The world is full of people who have been on a plane and so now think they are pilots, have watched a war movie and now think they are war heroes, have seen television and think they are movie stars. So now we have people who do not know how to think, know nothing about logic or critical thinking, who now think they are Einsteins because they can type on a keyboard. (Michael Savage PhD., best-selling author, American talk show host and podcaster)

Stupidity has nothing to do with intelligence. Rather it is one’s choice to be ignorant by ignoring facts, closing one’s mind to truth, and refusing to think critically. A person chooses to be stupid by making choices based on emotions and group think rather than on reason and critical thinking. This is true of anyone whether they are atheistic, agnostic or religious or a Bible-believing Christian.

(The following points are based on a work by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and is from: http://www.behindthemodernfacade.com/2026/09/the-revolution-of-idiots-how-ignorance.html with commentary and amendments by J. Nathan Lawrence)

Text and Commentary

Critical thinking did not die of natural causes. It was murdered, and we all took part.

We replaced thinking with reacting.

Opinions are formed in seconds and defended with tribal fury.

Emotion has replaced logic as the test of truth: I feel, therefore it is true.

Questioning someone’s feelings is taken as a personal attack

The system succeeds, because it relieves people of the effort of thinking.

Understanding complex arguments requires patience, self-questioning, and tolerance for uncertainty. Agreeing with someone who echoes one’s existing feelings is easier and more gratifying than thinking critically by questioning what others say or believe and then challenging them.

 As a result, the public mind is trained to react rather than to reflect.

Information is rapidly consumed, repeated, and shared without being examined.

Algorithms intensify this pattern by promoting content that provokes strong emotions and keeps people engaged, rather than content that is accurate or intellectually valuable.

Algorithms reward emotional engagement, not clarity. Real debate has become impossible, because disagreeing first requires understanding, and understanding requires thought.

It is easier to label an opponent and dismiss him than to have a debate based on facts and logic.

Complex realities are forced into simple binaries—good or evil, right or wrong, friend or enemy.

Nuance is dead, and a complex world gets crushed into simple binaries: right or wrong, with us or against us. Left or right. Liberal or conservative. Democrat or Republican. As a result, the herd mentality and hive mind prevail at the expense of independent and critical thinking. This is the lure of a pure democracy, which is glorified mob rule. The majority opinion rules whether it is right or not. Might makes right. Thus dissenters are attacked, labeled, vilified, extirpated either verbally or literally by imprisonment, lynching or a firing squad. History records this scenario playing itself out again and again in totalitarian regimes over the millennia and especially in communist countries in the last one hundred years. Have we forgotten history? Or are have we become just that stupid due to our being willingly ignorant?