text: This book sets out to show how much of public discourse is guided, not by reason, but by Stupidity. It is the work of two writers for the online magazine Crikey, and even those not sympathetic towards that journal's independent take on the news, will find much in the book to stimulate and delight.
  Helen Razer writes that Oprah Winfrey is among her Top Ten Friends of Stupid, Credit:Colin Kaldenbach
  With alternate chapters by each of the writers, those by Helen Razer are the most challenging. They are also a little annoying. Throughout her first chapter, for example, on individualism, she references the character played by Heather Locklear in the American sit-com Melrose Place, an entertainment not likely to be high on the must-watch list of the people at whom the book is aimed.
  In her next effort, however, she uses Oprah Winfrey as her model, a person known to even neanderthals like this reviewer. "Of all the logical fallacies, recourse to anecdote is possibly my least favourite," she says, instancing Winfrey's trick of using inspirational people as a way to demonstrate that We Can Do Anything If We Put Our Mind To It.
  At the end of the book, she names Winfrey among her Top Ten Friends of Stupid, in distinguished company that includes Richard Dawkins, Rupert Murdoch and MasterChef. She summarises Oprah's philosophy as follows: "Global poverty is all the fault of starving people themselves. Do some yoga and you'll be right," to which her reaction is "F... off." Those three blush-preventing nipples are mine, not hers, but you soon learn to expect such unladylike outbursts. In fact, she would probably regard ladylike as an example of Stupid.
  Keane's chapters are more measured, less passionate, though you leave them with a wish for the uninhibited arguments of his fellow writer. Dealing with paternalism, he says that figures from 2013 showed that per-capita consumption of alcohol in Australia had fallen more than 30 per cent and was/is now less than most European countries. Moreover, he points out that, despite what you may hear on the evening news, binge drinking by young people has also fallen dramatically. Notwithstanding these figures, we are asked to be part of a War on Alcohol, demanding that the drinking age be raised to 25, for example.
  He admits that the argument for paternalism as a form of Stupidity is rather weakened by the many situations in which it is socially useful – helmets, seatbelts and smoking bans being obvious cases. Mind you, the medieval arguments advanced by churches seeking to forcibly impose orthodoxy – it will save the sinner from hell – are a powerful warning against those who would try to save others from themselves.
  The Iraq War is an obvious and well-admitted example of Stupid. Keane points out that if it and the War on Terror were won, it would have serious economic consequences for firms in the armaments and security industries, not to mention the many service businesses that these companies use. Islamic State has been a boon for the world's stock markets.
  In Razer's chapter on deconstructionism – a fairly obvious case of Stupid – the central point is far from clear. This may well be reasonable when writing about such a topic; perhaps she intends her argument to be read as an illustration of the central dictum of Derrida and his ilk that there is nothing apart from the text, that we can read it any way we wish.
  The problem with a book like this is that it encourages the reader to become more alert to Stupid. For example, while there is justifiable criticism of those who base an argument or a campaign on one story or one wrong, Razer writes a complete chapter on compassion, basing it on a You Tube clip featuring John Russell and his anti-Kony campaign. Never mind that you may not have heard of Russell and may rarely use You Tube and the name Kony may be rattling around in your mind looking for an anchor point, there is the question of consistency to one's own standards. Or perhaps consistency is Stupid also.
  But, quibbling aside, there is much to reflect on in this book and the writing is a joy. There are phrases that pull you up with glee:"… the cheap meth of personal development seminars", "the Oprahfication of wisdom", "the well of homeopathic opinion", "a prostatariat of old white male journalists", "holistic healing … rip-off bollocks with a whale-call soundtrack". And you feel like cheering aloud when you read psychiatry described as an "iffy branch of medicine … a pseudo-science … an impotent practice".
  The level of Stupidity in public debate in Australia is probably no higher than in other Western countries. It is unlikely that politicians, for whom the luminous vest photo op is more important than any discussion of complex issues, will be changed by what they read here. But then again, their success is based on the well-founded belief that the rest of us are Stupid.