Weaponising Stupidity

By Prof Janek Ratnatunga

This article may lose me some good friends; and may even land me in jail in some countries. But the facts are indisputable - ‘stupidity’ has been weaponised for centuries.

For the sake of being politically correct, I looked for more acceptable synonyms for ‘stupid’, such as: dumb, blockheaded, senseless, unintelligent, moronic, foolish, inarticulate, feeble-minded, dense, and ignorant. I will combine 3 of them, ie, stupid, ignorant, and dumb and refer to them collectively as SIDs.

We have recently had a prime example of this with the actions of one Donald Trump; who weaponised a whole bunch of SIDs; from far-right fundamentalists, to white supremist proud-boys; to ‘QAnon’ followers who alleged that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic paedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against Trump. These SIDs were unleashed by Trump to storm the US Capitol and try to retain the presidency for him. We now know that they almost succeeded. Slogans work very well in weaponising SIDS, such as ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Stop the Steal’.

Now before you get smug and convince yourself that surely you could not be an SID; let us consider the history of the various groups of SIDs that have been weaponised in the past to go into battle.

Early humans needed an allegiance to a tribe, for very practical reasons. “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” (and similar rules) were very practical, and applied only within the context of the tribe. Without such rules of behaviour, one could not go to sleep for the fear that you will be murdered by a tribe member, or worse - that your wife will be coveted. Your tribe had to be protected at all costs – whilst the pillaging, plundering, and raping other tribes was fair game.

As these tribes grew, they intermingled with other tribes, races evolved. A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities viewed as distinct by society. Modern scholarship views racial categories as socially constructed, i.e., race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an identity created - often by socially dominant groups - to establish meaning in a social context. In the early history of Sri Lanka, often a person identified as being a ‘Sinhalese’ would switch to being identified as a ‘Tamil’ if the King of the land was Tamil; and vice-versa. It is only in more recent times that SIDs could be weaponised in the name of race; but more on that later.

When these tribes, now consisting of different races, became sovereign nations, their tribal instincts were weaponised by their rulers for both the protection of their nation, and for the pillaging, plundering, and raping of other nations (re-branded as ‘Colonisation’). Land was forcibly acquired in the name of the Sovereign – in SriLanka in the name of the British Sovereign. “For King and Country” was the battle cry of the British soldier SIDs as they raped and pillaged (oops, Colonised).

Another more-recent artificial separation that enables SIDs to be weaponised is ‘Religion’. Combine ‘Tribalism’ with ‘Religion’ and one has a potent force for destruction. Take the Chola Wars of 1025, the Crusades of 1095, the Fatwas, and the like, and one can how easily a SID can be primed to blow himself up with the promise of 70 Virgins in heaven. A tripartite of Tribalism - race, religion, and language - was the result of a 30-year war in Sri Lanka. Of course, one SID's ‘Terrorist’ is another SID's “Freedom Fighter”.

Unlike tribal instincts that come from evolution - and can be seen even in animal behaviour - religious affiliations come from one’s parents. An exceptionally large majority of those who are given a religion by their parents at birth (without the baby’s consent) stay with their anointed religion their whole lives - and some even go to battle for it. "God wills it!" (in Latin) was the battle cry of the crusaders; whilst the soldiers in the Middle East and North Africa shout 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest).

The parents give their child a religion for a verynoblereason – they want the best for their child. However, the evolutionary necessity of having absolute faith in one’s caregiver’s instructions (or being killed by a predator) extends to an unquestioning faith in the religious stories being told by them. Such children (i.e., most of us) as adults may develop a questioning mind;but still find it exceedingly difficult to shake off the original stories told to us by our caregivers. Many of us live with a ‘duality’ in our thinking processes; one portion that is extremely logical and scientific that silently ridicules another’s religious beliefs; but another portion that is oblivious to the inconsistencies and fallacies of our own beliefs.

It is that second portion of the brain that is easy to weaponise; hence my comment that that one should not have a false believe that one cannot be classified as a SID, or even be weaponised. Many SIDs are not necessarily weaponised for a battle to conquer lands; but instead, weaponised to conquer minds of other SIDs via the spreading of their religious teachings and proselytising. Many of the leaders of the ‘new-age’ religions that have cropped up in recent times are certainly not SIDs themselves, but have seen the opportunities created in weaponsing SIDs to generateuntold riches for their lifestyle.

Another great force that enables SIDs to be weaponised is ‘Politics’. Both authoritarian and supposedly democratic leaders have combined race and religion into politics; which then enables SID majorities to impose their will on SID minorities. The populist politics of Donald Trump was the culmination of the weaponisation of SIDs. Today, the USA has a member of congress, voted in by a majority of SIDs,who believes in the QAnon movement and says that the bushfires in California were caused by Jewish space lasers!!!

SIDs can be weaponised even in business and commerce. A recent example was how one social media ‘star influencer’ convinced day traders to start buying the shares of a company called GameStop. The reason was a supposedly good cause, even evangelical – gamers wanted to inflict serious pain on the hedge funds that were holding short positions in the company (i.e., betting the stock price would go down). This caused a buying frenzy that drove the stock prices up over 1000%. This did squeeze out some big hedge funds – but as the saying goes, “what goes up, must come down”. GameStop shares have crashed; leaving many day traders burnt as well. In finance, this is known as the “greater fool approach to investing” – you buy hoping there will be a greater fool than you to buy your shares in the future.

There are no better greater fools than SIDs.