All the participants of the scene are dead, the viewer sees a round window into the world of "pitecanthropes" who died in their lifetime. This is Bosch's verdict: stupidity is tantamount to the death of the human soul.

Hieronymus Bosch - extracting the stone of stupidity

A tour of the museum. Today we sat down at the canvas Bosch and enjoy the stupidity . 

Immediately depicted and the second companion of the "healer" - a monk, uttering incendiary speech, holding a jug of wine. Most likely, he is going to stupefy both wine and his speeches of Mr. Lubbert.

Wine will help the fool to make sure that he is smarter, as beer helps the modern person to make sure that watching a football match - the most important thing in the world.

Intoxication is an external substitute for self-satisfaction with one's own life and its meaning. Just as the fact of having knowledge on the Internet is only an external substitution of one's own knowledge- one's own, individual view of the world.

Mr. Lubbert in bosch's painting will soon find a new-found mind in the monk's sweet speeches and drunken wine, as a modern man finds confirmation of the exclusivity of his own mind on social networks and... in the same drink-driving or smoked shoal.

What is the main stupidity of Mr. Lubbert?

"He's not going to deal with stupidity by getting his own mind. He wants to be made smart by others and runs the law of the market : demand creates supply.

The main essence of Bosch stupidity is the hope that someone else will "cure you" ... Smart. Someone smart for us will do meaningful or responsible things, someone else will think for us, and we... we will "eat, drink, sleep for our own pleasure."

Can we rely on people and things? And yes and no. Mr. Lubbert hopes for the charlatan and the money he paid him for the "operation."

How do Mr. Lubbert's hopes differ from ours? 
People falling into sects (under the sect Editorial understands a slightly greater range of life circumstances than the generally accepted legal significance of the Sect) , so, people hope that to think for them and pave the way to a bright future, to freedom and happiness, to other their aspirations and aspirations will be a smart leader of the sect of adherents, almost always posing as a banal charlatan. The student is known to be hoping for a gadget in his pocket and does not acquire his own knowledge. We can name any role and position of the person and make no mistake. We all hope that the mind will be someone else who is used to trust. But circumstances change, people also change, at some point there may be a failure. Not a timely analysis of the situation and blind belief leads to sad consequences. Not timely and wrong diagnosis of the problem always leads to sad results. 

There is, of course, the hope that "we still had with us," as one famous satirist used to say, implying a bottle of alcohol. As you know it's a way to escape from reality. 

Mr. Lubbert at least feels like a fool. He thinks there's something unnecessary in his head that prevents him from being smart.

It's "unnecessary," as Bosch says, and it turns out to be the hope for the "smart" - it's the "stone of stupidity."

The most critical attitude of the hero of the picture to his mind is the key to his ability to "smart", that is, the ability to learn, even on his own mistakes. Mr. Lubbert will be smarter when he realizes that he has been deceived... Or not? 

It's much worse with us. Most of us consider ourselves "smart" a priori. Modern man considers his stupidity "mind" or "practicality."

Really! Why do you need to spend your efforts to form your own view of the world, every philosophy or painting there, if everyone has already done everything for you?

These efforts need to be spent because they teach the ability to generalize.

Understanding deception is not the only condition for Mr. Lubbert to gain a "mind." There is another important circumstance: will Mr. Lubbert be able to summarize the experience?

Will he be able to understand that deception applies not only to specific charlatans - barbers who remove the "stones of stupidity", but also to all who will promise to think for him, "put the mind" in his head or "cure" him from stupidity.

If Lubbert can not generalize the experience, his behavior will continue to be manipulated by charlatans, upstarts who know "how to live", pseudo-guru, doctors from TV and social networks, quotes plucked from thick books, and of course - alcohol.

Modern man is constantly afraid that they will be "manipulated." But only fools can be manipulated. It is possible to manipulate only people who do not know how to generalize their own experience, that is, those who do not know how and do not want to learn to think independently.

Perhaps this should be the purpose of education, and not the "assimilation of knowledge" depicted on Bosch's canvas in the form of a book lying on his head, separate from the head.

"Smart" people who are afraid of manipulation are the easiest to manipulate because they unconsciously want to be manipulated. It is enough for such a person to say: "Look, all around the charlatans! All... Except for me! Just look at my diplomas, confirming that I alone know how to remove the "stone of stupidity" - and a grateful client will be in Mr. Lubbert's chair.

