Kommersant-History No. 2: when simplicity is worse than theft
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Do you know the difference between a stupid person and a stupid person?
Just don’t rush 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 was based, it would seem, 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 susceptibility to the influence of others to be a common feature of these two “degrees of dementia”:
“He is devoted to the one who has crept into his 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 care 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 – 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 message to the Synod is nowhere to be seen”.
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 – in the publication “All his operations invariably ended in the death of the patients.”.
The inability to understand, evaluate and properly build relations with allies led to the USSR lagging behind in the production of the most important medical product, and then to actions that then had to be bashfully hushed up. All details are in the material “No longer considers himself 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.
Content
“Season bananas with mayonnaise sauce” / How an aristocratic fruit became political
“Fabricated false protocols with fictitious facts” / How law enforcement officers fought “dissent”
*All dates before February 1, 1918 are given according to the old style.
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