A colleague sent me this link to a Huffington Post article about a course at Occidental College on Stupidity. Here’s the course description:
Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity.
I’ll only add my observation that the prerequisite listed for “Stupidity” in the catalog is “United States”. Presumably some patriots will express objections to that in the near future. Presumably someone like me from Butler University shouldn’t comment too much, what with our Mickey Mouse courses and all…
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