On The Psychology of the Breathtakingly Stupid Mistake.
New research suggests there are three distinct types of action that bring palm to face.
We all make stupid mistakes from time to time. History is replete with examples. Legend has it that the Trojans accepted the Greek’s “gift” of a huge wooden horse, which turned out to be hollow and filled with a crack team of Greek commandos. The Tower of Pisa started to lean even before construction was finished—and is not even the world’s farthest leaning tower. NASA taped over the original recordings of the moon landing, and operatives for Richard Nixon’s re-election committee were caught breaking into a Watergate office, setting in motion the greatest political scandal in U.S. history. More recently, the French government spent $15 billion on a fleet of new trains, only to discover that they were too wide for some 1,300 station platforms
Last night, I thought I was too clever by half and accidentally called Bernie an offensive name in a diary I wrote used to smear members of the Jewish race. Fortunately, it was very kindly and gently pointed out to me in comments soon after the diary went up. I am eternally grateful. I was getting ready to go out to dinner and, if it hadn’t been caught so soon, I shudder to think what would have happened.
So, this is not going to be one of those I’m-sorry-if-you-were-offended-by-my-remarks non-apologies celebrities like to give, this is a heartfelt mea culpa. I should have known better.
Which brings me to the subject of stupid mistakes, because, no matter how smart we think we are, we all make them. Coincidentally, yesterday, I saw a link at Naked Capitalism (just subscribe to their daily links newsletter already, it’s phenomenal) to a Scientific American article titled The Psychology of the Breathtakingly Stupid Mistake. Unfortunately, I didn’t click on the link until this morning. If I had done so earlier, it might have saved me a lot of trouble. Or maybe not, humans tend to be astonishingly oblivious to their own foibles.
According to the article, there are three major mistakes we are all prone to:
I would say I fell prey to primarily to Dunning-Kruger last night with the other two thrown in to lesser effect. I fancied I could write diaries here despite my tenuous relationship with punctuation, sentence structure, typing skills, essay structure, political insight, etcetera, etcetera. I’m still going to write diaries, but I think I need to dig out my old Strunk and Wright and maybe check out some more up-to-date books on essay writing and style. Most importantly, If I try to base a diary on a single term to describe a person, I need to google [insert race, gender, ethnicity, religion] next to [insert descriptor] before continuing. When I googled Jew next to the term I used, I couldn’t change my diary fast enough.
Another breathtaking example of a disconnect between skill and confidence would be Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson. Being a brain surgeon — which until Carson came onto the scene, was the definition of a smart person — Carson thought, because he was an expert in one area, he would quickly become an expert in politics and policy. Here’s an example of his wisdom right here after he claimed he would be the first African-American President:
Carson maintained that he was not "criticizing" Obama. But he had gone further in an interview with Politico's Glenn Thrush on his "Off Message" podcast that aired Tuesday.
"He's an 'African' American. He was, you know, raised white," the retired neurosurgeon said. "So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch."
Brilliant. It took years of study to become a brain surgeon, Ben; why in heck did you think you didn’t have to actually learn something about politics to be a politician? Although, it has been pointed out before that Carson’s presidential bid might be a clever grift to separate rubes from their money. If that’s the case, then I salute you, Dr. Carson.
Next on the list is Impulsive Acts. A recent example of this would be Ohio Gov. John Kasich:
Washington (CNN) Ohio Gov. John Kasich apologized Monday for telling a Virginia crowd Monday that women "left their kitchens" for him in an early statehouse race, quickly prompting a retort from one woman voter there.
"And how did I get elected? Nobody was, I didn't have anybody for me. We just got an army of people who, um, and many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door-to-door and to put yard signs up for me," the Republican presidential candidate said Monday, describing moments from his early career in the 1970s, during a town hall in Fairfax, Virginia.
A woman voter later shot back.
"First off, I want to say -- your comment earlier about the women came out the kitchen to support you? I'll come to support you, but I won't be coming out of the kitchen," she said.
Kasich, speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer later on Monday, apologized.
"I'm more than happy to say, 'I'm sorry' if I offended somebody out there, but it wasn't intended to be offensive," Kasich said. "And if you hear the whole thing, you'll understand the context of it."
Take note of the classic non-apology apology. Oops, your contempt for women got out, Kasich. Thanks for putting us on notice that you’re not the moderate the MSM is trying to make you out to be.
Another example of impulsive, not very well thought out behavior would be a certain presidential candidate who, when she was Secretary of State, thought it would be a great idea to run a private email server out of her house. How did Sec. Clinton not think that wouldn’t look dodgy and unethical to many of us, including the FBI — even though it technically wasn’t illegal at the time? You see, what some people don’t seem to grasp is that it’s less about the email server itself than about the possibly illegal activities that can be carried out on it outside of public scrutiny.
Interestingly, her closest aide and friend Huma Abedin is going to be questioned soon about her role in the email server scandal. And, just by coincidence, her husband Anthony Weiner is offered up in the Scientific American article as a prime example of a person prone to impulsive behavior. I’ll just leave it there.
Finally, on the list is Lapses of Attention. I would say the entire Marco Rubio campaign is a lapse of attention. To wit, he forgot to put attendance at the biggest conservative debutante ball in the political season, the CPAC convention, on his calendar.
The organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, are attempting to shame Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio , accusing him of “a rookie mistake” and suggesting the Florida senator won’t make this year’s event.
But a Rubio campaign aide, responding to the organizers statement, suggested to The Daily Caller that it’s still possible the senator will attend the gathering, saying: “Our March schedule is still TBD.”
Another lapse of attention would be the Republican Party and the media not noticing that Marco Rubio is an empty suit.
The article wraps up with this final paragraph:
It is, of course, unrealistic to think that we could ever eliminate human error. To err will always be human. However, this research gives us a better description of our failings and foibles, and a place to start in thinking about interventions and prescriptions to help us err less. This research also reminds us of our shared human frailties. We are all prone to overestimating our abilities, to making impulsive decisions, and to lapses of attention. This simple realization makes stupid mistakes seem, perhaps, a little less stupid — and a little more human.
Thanks again, Egghead, for giving me the benefit of the doubt that I was just being stupid and not malicious when letting me know of the error of my ways.