How do we react to stupidity then?

Let's revisit a topic that I had written about way back in 2013 - that of stupidity. Back then when I wrote the article, I had a very angry reaction from a reader who felt that I had crossed the line by even labeling people as stupid. In a most recent article, I had labeled president Trump's choice to build a wall on the Mexican border as stupid because it simply will not stop illegal immigration. Stupidity is everywhere around us and most of us don't feel bad about laughing at stupid people. Here is a video that has well and truly gone viral in the last few days - it involves a Filipino quiz shows and some contestants who can't figure out how many years is 24 months. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the clip.

You get the idea, but why do so many people find it hard to deal with stupidity? Look, I had to deal with this on a personal level just this week - because it was Chinese new year, my sister wanted to Skype me and I thought, yeah why not. My mother who doesn't usually join in on the conversation decided to sit in on our Skype call. My sister started asking me about the work I am doing in corporate finance and I couldn't resist asking my mother if she knew what I did for a living. Long pause. "Something to do with investments, money, right?" Okay, we're off to a good start, I didn't expect her to understand how corporate finance works but at least I wanted to get some kind of recognition that I am dealing with some seriously complex work here. So I asked her point blank if she realized that my job was difficult and her reply left me in shock. "Yes it is very difficult because I remember you had to call a client in Australia - it is very hard to calculate what time it is over there, because of the many time zones difference, right?" Good grief.

Yes I deal with clients all over the world from Australia to Mauritius to Switzerland to Chile, often using other languages as well - figuring out what time it is over there is the easy part. Even if I am not sure what time it is in Sydney for example, I would just google' Sydney time'. It really isn't that hard - but then again, my mother is not on the internet so she has no concept of trying to do a google search, how scary it must be to live in a world of ignorance, where you are limited by what you know. Now I deal with a convertible bonds specialist in Sydney called James and he could potentially buy up huge tranches of my bonds, making me an extremely rich man whenever he buys up an entire issue like that. Figuring out what time it is in Sydney is the easy part - the hard work begins after I say, "good morning James." But even if she heard what I discussed with James, it would have just washed over her - her understanding extended only as far as I was talking to a man in Australia where it was morning when was night for me in London.

What is your reaction when you witness stupidity?

Are time zones that difficult? I don't think so, I think it is so simple it can probably come up in a primary three or four maths test. "Sydney is 11 hours ahead of London. If Alex in London wants to call James at Sydney at 9 o'clock in the morning Sydney time, what time should Alex make the call?" Answer: 10 o'clock at night. 9 - 11 = -2, you then take 12 midnight - 2 hours = 10 o'clock at night. Heck, that's so simple probably a primary one kid would be able to work that one out. But no, my mother unfortunately would be one of those people on that Filipino quiz show who wouldn't be able to work out simple maths problems. Now for my mother to be impressed with my ability to figure out time zones when doing a complex deal with a convertible bonds trader, that's like going to the Taj Mahal and being impressed with the door knobs instead of actually looking at the big picture and seeing the whole darn palace. Yes I can work out time zones in my head, but I can do a lot more than that actually and my mother doesn't actually realize that at all. Sigh.

"This building has nice door knobs". 

Should I be surprised at my mother's reaction? No, I shouldn't - this was hardly the first time my mother came up with something like that. I could sit here and list all the dumb things she has said over the years, but it suffices to say that she is (how do I put this delicately) a moron. That's why she was a primary school teacher as she cannot understand anything more complex than the PSLE syllabus and even within the PSLE syllabus, she would struggle with the more challenging content. I do remember when I lived in Singapore all those years ago, I would learn to ignore her whenever she said something downright stupid. But now, since I hardly speak to her anymore, whenever she spouts something incredibly stupid, I tend to notice it more. But the next question I suppose is what we ought to do when we encounter someone stupid? I have compiled a list of reactions below that summarizes what most people do.

