The fundamental laws of human stupidity

Idioma original: English
Original title: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
Translation: Maria Pons
Year of publication: 2013.
Valuation: curious

I clarify about the valuation; I highly recommend reading this book and even purchasing it to consult it frequently. Get it in the library and see if this small volume has a corner while you decide if a work, whose bombastic title (and ad-hoc cover) already warns of its functionality, fits in your collections. Let it be clear that this is not a basic work but rather a somewhat impressive complement to a personal library. I can assure you that the future will bring you more than one excuse to look through it again.

Which is what it is about, and ultimately what caused me to read it. Quim Monzó mentioned it in recent interviews following one of his latest collections of articles (due to the repeated inclusion of the term idiot) in them and I must admit that I am a little late to review the Breviary of Idiots, another reference and curiously also by an Italian author, so given the freshness and affordability (a short hour if you decide to read it carefully, but in half an hour is dismissed if it gets to the point), I decide to review something that, above all, is a slightly provocative or manifestly subversive artifact. Because it is clear that no one wants to feel referred to by these terms. Stupid idiot. I seem to remember that there were even IQ-based definitions for these words. Which naturally today would be the object of rejection and cancellation, although humanity as a whole, and perhaps precisely for this reason, has insisted on this text enjoying absolute conceptual validity. And I can think of plenty of examples, but we are already in the western summer and it is about reviewing something light. Although I am going to give in to temptation: in recent days I read in the press that pyrotechnic products were sold without sound effects of any kind, to prevent the animal discomfort that they cause. I mean, firecrackers that explode in silence.

In any case, Cipolla had already published quite a few texts with a more serious in his capacity as a historian and this could be considered as a culmination without fanfare, as a conclusion, once observed the collective behavior or even that guided by leaders and rulers, who would pass (…) for being the most valid or reputable members of the companies that designate them. For such a brief text, the mere attempt at a synopsis or even a summary would represent a futile attempt to grant it a solemnity that is consciously avoided. Listing these laws, alluding to the illustrations in naïve tones, to the curious graphs that try to calculate or limit the ideas that are displayed, I will limit myself to that before severely warning: this could seem like a frivolous reading, an experiment in dedramatizing the shortcomings. collective and individual of societies, but it turns out that its basic ideas are tragically true and a quick consultation of the press is enough – it is not necessary to go much further than the headlines – to appreciate its validity.