The end of foolishness

It is very easy to describe other people as stupid and very often this judgement does not base on a deeper consideration of a special person or his circumstances, but the personal disgust and negative feelings one has toward someone else. But this shall not be the topic of this article and I am going to discuss something more serious here.

Why do people act in a stupid way? What is it, which makes a certain person act in a way, witch cannot be understood by reason or any experience of life? I have been studying human beings for a long time and I confess, that this activity has always been one of my favourites, and I came to the conclusion, that stupidity is not a basic characteristic of the human, but one of his behaviour. Stupid people are not stupid per se, but in their action alone. Eric Berne, the great psychiatrist of the humanistic psychology of the 1950ies and 60ies, has found out, that human beings act according to a script which is created in early childhood, up to the age of six or seven. From that time onwards, people are occupied by executing the script in all aspects of their life, until the die (I consciously exclude the cases of the possibility of “liberation”, which exist in a human life of course).

It has been said, that you see the true intentions of a person, by his or her action. I believe that this is definitely true, especially if you consider the traditional psychology and it’s teachings, but if you look at human beings more as a creation to be, than as a fixed entity who cannot change, you see a lot of activity which cannot be explained by the ordinary way of academic teachings. What do I mean by this bold statement? Well, my provocative statement is the following: No human I born stupid, what we consider as stupidity is nothing else but the role someone plays within a social situation he is born into! In other word: People are stupid, because they are thought to behave in that way. Modern pedagogy knows that fear is producing stupid people. The shyer a person (a child normally) is, the more such a being will be considered as incompetent, and in the future as stupid. The more fearful children are, the poorer their academic achievements will be. The most scared children within a classroom of a school are also the children which succeed miserably in the academic world. Studies around the world have shown, that there is a direct correlation between courage and academic performance, at least in the eyes of the people who have to make the judgement, who have to pass on the school marks.

So, what does it need to change a “stupid” person into “normal” or even “intelligent” person? The key lies withing the mindset of the pupil. If we can change the way a child thinks about himself, we also can change his faith, his future. The first step of a system, which applies more to reality of life, is one which does not evaluated a child according to an “outside” standard, like a school system, which uses a hurdle according to which every person must obey by passing it. Staying in a class, because one could not take the hurdle, means, that someone could not fulfil the demands of the system. But what does that say at all? So abolishing staying in a class where else everybody else gets promoted to the next level, is crucial to a modern school system.

“Stupid” people stop being stupid, if they are allowed to be wise, if they are allowed to be intelligent. That is it, what is needed desperately. If an individual is allowed to be intelligent, he or she will also show intelligent results. Stupidity is no destiny. It is up to us to help others to reach this “higher” regions of being.

But what we also need instead is a system, where discipline has a very high value, so that learning, knowing something, fulfilling one’s purpose becomes something he or she gets promoted for, is very important. We need a system, which is promoting the “old” values of discipline, correctness, concentration on a issue alone, and achieving academic levels on the other side, very strongly. By the way, we must be sure about one thing: human beings are unique and everybody is able to show much more to the world, as anybody could ever imagine. Having this idea in mind, we could concentrate on the performance of any individual in a very different way. We would believe into the abilities of everybody and would consider every child as a champion, as a winner. By doing so, we would get not only much better result, but also make society much more productive and joyful. What we want from our children is not so much, what we want, but much more them to fulfil their own potential, to be the maximum they a person can be. Isn’t this a wonderful perspective? Much more, it could be a recipe for peace and harmony amount all humans, if nobody would have to compete to someone else, but be considered worthy because of what he or she really is, as the individual is created by god, the creator! It may be a dream of the future, but if we all dream it, there is a good chance that it is becoming the reality of tomorrow. Our children should be worth it!