Do you know how a stupid person differs from a stupid one?
But not you have to hurry and immediately declare: “Nothing!” 175 years ago, on February 1, 1849*, when the main phase of the fight against the excess of officials in Russian government agencies “with stupidity of concepts” began, it seemed to be based on a strictly scientific basis. After all, having caught the mood of the highest authorities, medical scientists of that time developed criteria that made it possible to judge whether an individual was stupid or stupid.
Doctors considered the common feature of these two “degrees of dementia” to be susceptibility to the influence of others:< /p>
“I am devoted to the one who crept into him in trust with all my soul.”
The main signs of difference were considered to be that the stupid person suffers from a lack of attention, but “still has the ability to subjugate the will of his mind.” But a stupid person has absolutely no control over himself, “is reckless, and in general there is nothing permanent in his ideas.” From this analysis the following conclusion was drawn: “those with dullness of mind” are of little capacity for service, and a fool cannot even manage his own property, since “he needs guardianship and supervision.”
However, the application of the developed criteria did not contribute much to getting rid of ranks with a “lack of natural talents.” About why — the text “Stupidity poisons the atmosphere of business government life.”
Only a limited understanding of the situation in the country can explain the centuries-long attempts to establish an accurate record of the Russian population. About them — a selection “But the sending to the Synod is not visible from anywhere.”
And only the persistence of the problem of intellectual poverty among officials after the revolution can explain the fact that wounded Red Army soldiers in military hospitals were operated on for many years by a surgeon without the slightest knowledge of medicine, and the prosecutor of the autonomous regions was a comrade who could neither read nor write. Details are in the publication “All his operations invariably ended in the death of the patients.”
The inability to understand, evaluate and correctly build relationships with the allies led to the USSR lagging behind in the production of the most important medical product, and then to action , which later had to be bashfully hushed up. All details are in the material “No longer considers itself a member of the World Health Organization.”
Against this background, the lack of understanding of what bananas are and how they should be stored and eaten looks simply curious. But it is a very characteristic curiosity. There is an article about him in our regular column “Forgotten Life” — “Season bananas with mayonnaise sauce.”
It has long been known, but sometimes it is forgotten, that simplicity caused by a “lack of natural talents” often turns out to be worse than theft. Vivid evidence of this is provided by examples from our ancient and recent past, included in this issue of the Kommersant-History monthly.
Contents
“But the sending to the Synod is not visible from anywhere”/Why it was not possible to establish an accurate population count
“ Season bananas with mayonnaise sauce.» /How an aristocratic fruit became political
» Stupidity poisons the atmosphere of business government life» /Why fools were not transferred to the Russian government
“All his operations invariably ended in the death of the patients”/How many people were sent to cemeteries by the imaginary surgeon
“Fabricated false protocols with fictitious facts”/How law enforcement officers fought against “dissent”
“No longer considers itself a member of the World Health Organization”/Why the Kremlin froze relations with WHO
*All dates before February 1, 1918 are given according to the old style.
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