The Courage to be Stupid

If there is one lesson to be learned from the Great Crisis it is that, in order to build organizations for the future, we will need new competencies and qualities in our managers and leaders. The author argues that rather than being stupid, maybe our leaders have not been stupid enough. According to the author "stupidity” may indeed, be the key that will unlock a new and innovative future. But what is 'stupidity'? If, instead of limiting its definition to meaning the opposite of “intelligent” and we consider it to be a complementary and even smart and innovative concept, then, maybe we can begin to shed new light on the current situation. And what is courage if not overcoming old ways of reasoning, ways that prove to be totally inadequate in today's world ? Can we place our trust in the model of the social network, so ingrained in our dynamic younger generations, to create a society and organisation that really encompasses the common good ?

We laugh at what we are afraid of. Why are we so afraid of stupidity ? Is it perhaps because, like madness, it shatters our established values, burdening us with an internal revolutionary transformation that puts us face to face with the fragility of so many of our certainties ? Is it perhaps because only someone who is stupid, or crazy, is able to shout "The king is nude!", to a jubilant crowd, enslaved and incapable of seeing reality with their own eyes ?

It is to these questions that this book tries to offer a response: in reality, a working hypothesis on which to try and imagine a different world (in its foundations and ethics) as opposed to the "intelligent" one which burnt itself out during the self-destructive delirium that we are still living through today.

The book by Anna Zanardi Cappon opens with the ’“Praise of stupidity”, written by Renzo Rosso, founder and owner of Diesel, the Italian fashion brand which nowadays boasts dealers all over the world: in the spring of 2010 Diesel started a vast advertising campaign based on the motto “Be Stupid”, which just corroborates the contents exposed in this book.