Reaction 1: scorn

I'm afraid scorn is the most common reaction you will find in this world. If you were to look at the comments of the Youtube video featuring the Filipino quiz game where neither the kids nor the parents could work out how many years is 24 months, well, they are mostly very unkind remarks. I only have to cast my mind back to my own experience in primary school when the stupid kids in class were bullied quite cruelly for simply being more stupid than everyone else. Humans can be extremely cruel - I suppose we are culturally conditioned to look down on people who are stupid out of a fear of being stupid or worse still, being perceived as stupid by others. By reacting with scorn, we send out a message to the world, "I do not identify with that stupid person, I do not extend any empathy to them, I am not like them, please do not think that I am stupid like them." Or maybe we're just evil people looking for any excuse to bully anyone. Bullies do enjoy putting down people whom they perceive to be inferior - such is the mindset of the bully.

Bullies usually react with scorn.

Reaction 2: grace

Fortunately, this is also a fairly common reaction too. Even if we witness someone saying something equally stupid, we censor ourselves before we say anything cruel. Instead, we try our best to be nice and say something reassuring to comfort the person who has just made a fool of themselves. Sometimes it can be something as simple as saying, "don't worry, it's okay" to someone who has clearly said something embarrassing or stupid. In the case of the Filipino game show, when the first contestant guessed '40 years' when the right answer was 2 years The two compares are experts when it comes to reacting with grace - the female host casually said, "we're all hoping for such a long lasting relationship, right?" She gracefully managed to stifle any reaction to indicate that it was clearly the wrong answer by a long way despite the fact that the audience was already roaring with laughter. We can all learn a lesson there about reacting with such grace - I'm sure this is the kind of thing a TV host would have to contend with daily.

People who react with grace often given the other party the benefit of the doubt because it is entirely possible that a person who makes a silly mistake with one topic like mathematics may be gifted in an unrelated field, like music or languages. During last year's series of Amazing Race China season 3, one of my favourite contestants Jin Xing had a complete meltdown at the roadblock in Moscow when she had to calculate time zones. Now this woman is a famous TV talk show host in China, she is witty, articulate and funny on TV. In the programme, she demonstrated that she had a range of skills from picking up really complex dance routines quickly to speaking a few languages (unlike some of the other Chinese contestants who struggled with English). Yet it seems this woman just couldn't get her head around the concept of time zones and had to beg another contestant to help her through the task to avoid elimination. Even as she left that task, Jin Xing joked that she had studied mathematics at 失败学院 (the institute of failure) - demonstrating that her talents lay in languages and humour, not maths. I adore Jin Xing, she is such a lovable, hilarious character.

Are time zones really that confusing?

The test in Moscow wasn't too hard: contestants were shown a map of Russia with a list of cities in their different time zones, bearing in mind there are a total of 11 time zones in Russia. They are then shown a piece of information like "it is now 2130 in Los Angeles (GMT -8), work out the time in these Russian other cities such as St Petersburg, Moscow, Irkutsk, Kazan, Samara, Perm, Sochi, Vladivostok etc." So you would then have to work out the time difference between Los Angeles and Moscow (GMT-8, GMT+3, Moscow is 11 hours ahead of Los Angeles) and then work that out for all the other Russian cities on your test: it involves just some addition/subtraction to arrive at the right answer. If you know what you're doing, it really isn't that hard. So when I watch a woman like Jin Xing struggle with a test like that, I simply conceded that okay, she never needed to work out time zones for her job as a talk show host but that has never held her back from achieving great success in China. By that token, Jin Xing has demonstrated that it is okay to suck at maths as long as your livelihood doesn't depend on it and you are still able to find success without maths. 

Reaction 3: sympathy

Some people actually go further than grace - they react with sympathy. Why is this person so stupid? Did something go incredibly wrong with their lives - like did they suffer a traumatic bereavement or did their parents divorce when they were young and that interrupted their education? People like that are motivated by kindness at the end of the day: they are more than happy to extend the benefit of the doubt when confronted with stupidity and refuse to believe that this person is quite simply, well, stupid. These people may even go as far as to acknowledge that this person they are dealing with is indeed stupid, "but it's not your fault, it's society's fault, it is the system's fault; I don't blame you for what happened, I know you deserve help, love and sympathy, not judgement and certainly not scorn". People who have this kind of sympathetic disposition usually end up in quite caring professions such as teachers, carers, social workers and nurses. These people are generally considered nice people because of their willingness to always be sympathetic.

