From The Encyclopedia of Stupidity, by Matthijs van Boxsel:

“The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity” begins at the point where the science of stupidity can no longer be distinguished from the stupidity of science…

My starting point is a quip: no man is intelligent enough to grasp his own stupidity… The only fruitful solution is a reversal of perspective: intelligence is nothing but the result of a series of more or less unsuccessful attempts to come to grips with stupidity. And perhaps stupidity is nothing but the externalization of our abortive attempts to define intelligence…

“The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity” is broad enough to make room for all writings of stupidity, including itself. Inspired by Elsevier’s “Vogelgids” (Bird Guide) of 1965, which is perversely covered in imitation snakeskin, I have had several copies of the encyclopaedia bound in ass’s hide, to emphasize the stupidity of the whole project.

This book is simultaneously fascinating and maddeningly esoteric. It’s the nonfiction equivalent of an Umberto Eco novel. The author uses a plethora of literary and artistic allusions to make various points about the nature of stupidity — for example, he refers to a print from Jacob Cat’s emblem book “Zinne-en minnebeelden” to show that stupidity (at least in this particular instance) is not characterized by dullness but by rash behavior.  But these references are as close as he comes to characterizing stupidity. He never does explicitly define what he means by the word.

Stupidity is unfathomable; it can only be defined negatively, by contrast with another quality or as a defect. That does not mean that stupidity does not exist. We see the effects of it every day all around and inside us, but we are always too late to pin it down. Stupidity is a frontier we invariable miss – only in retrospect do we realize that we have crossed it.

More on this book in future posts.