Lack of intelligence?

Why do stupid things keep happening? Why do people support things that are obviously bad, dumb, wrong, and evil, in transparent ways? Why does the world seem to be getting dumber and dumber, all the time?

The usual answer is that it’s because people are stupid—that if they were better educated, and really understood what was going on, and what their own interests actually are, they would change and support a state of affairs that is more conducive to their own interests being advanced.

Is this really the case? Are people stupid—and becoming more stupid? This is an appealing way of looking at things, because, for one, it positions you, the observer, as, of course, beyond this stupidity, looking down on the stupid masses, shaking your head in disapproval at their dumbness. It also seems to suggest a kind of solution—that if only people were made to be less stupid, through education, then everything would be better.

But I don’t think this is the case—that the world is getting worse because everyone is stupid, and getting more stupid.

One of the best little philosophy books you can read to understand the modern world is The Present Age by Soren Kierkegaard. Writing in the 19th century, he anticipated, in striking ways, the kinds of social and spiritual decline that have accelerated throughout the 20th and now 21st centuries.

But Kierkegaard doesn’t pin this decline on a lack of intelligence—far from it! In fact, the opposite is the case—people know too much, more than people have ever known before. Even in the 19th century, before modern technology really took off, Kierkegaard could sense that information overload was impacting spiritual development. He writes, “Everyone is well-informed; everyone knows what one is supposed to know about religion, philosophy, literature, and so forth... What results is a dangerous indifference to what it means to believe, to act, to be committed.”

The problem, then, is not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of courage. This is what is really going on in the modern world, and especially today. People don’t lack intelligence; they don’t even lack knowledge about what is going on, or even about what should be done. What is lacking is courage to act on knowledge.

But this is understandable, because what is it, anymore, to act? What would “courage” even look like? Aren’t these concepts absurd at this point? Our time is so deeply sunk in information, so full of knowledge, that something distinct from knowledge, like action and courage, are hard to even conceive of—and if they exist at all, they are mocked, scorned, ridiculed, dismissed, and attacked in all kinds of ways.

There is no context for courage, or action, to exist—this is the problem, much moreso than a lack of intelligence. But going even deeper than that, what is a lack of courage? It is a moral failing. It is people choosing evil, not because they aren’t well-informed enough—as I described above, people are nothing today if not well-informed. The problem is people, by the millions, actively choosing evil, because they have come to prefer it, and because it’s easier.

And this gets to the core of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, which he said was to make life more difficult, because as life becomes easier, people get used to choosing what is easier, and evil is easier than anything.