Glorification of the stupid is nihilistic. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. So reason is required to produce the values on which human life depends.
In "The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism", Jay Gonen described the typical Nazi mentality as being a contradictory mix of brutality and intellect. He analyzed these "brilliant morons" in Freudian terms, but according to Leonard Peikoff, in his book "The Ominous Parallels", the roots of Nazi stupidity glorification are actually to be found in the philosophy of Kant who famously attacked reason.
Yes, Kant wrote books called "Critique of pure reason" and "Critique of practical reason", but they were not attacking reason.
You needn't take my word for it. Here is an excerpt from the article on Kant in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is online but written by experts and very good indeed):
"Kant's main goal is to show that a critique of reason by reason itself, unaided and unrestrained by traditional authorities, establishes a secure and consistent basis for both Newtonian science and traditional morality and religion. In other words, free rational inquiry adequately supports all of these essential human interests and shows them to be mutually consistent. So reason deserves the sovereignty attributed to it by the Enlightenment."
Kant did indeed write the words you quote. But I wonder whether you've actually read them in their context, because it seems very obvious to me that he is applying this statement only to metaphysics. He is saying that we cannot know for certain (for instance) whether God exists, or whether "free will" is real. Now, this may be right or wrong, but it certainly isn't anti-rational.
As for the "wedge between the natural world and the human mind": if by that you mean that, e.g., he insisted that our minds aren't presented directly with Things Themselves, and that perception is an indirect affair: yup, he did, and he was right, and again I see nothing anti-rational in that. (Yes, I know Objectivism teaches otherwise. So much the worse for Objectivism.)
In case not everyone is aware, this is a campaign for Diesel. I first saw this as a storefront display in Santa Monica saying "BE STUPID" in big bold letters, which led me to a quick search and to: http://www.diesel.com/be-stupid/
Clever campaign. I don't know of many clothing companies that have marketing slogans that get discussed on HN.
Doesn't make sense to me. This sounds like the opposite of what John Stuart Mill said about Socrates and the fool.
"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."
So ... is that stupid for certain values of smart? Or is it smart for certain values of stupid?
I agree with the basic premise: Think outside the box. Don't get stuck in a mental rut. And most importantly, don't let others with no vision bring you down. But I think the validity of your message was undermined by how you said it.
Actually it's smart to take risks. The expected value of foundig a startup is sufficiently high to make it a rational decision in most cases.
I recently read an article which stated that most successful entrepreneurs are actually highly risk averse- they only take carefully calculated risks.
"Stupid" is not brilliant. "Don't be stupid" is a heuristic used where an idea does not conform to 'known' patterns. It's about someone else telling you that whatever you came up with does not appear to mesh with their understanding of reality. Those who ignore "don't be stupid" and succeed, not because they were stupid and there's something inherently positive about being stupid. It's because the heuristic was wrong this time. Someone applied it wrong, or maybe their understanding of the world is false.
When the heuristic is correct... well... the -other- saying goes 'if I had a nickle for every fool...".
For example, stupid has hangover. Smart has hangover too. The question is, is the hangover worth it. If it's worth it, then you're not actually stupid. You are in fact smart, and accepted the label 'stupid' that someone else gave you. On the other hand, if I got a hangover, a 5 hour hole in my memory, lost my wallet, and ended up in a hospital... probably actually stupid (happened last year). Cause that really wasn't worth it.