I don't think Mr. Lubbert can be able to get back. In the picture it proves a dark background, a dull desert landscape and an empty gallows in the distance, it is as if prepared for us by distant descendants of this landscape. 

In a world where everyone hopes for the mind of the other, "smart" simply does not remain ...

Want proof? So they are close, helped us in this 2020 and continues to help the first decade of 2021 , these two calendar seasons of the 21st century have not left us alone ...

If a person who harvests wood sits on a branch facing the trunk and saws 🪚 branch, he does not take into account the law of gravity. A lot of other examples and they are united by irresponsibility - to act without thinking about anything ahead, that is, not to answer for anything now and in the future. By type: if we always find something extreme. 

One of the main functions of the human mind is effective interaction with reality. To solve this problem, you need the mind - the ability to analyze this reality and interact with it. 

Did you have the impression that the modern man is sick of all this?

Physical bodies are tired of taking into account Newton's laws. Are officials tired of taking into account the laws of society, economists - financial laws, and analysts tired of analyzing cause/investigative ties ? 

Can stupidity become the new navigator of freedom and the desire to get rid of all and all laws of nature?

But let me tell you, Freedom is freedom 🗽. We will never call man's meaningful desire for freedom stupidity. However, a reasonable person, "breaking firewood" at work, with a sense of accomplishment comes home, telling the family that the "goat" chief is to blame; and instead of analysing your own life, he turns on the TV and watches football with a bottle of beer in hand. If you ask why he needs this stupid occupation where 22 dudes chase the ball 🏀, he is sure to say something clever, he will crush his knowledge in this discipline. That's how the circle closes. A reasonable person does not need rest from thoughts. 

The thought of it is the main property. If a person is intelligent, he rests wisely. 
Back to our tour and the canvas Bosch. 

In the Middle Ages and a little later there was a belief that stupidity is associated with the presence of some extra stones or growths in the human head. If you remove them, the person will immediately get smarter. The picture is written in the format of "tondo": the picturesque plot is in a circle. In the painting of the Northern Renaissance, Bosch, among other things, the circle is a sign of universality, the world-wideness of the plot of the painting. Concluding his composition in a circle, the Dutch artist stressed: before us is not an isolated case, but an allegory of the entire human race. Apparently, and almost six centuries ago, the problem of stupidity was felt no less acutely.

In the painting in the middle of a dull landscape there was a company of four people. In the center next to the table sits in a chair gray fool, over which produce some action.

Market relations have always been, even B.C., and surely demand always generates supply. The cities and scales roamed the charlatans, they really carried out such operations. Holiness in Bosch is an inalienable and obligatory companion of human stupidity. Images of charlatans filled with all his early creativity, and creativity 🧑 🎨 is born from life situations and they are overcrowded with these situations and our world.

In the picture, a charlatan in a long chlamydia professional magician makes a simpleton, which, judging by the inscription, the name Lubbert, an incision on the scalp. Tulip grows out of this little wound. In medieval European sleepers recorded the main symbolic value of the flower - it is a symbol of deception. The essence of the surgery was to make an incision on the scalp and conjured over it hands, to show the patient a hard stone hidden in the hand in advance or a piece of bloodied bull tendon.

Bosch depicts an inverted funnel on the charlatan's head, another sign of cunning or deception. On the canvases of the mysterious artist you can often see things of this kind - things that are in the wrong place or used for other purposes. They serve as a sign of unnaturalness, stupidity of the events depicted. In Bosch, these are signs of inconsistency between people or things in the Creator's craft.

If you look closely, in the depths of the landscape, among the brown-red plain, there is an image of the gallows. It must be a sign of a distant but inevitable death. The image of the gallows is somewhat reminiscent of a question mark. It turns out something like a question: what will remain after death from the characters of the picture?

What remains after the death of a man who, like the pithecanthropus Ayuykh, "ate, drank, slept for his pleasure", and from stupidity he was "treated" by others? 

- hysterical dishonor. 

True, from a particular pitecanthropus begins "The Book of Destiny" in the fairy tale of the Strugatsky brothers "Monday begins on Saturday", but how many such "pitecanthropes" will disappear from the face of the earth and from the good memory of descendants forever ?

On the head of a nun-runner, present on the canvas as a companion of a charlatan, lies a book - another sign of stupidity.

The book contains divine knowledge. The nun from Bosch's canvas has knowledge not inside the head, but outside - again not where it should be.

