Instructions
Read the passage carefully and answer the THREE questions that follow.
Comprehension:
Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes.
This is easiest to introduce with a tragic case. British high command during the First World War frequently understood trench warfare using concepts and strategies from the cavalry battles of their youth. As one of Field Marshal Douglas Haig’s subordinates later remarked, they thought of the trenches as ‘mobile operations at the halt’: i.e., as fluid battle lines with the simple caveat that nothing in fact budged for years. Unsurprisingly, this did not serve them well in formulating a strategy: they were hampered, beyond the shortage of material resources, by a kind of ‘conceptual obsolescence’, a failure to update their cognitive tools to fit the task in hand. In at least some cases, intelligence actively abets stupidity by allowing pernicious rationalisation.
Stupidity will often arise in cases like this, when an outdated conceptual framework is forced into service, mangling the user’s grip on some new phenomenon. It is important to distinguish this from mere error. We make mistakes for all kinds of reasons. Stupidity is rather one specific and stubborn cause of error. Historically, philosophers have worried a great deal about the irrationality of not taking the available means to achieve goals: Tom wants to get fit, yet his running shoes are quietly gathering dust. The stock solution to Tom’s quandary is simple willpower. Stupidity is very different from this. It is rather a lack of the necessary means, a lack of the necessary intellectual equipment. Combatting it will typically require not brute willpower but the construction of a new way of seeing our self and our world. Such stupidity is perfectly compatible with intelligence: Haig was by any standard a smart man.
Question 10.
Which of the following statements BEST summarizes the author's view on stupidity?
Question Explanation
"The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes."
The author underlines our inability to comprehend/understand a problem and the application of know ideas/solutions to address the same - this, according to him, is stupidity. Option C rewords this point - [Pushing our extant solution to fix an alien problem is stupidity]
Option A: [Comprehending a problem by applying our existing worldview is stupidity] The author states that we are unable to comprehend the problem in the first place - the option emphasises that the way in which we are comprehending the problem is incorrect [distortion #1]. Furthermore, we are applying our existing ideas/solutions to address the problem and not to comprehend it [distortion #2].
Option B: The distortion here is pretty clear - [The inability to avoid forcing our current views on a new situation is stupidity] (completely different from the idea discussed in the passage)
Option D: This does not fully capture the idea presented by the author and hence, can be rejected.
Option E: This is not implied - the author doesn't blame the "novelty of the problem" for our stupidity, and thus, this option is incorrect.
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