Functional stupidity and the modern knowledge condition: Martin Davies on cognitive psychopathology

Weintrobe S.

Bleakley A.

Leskanich A.

Particularly over the last 15 years, Martin L. Davies has produced a significant and unusual body of work. Significant and unusual, that is, in its willingness to push inquiry beyond the bounds of ...

Davies M.L.

AbstractHistory is the dominant form of human self-comprehension in a world dominated by global capitalism: it is this system in ideal form. But this is an artificial world constructed against nature. It is governed by the disciplined studiousness that sustains the social historian-function. It is maintained by the history-focussed behaviour of the technocracy (administrators, experts, technicians, and – not least – academics) that manage it. But historical judgment is by definition faulty, its comprehensive managerial stance cognitively inadequate. As the examples cited here demonstrate, civilization based on it looks catastrophic: history compromises the very human existence it is meant to reassure. Nurturing its illusions, automatically imposing its disciplinary authority, history exposes its own redundancy.

Escobar A.

Alvesson M., Spicer A.

In this paper we question the one-sided thesis that contemporary organizations rely on the mobilization of cognitive capacities. We suggest that severe restrictions on these capacities in the form of what we call functional stupidity are an equally important if under-recognized part of organizational life. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation. This gives rise to forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals' internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones. This can have productive outcomes such as providing a degree of certainty for individuals and organizations. But it can have corrosive consequences such as creating a sense of dissonance among individuals and the organization as a whole. The positive consequences can give rise to self-reinforcing stupidity. The negative consequences can spark dialogue, which may undermine functional stupidity.

Davies M.L.

This essay is a variation on the theme of academia and academic practices in Sande Cohen's work. It develops through reference to two systems of discourse: Cohen's semio-critical analysis of academic writing and its cultural and political implications; and writings on epistemology, social-psychology, and semiotics, not just in themselves relevant to the analysis of academia, but including some of those orientating Cohen's writing. Taking the discipline of history as the paradigmatic academic practice, it outlines the academic function as a technological device that authorizes and facilitates the wide range of cultural and political behaviour generated by the economic system of totalitarian capitalism. It argues that the academic function discloses itself not as knowledge seeking ‘truth’ but (in the Platonic sense) as sophistry with privileged currency and value in the socio-economic climate of information and opinion. The academic function, therefore, operates cognitively in terms of equivalence and ident...

Benasayag M., del Rey A.

Jenkins K.

Naess A.

Ecologically responsible policies are concerned only in part with pollution and resource depletion. There are deeper concerns which touch upon principles of diversity, complexity, autonomy, decentralization, symbiosis, egalitarianism, and classlessness.