Today, knowledge is on the Internet, and fools all think that they are in their heads, are their property. However, true knowledge is what a person has learned, what he can use on his own. Neither a nun from the 15th century canvas, nor many modern people even try to put it where it should be.

Mr. Lubbert in the picture of Bosch clearly catches the buzz of giving himself in the hands of a charlatan, soon he will safely find confirmation of the newfound mind in the sweet speeches of the monk and drunk wine, as the modern man finds confirmation of the exclusivity of his own mind in tv and social networks and in the same drunk glass of alcohol or smoked joint and endless conversations about nothing. 

The thoughts of 💭 sinful after the views of demonstrations around the world 20/03/2021 yesterday: where in society and on Earth takes so many fools? Even though you don't watch TV, don't watch the Internet and don't read books... Tell me to get rid of the martyrs, where do so many fools and fools come from? Which, according to the generally accepted standards of evaluation of their intellect, bank account and place in individual puzzles of society, is not fools and fools? 

They just live and that will not say get admiration ... I've been taking this topic for a long time. And not only me, a mass of philosophers turned to the same sin, if you turn to the history of the question ... 

A fool is not a fool, a fool is a person with a strong lack of knowledge or who does not know how to apply his knowledge in practice. Fool is some biological level of human underdevelopment.

A fool is a special state of human intelligence. A fool is not a moron, an oligofren, a fool, a moron and not an idiot! Fools are found among all strat society ! And among schoolchildren and among officials and among academics and directors! I have long smelled it, intuitively feel, by my personal stupidity, often trying to explain to fools ... But where do I have them... Yesterday came to a new level of understanding of this complex concept - a fool. 

The fool eats the owner of a kind of form of implementation of a certain program of life and attitude to it! The fool always wants everything at once, and often he is able to achieve his goals in his stupid ways, contrary to all the capital truths, known data, textbooks and sciences! 
Fool is a specific, specific temporary type of self-consciousness of a person: I am here and now! The fool understands everything in his own way, in stupid, but does everything so as to achieve his, usually not far, goals. Become over fools and not fools the main fool. In everyday life, in school, in sports, in politics, it is such an inverted way of looking at being, which provides the fool the most effective achievement of his stupid goals with a minimum of intellectual costs on his part. And a comfortable feeling. 

The fool goes exactly in the direction of life, where he will get what he most desired, meaningful and important here, now and with these people . This is the main difference between a fool and a fool, a fool or an idiot. Those goals are rarely achieved and then accidentally. There is no intuitive understanding of how to behave! 

The concept of "fool" or "fool" reflects not form, but the very essence, character, method of thinking, expressed above all in the fact that the fool is a pure pragmatist, materialist-practice, completely devoid of what is called morality, conscience, morality - a person sharpened for actions purely pragmatic, without any "theories" and "ideologies" - by means of trial. To achieve the desired means available to him - he does not need anything else.

The thinking of a true fool always prevails the minimum of the most effective common sense and denial of everything that can prevent it. Therefore, an effective fool can be a very good tactician in a stupid business, because he is able to see and feel material connections between phenomena on the basis of minimal knowledge. But a fool, he is a fool, is completely deprived of what is usually called a scientific approach, spirituality, decency, conscience - a fool is not able to think strategically for decades and provide other people with the results of his actions, because he does not see and does not recognize in life any prospects and ideal relationships. The fool is always specific. From point "A" to point "B" with minimal effort, and better - at all without effort. Fools are not capable of thinking like free people.

For a fool the main thing - to have here and now specifically for yourself. And they use it very well. Fools can be smart and stupid... 

A fool is not a classification trait, but a characteristic of the function performed by a person here and now. So don't be offended by this definition.

A fool can be very smart. In the sense of solving puzzles from the textbook. A fool is a state of mind...

A fool is a man capable of existing simultaneously in two worlds - ours and the divine (or the devilish). In Russian fairy tales fools are always lucky and in fairy tales they always win ... 

'Never fight the Russians. They will answer every military trick with unpredictable stupidity."

Otto von Bismarck

We have no idea how many fools, fools, idiots and nerds exist around us... And even lead us!

Why am I saying all this? Foolish and naive hope that someone will think and move from the status of "fools" to the category of thinkers . 
It is necessary to be so stupid and greedy that now in the age of 100% information, if you want to find, give life and money to fraudsters. 

Yes, each of us has a fool of ours, no doubt. But in each of us there are at least a couple of girls and guys who have to control the third. 