Is sympathy an underrated virtue today?

I have actually discussed the situation with my mother with a friend - let's call her Angie. Now Angie is one such sympathetic character, she listened to me patiently describing how my mother can drive me crazy sometimes and then she reacted with only sympathy, there wasn't an ounce of judgement on her part. She explained that women's from my mother's generation didn't get the kind of education they deserved and on top of that, she faced a lot more sexism growing up in a different time. The combination of poverty and sexism kept women like my mother from becoming ambitious or even having much self-confidence as they tried hard to bring up their kids in an rapidly changing world. "Please try looking at things from her point of view instead," Angie said that my mother's lack of education was to be blamed for the many stupid things she said and did, but she placed the blame squarely on "society" rather than my mother and said that people like my mother deserved only sympathy for her predicament and not my harsh judgement. I can see how Angie's sympathetic approach to life makes her a very likable and easy-going person.

Reaction 4: gratitude 

Now this is a strange one but someone has actually put this to me. Sometimes we witness someone who is worse off than us - for example, if we see images of Syrian refugees stuck in a makeshift shelter in a dilapidated camp somewhere on the Turkish border, then one reaction you may experience is to feel grateful that you have a roof over your head in a peaceful country. Since I pointed out that both my parents are - well, somewhat simple in their ways and neither of them are particularly intelligent, someone has once said to me, "just be grateful that you didn't take after them in the brains department. Can you imagine if you were so stupid that you couldn't handle anything more complex than the PSLE syllabus, then you would have to follow in their footsteps and become a primary school teacher in Singapore like them? You have the brains to work in finance in London, you have the skills to work as a foreign talent from Paris to Dubai to Berlin to Istanbul to Prague - why can't you just be grateful for what you have and the way things have turned out? You have nothing to complain about - things worked out okay for you. Please, just be grateful."

Should we instead choose to be grateful?

Reaction 5: indifference

Finally, some people simply do not bat an eyelid when it comes to witnessing stupidity. These people simply decide to ignore it and move on - why? Perhaps they are simply not interested in what is going on, or maybe they are just so used to it. Also, they realize they can't change anything with scorn: scolding a stupid person isn't going to 'cure' them of their stupidity - no you just make them feel bad for being stupid. I spent some time in the USA last summer and when I first got there, boy I noticed that the people there were really, really fat. But after a few weeks there, I supposed to just got used to the fact that Americans were generally quite overweight and I just became fairly indifferent to it all. People who are indifferent won't say anything scornful to insult the stupid people they meet - they won't say anything nice either, they'll just pretend they didn't witness the act of stupidity and get on with life - much the same way I didn't even bat an eyelid when I saw yet another very fat person in Florida. Perhaps they may experience a mix of emotions ranging from scorn to sympathy to gratitude upon witnessing the act of stupidity, but they would never express any of those feelings and all you'll see is a poker face. Many of us learn to suppress our feelings and default to indifference.

As for myself, I suppose I must admit, my reaction is usually always scorn. I am a nasty, mean, scornful person. I am incapable of being sympathetic like my friend Angie and perhaps I should learn to be more grateful for the things that I have in my life. Often however, I do train myself to react with indifference: I'm sure you've heard the saying, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything". Believe you me, when my mother made that remark about time zones, I bit my lip. I didn't attack her for it, I showed indifference and just let that remark slip by. Scolding her or mocking her won't change anything. Of course, the scornful part of me then bring it up in my blog and tells all my readers about it. What kind of person are you? How do you react when you encounter stupidity? Are you sympathetic or do you refuse to suffer fools gladly? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading.