The Encyclopædia of Stupidity - Tapa blanda

Boxsel, Matthijs Van

 
9781861892317: The Encyclopædia of Stupidity

Sinopsis

Matthijs van Boxsel believes that no one is intelligent enough to understand their own stupidity. In The Encyclopædia of Stupidity he shows how stupidity manifests itself in all areas, in everyone, at all times, proposing that stupidity is the foundation of our civilization.

In short sections with such titles as ‘The Blunderers’ Club’, ‘Fools in Hell’, ‘Genealogy of Idiots’, and ‘The Aesthetics of the Empty Gesture’, stupidity is analysed on the basis of fairy tales, cartoons, triumphal arches, garden architecture, Baroque ceilings, jokes, flimsy excuses and science fiction. But Van Boxsel wants to do more than just assemble a ‘shadow cabinet’ of wisdom; he tries to fathom the logic of this opposite world. Where do understanding and intelligence begin and end? He examines mythic fools such as Cyclops and King Midas, cities such as Gotham, archetypes including the dumb blonde, and traditionally stupid animals such as the goose, the donkey and the headless chicken.

Van Boxsel posits that stupidity is a condition for intelligence, that blunders stimulate progress, that failure is the basis for success. In this erudite and witty book he maintains that our culture is the product of a series of failed attempts to comprehend stupidity.

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Acerca del autor

Matthijs van Boxsel is a literary historian who has been researching, writing and lecturing on stupidity for the last 20 years.

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Otras ediciones populares con el mismo título

9781861891594: The Encyclopædia of Stupidity

Edición Destacada

ISBN 10:  1861891598 ISBN 13:  9781861891594
Editorial: Reaktion Books, 2003
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