My texts someone reads - in the sense they are understandable? Perhaps a person has a kind of intellectual instinct: if you learned something new, interesting, then you want to share it with other people. 

Otherwise, there would be no artists, no musicians, no writers, no poets, no scientists... Is it possible to get rid of fools and fools? In Russian language, the distinction is made between the two. Fool from God (nature) . Stupid from education and education ! 

Five laws of stupidity.

Long years of research have led to Carlo Cipolla formulated five universal laws working in any society. It turned out that stupidity itself is much more dangerous than we used to think about it.

The first law of stupidity.

Man always underestimates the number of idiots who surround him.

It sounds like a blurry banality and snobbery, but life proves its truth. No matter how you evaluate people, you will always face the following situations:

✔️ Man who always looked smart and rational turns out to be an incredible idiot;

✔️ Lupts all the time arise in the most unexpected places at the wrong time to destroy your plans.

The second law of stupidity.

✔️ The probability that a person is stupid does not depend on his other qualities. 

✔️ Gods of observations and experiments have confirmed to me the idea that people are not equal, some are stupid, others are not, and this quality is laid by nature, not by cultural factors. A person is a fool just as he is a redhead or has the first blood group. He was born like this by the will of Providence, if you like.

✔️ Decesion has nothing to do with the likelihood of having a certain number of fools in society. This was confirmed by numerous experiments in universities on five groups: students, office workers, service personnel, administration staff and teachers. When I analyzed a group of low-skilled employees, the number of fools turned out to be higher than I expected (First Law), and I wrote it off on social conditions: poverty, segregation, lack of education. But climbing higher up the social ladder, the same ratio I saw among white-collar students and students. Even more impressive was to see the same number among professors - whether I took a small provincial college or a large university, the same proportion of teachers turned out to be fools. I was so impressed with the results that I decided to experiment on the intellectual elite - Nobel laureates. The result confirmed the superpowers of nature: the same certain number of laureates were stupid.

The idea expressed by the Second Law is difficult to accept, but numerous experiments confirm its reinforced concrete rightness. Feminists will support the Second Law because it states that there are no more fools among women than fools among men. Residents of the third world will be comforted by the fact that the developed countries are not so developed. The conclusions of the Second Law are frightening: whether you will rotate in British high society or move to Polynesia, making friends with local bounty hunters; Whether you're going to spend the rest of your life in a casino surrounded by corrupt women, you're going to have to face the same number of idiots everywhere that (The First Law) will always exceed your expectations.

The third law of stupidity.

✔️ Fulpets is a person whose actions lead to loss for another person or group of people, and at the same time do not benefit the current subject or even result in harm to him.

The third law assumes that all people are divided into 4 groups: simpletons (P), smart (U), bandits (B) and fools (A).

If Petya takes an action from which he suffers losses and at the same time benefits Vasya, he belongs to the simpletons (zone P). If Petya does something that benefits both him and Vasya, he is smart because he acted smartly (zone U). If Petit's actions benefit him, and Vasya suffers from them, Petya is a bandit (zone B). Finally, Petya is a fool in zone G, in the sub-zero zone on both axes.

It is easy to imagine the extent of the damage that fools can inflict by falling into management bodies and having political and social powers. But separately it is necessary to clarify what exactly makes a fool dangerous.

Stupid people are dangerous because rational people can hardly imagine the logic of unreasonable behavior. A smart man is able to understand the logic of the bandit, because the bandit is rational - he just wants to get more benefits and at the same time is not smart enough to earn them. Bandit is predictable, because against him you can build a defense. It is impossible to predict the actions of a fool, he will harm you for no reason, without a goal, without a plan, in the most unexpected place, at the wrong time. You have no way of predicting when an idiot strikes. In confrontation with a fool, a clever man completely gives himself to the mercy of a fool, a random creature without clear rules.

The attack of a fool usually catches you by surprise. And imagine that there are still percentage combinations of qualities and this is a particularly difficult case. Even when an attack becomes apparent, it is difficult to defend against it because it does not have a rational structure.

This is what Schiller wrote: "Even the gods are powerless against stupidity."

The fourth law of stupidity.

✔️ Non-fools always underestimate the destructive potential of fools. 

 In particular, non-fools constantly forget that dealing with a fool, at any given time, anywhere and under any circumstances - means making a mistake that will cost a lot in the future. 

