
As well as:
People ordinarily use different modes of thinking in different communications contexts. In some, finding the truth is important and so they use rational intelligence. In others, decorative display, ritual, asserting dominance or submission, displaying tribal allegiances, etc. are more important and so they use modes more appropriate to those things. It’s not that people are getting stupider, but that these non-intelligent forms of communication (a) are more amplified than they used to be, (b) more commonly practiced than they used to be, or (c) are more prominent where I happen to be training my attention.
E.g. you and I might think a famous yogi guru is stupid, but the yogi guru is healthy, well loved, makes loads of money, seems genuinely happy, works relatively little and enjoys his work. So is the yogi guru stupid or not understanding modern science ? No, he’s just manifesting his intelligence towards another fascet of the world that requires a different metaphysical grounding and different epistemology to understand.
It is possible that a set of social incentives that promoted “kosher 20th century western intelligence” as a core value made the market for “kosher 20th-century20th century western intelligence” oversaturated, so what you are observing now is just people branching towards other areas of using their intellect.
I guess it depends on what you classify as stupidity, I’d wager the reason is a mix of:
and
The arguments here are many and long, so let me point of a few:
“Intelligence”, as was viewed “back in the day”, is associated with a corrupt meritocratic ssystem and thus people don’t want to signal it. See “The Tyranny of Merit”, I believe it explains this point much better, or for a quicker listen the PEL disucssion with the author.
You are not looking for intelligence, you are looking for “signals” of intelligence that have changed. You’r definition of an “intelligent” person probably requires, at minimum, the ability to do reasonably complex mental calculations, the ability to write in gramatically correct <their native language>, the ability to write (using a pen), and a college degree (or at leas the ability to sit still and learn in a college style education). But all those 4 skills are made redundant and thus potentially harmful for those who still hang on to them instead of, .e.g: Using a computer which include a spellchecker, using a programing language for complex computational problems, learning in short and efficient bursts from varried sources depending on your immediate interests. An 18th century puritan would think you are somehwat dumb for not knowing a bit of Greek or Latin and having not read at least one version of the bible in both those language.
As well as:
E.g. you and I might think a famous yogi guru is stupid, but the yogi guru is healthy, well loved, makes loads of money, seems genuinely happy, works relatively little and enjoys his work. So is the yogi guru stupid or not understanding modern science ? No, he’s just manifesting his intelligence towards another fascet of the world that requires a different metaphysical grounding and different epistemology to understand.
It is possible that a set of social incentives that promoted “kosher 20th century western intelligence” as a core value made the market for “kosher 20th-century20th century western intelligence” oversaturated, so what you are observing now is just people branching towards other areas of using their intellect.