Why is it, you would be smart to ask, that so many people nowadays are unnaturally uncurious. Unfortunately and ironically individuals suffering from this abnormality are oblivious to its negative personal and social impacts.
It seems the uncurious mind also typically hosts two associated mental disorders: arrogance and ignorance. These afflictions adversely affect carriers in a number of ways, such as making them impervious to facts; entitled to beliefs and resistant to science; resistant to history, scholarship and expertise; indifferent to contradiction and hypocrisy; and deathly allergic to knowledge. All things considered, sadly, this malignant toxic mix makes treating, preventing or curing this disorder so elusive
Of grave concern is that the uncurious among us are increasing in numbers and influence. They are taking over — conversations, that is. And in doing so, controlling our precious time and attention. By talking over, louder and longer than normal humans these self-absorbed bloviators are flattening society’s learning curve. We’re suffering fools and consequently an epidemic of stupidity — insidiously fueled by the loud- and foul-mouthed stench of autocrats, propagandists, influencers, podcasters and unfiltered AI.
TOO DUMB TO KNOW
The Dunning-Kruger effect has been referenced frequently in the past decade. No surprise, except for those who have no clue as to its meaning. Which is this: Arrogant individual possess a cognitive bias which prevents them from recognizing their own ignorance. Individuals with this diminished capacity tend to overestimate their levels of competency and knowledge.
We see the repercussions of this over-confidence in politics with leaders who claim to be the most, the best, the only, et cetera, at everything but actually do very little. It also shows up regularly too in work environments, sports, classrooms, and most aggressively and frustratingly among family and friends in debates over social and economic grievances. Diagnosed clinically as cognitive dissonance, the pathology commonly presents like arguing with a child who does not yet have the intellectual wherewithal to recognize the difference between nonsense and commonsense.
Curiosity is the archetypal gift of youth, but it needs to be nourished and treasured throughout our lifetime. Otherwise what we’ll be exposed to are “answers” from the most convincing liars, with assists from autocrats, biased media and unquestioning echo chambers.
LISTEN TO THIS
To address such a disquieting problem, how about we declare Mondays “Dumb Days.” One day a week we play dumb and voluntarily mute ourselves for 24 hours — talking only to ask thoughtful questions. With the best of intentions, participants (ideally including some of our chattier, less curious, too confident coworkers, friends and family members) could enjoy the irony of using each “Dumb Day Monday” to become a little smarter.