Simpletons from the P zone are usually unable to recognize the dangers of fools from zone G, which is not surprising. Surprisingly, the fools are also underestimated by both clever and thugs. In the presence of a fool, they relax and enjoy their intellectual superiority, instead of urgently mobilizing and minimizing the damage when a fool throws something away. A common stereotype is that a fool only harms himself. No. No need to confuse fools with helpless simpletons and God's gift with morning scrambled eggs 🍳. Never enter into an alliance with fools, imagining that you can use them for your own benefit - if you do so, it is obvious that you do not understand the nature of stupidity. So you give the fool a field where he can roam and do more damage.

The Fifth Law of Stupidity.

✔️ Stupid is the most dangerous type of personality.

Consequence: a fool is more dangerous than a bandit.

The result of the actions of the ideal bandit - a simple transition of benefits from one person to another. If the bandit is not the state itself, the Society as a whole is neither cold nor hot. If all members of this society were perfect bandits, it would be quietly rotten, but disaster would not happen. The whole system would be reduced to transferring wealth in favor of those who take action for this action, and since the ideal bandits would be all, the system would enjoy stability. This is easy to see in any country where the authorities are corrupt and citizens are constantly circumventing the laws. When fools come on stage, the picture completely changes. They do damage without benefiting. Benefits are being destroyed, society is getting poorer.

The history of the world clearly traces and confirms: in any period the country progresses when there are enough smart people in power, they restrain active fools and do not allow them to destroy the clever people produced before them.

There are as many fools in the regressive country, but among the top there is an increase in the proportion of stupid bandits, and among the rest of the un crucial questions of the population - naive simpletons. 

Such proportions and layout violate the positive balance, this change of course invariably increases the destructive consequences of the actions of fools, and the whole country rolls to hell canine. And if we look at the state of affairs now, March 21, 2021 in many countries of the world, we may be able to understand: what happened to us after the new 2020. Let me remind you, it was 14 months and 20 days ago. Please translate these my not clear calculations 🧮 in the number of days and nights, I'm right tired 😪. 

Albert Einstein in the original goes like this:

-"Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, although I'm not sure about the universe.

"Only a fool needs to be fine - genius dominates chaos. 

"Theory is when everything is known, but nothing works. Practice is when everything works, but no one knows why. We combine theory and practice: nothing works... and no one knows why! 

"There are only two ways to live a life. The first is that miracles do not exist. The second is as if there are miracles all around. 

"Education is what remains after everything learned in school is forgotten.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, while imagination spans the world, stimulating progress, generating evolution. 

"It makes no sense to continue doing the same and wait for other results. 

"You will never solve the problem if you think like those who created it. 

"Anyone who wants to see the results of his work immediately should go to the cobblers. 

"Everyone knows it's impossible. But here comes the ignorant, who do not know - he is making a discovery. 

Life is like driving a bike. To keep your balance, you have to move.

"The mind that once expanded its boundaries will never return to its former. 

"I have seas, not the sea. But I'm afraid science hasn't found a cure for this disease yet. 

"A man begins to live only when he manages to surpass himself. 

"Don't want to succeed, but to make your life meaningful. 

"Mathematics is the only perfect method of driving yourself by the nose. 

"The more my fame, the more stupid I am; and that is, of course, the general rule. 

"If you want to lead a happy life, you have to be tied to a goal, not to people or to things. 

"International laws exist only in collections of international laws. 

"The only thing that prevents me from studying is my education. 

"I survived two wars, two wives and Hitler. 

"The question that baffles me is, is I crazy or is everything around me? 

"I never think about the future. It comes itself soon enough. 

"The most incomprehensible thing in this world is that it is understandable. 

"A man who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. 

"All people lie, but it's not scary, no one listens to each other. 

"If the theory of relativity is confirmed, the Germans will say that I am German and that the French are a citizen of the world; but if my theory is disproved, the French will declare me German and the Germans a Jew. 

"Do you think it's that simple?" Yes, it's simple. But it's not like that at all. 

"Imagination is the most important thing, it is a reflection of what we attract into our lives. 

"I'm too crazy not to be a genius. 

"To break the wall with your forehead, you need either a big run, or a lot of foreheads. 

"If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you don't understand it. 

"Logic can lead you from point A to point B, and imagination anywhere... 

- To win, first of all you need to play. 

"Never remember what you can find in a book. 

"If clutter on the table means a mess in your head, then what does an empty desk mean?’’

Our tour is over, thank you to all sightseers for their attention)