I have noticed that alot of people think the majority of people are stupid based on the things they read online or maybe even experience in real life but I think that there is better explanation than just assuming people are stupid.
A common example people bring up to show that other people are stupid is mentioning how a lot of people believe in conspiracy theories ( such as Qanon or Flat earth) and point out how they are objectively false therefore the people that believe it are stupid.
However when you examine these beliefs in more depth there is obviously some amount of internal logic that is used to justify these beliefs to themselves and others in the group.
You can go to flat earthers forum and they can give huge amounts of “evidence” about how light shouldn’t be visible after 50 kms if the earth was round or how in Qanon there are probably people who have whole boards detailed with connections between how and where democrats participate in satanic rituals but my point is that all conspiracy theories tend to form one cohesive narrative like a collective story that are building.
To be able to make a story that is this detailed it definitely required some amount of forethought and reasoning to make it so everyone in the group reaches the same collective understanding.
This then might lead you to ask why are people susceptible to these ideas and what makes them stick. Well I think that it boils down to three different things.
- Our collective feeling that things aren’t going well
- Our general distrust in current authorities
- Our collective belief that an authority is good/necessary
When you look at how people tend to be influenced into accepting these beliefs it also follows this same general pattern.
- People feel that some part of their life isn’t going well and that current institutions aren’t helping them anymore.
- A guru/influencer shows up and offers advice (sometimes good advice) to fix their problem
- People then start trusting these gurus/influencers and seeing them as authorities
- Finally these people take what these gurus/influencers say at face value and build internal lore for their community that makes sense to them given that they accept what the new authority says as fact.
If you want to tackle the root of what makes people susceptible to these ideas you have to tackle those three things or else people will fall into those same traps just with different authorities saying different things.
Also as a semi-related point there are a million and one things that an individual can choose to focus on and become knowledgable about so whilst some people spend that mental capacity on understanding tech or politics others spend that mental capacity on flat earth theory or UFOs.
Main point:
So all of this is to say I think that people aren’t stupid and that we should not treat them as they are such instead if we understand that they are capable of complex reason but they are starting with different base knowledge it’ll be easier to empathize with others. Also if we want society to be less susceptible to this we need to fix one or all of the three things I mentioned that makes us susceptible.
I don’t think I entirely agree with your point here and don’t fully understand what you are trying to say as it seems like you went on a bit of a tangent at the end there.
As for people not actually being stupid I tend to agree. If you could objectively test the inner working of their brain you would likely find that it is working just fine. They still have the ability to process language, spatial awareness and all that good stuff that makes a person smarter than most other creatures on Earth.
But due to some cognitive dissonance there is some tidbit of information their minds absolutely can not reconcile that leads to seemingly weird conclusions to a person that doesn’t share the fundamental understanding of that same information. All of humanity would probably run into this same problem if aliens suddenly appeared and explained the way things really are despite it being completely at odds with everything we know to be true.
If I were to simplify it I’d say people aren’t stupid just because they have incorrect beliefs. Even the incorrect beliefs that people do have tend to have internally coherent reasoning.
Conspiracy theorists tend to refute your position. They can hold simultaneously mutually contradictory beliefs.
Mutually contradictory beliefs can happen because we don’t have infinite attention. I can agree with something today and three years from now agree to something else that might be contradicting to that old belief. If it is never pointed out and is not relevant to that individual then those beliefs don’t get challenged and even if they do they are soon forgotten because they are not reinforced by not facing those conflicting beliefs together alot or because their social circle doesn’t reinforce thinking about the contradiction.
Edit: wording
No, they will actively hold mutually contradicting beliefs and spout them back and forth, and refuse to back down on them when it’s pointed out they contradict each other.
That is not the same as changing your mind after a few years and new information coming along.
Ex falso quodlibet. Start with any false statement and you can coherently and logically reason anything from it. That doesn’t make these conclusions correct… (the implication would be technically correct, but that’s not the same as the conclusion being correct).
So arguing they’re not stupid because they can logically reason is kind of stupid in itself, because these people still believe wrong facts to be true