Stupidity is not a living being, it is the lack of thought, mental lethargy, a reluctance to think; or if one does think, one doesn't think honestly or things through.
    The world of politics seems to be a laboratory where human inclination to stupidity is continuously tested. When a nation suffering from a dictator is bombed, the vast majority of the world's citizens are convicted that the dictator himself is being punished - as if violence in the home could be stopped by beating the culprit's wife and children.
    The market economy is an excellent hiding place for stupidity; as if this economy truly implied that human beings need not think - not even of their fellowman. The market economy seems to negate natural laws, above all the basic law according to which nothing comes out of nothing. The stupidity of the market economy culminates in the belief that profit, interest income or capital income can keep on accumulating forever, limitlessly; in the belief that we can base our well-being on the life of money. We only need to take this idea a little further, not even to the end, to realize that the world as a whole cannot convert to the so-called free market economy: someone must always grow food, make clothes, build houses. The "free market economy" for a tiny minority is a forced economy for the vast majority.
    Would it be too much to think that the market economy means exchanging work for work, product for product, service for service - in a just and equal manner?
    Both the physical world around us - the environment - and our intellectual world - the civilization - are in great danger. Environmental damage is easy to observe with the five senses, whereas we succeed - regardless of knowledge - in closing our eyes and other senses to the destruction of our civilization. And yet we know that it is all about the same disease whose symptoms manifest themselves first as physical and only later as mental. It is indeed stupid to try to convince oneself that these threats have different causes. Philosophy, medicine and psychology have long since discarded the idea of body and soul as separate entities. The world suffers from Alzheimer's disease, but we believe and hope that it will not have time to damage our minds. We are used to stupidity, we are becoming numb to it. It is pleasant to be stupid, but it is unpleasant to notice it. It is pleasant to enjoy oneself, to get rich, to buy things, it is unpleasant to be exploited and be aware of it. It is even more unpleasant to think that we might take advantage of those weaker than us - of child labour, the hungry, serfs - without being aware of it. Of all the people that we thought existed only in history books. The aim of the writer is not to promote stupidity but to combat it. By thinking, as painful as it may be. By arousing thoughts, as unpopular they may be.