How Not To Be Stupid

Stop living on autopilot and take back control of your own mind.

We are surrounded by stupidity. Yet we rarely ask what it really means or where it comes from. If we can identify that someone else is stupid, there’s a good chance that we are not. That’s enough for most people.

In this provocative exploration of human behaviour, philosopher and bestselling author Igor Sibaldi argues that stupidity is not a lack of intelligence, but an inability to look beyond social norms and think for ourselves. Through twelve core areas of the human experience – including communication, wealth and overcoming fears – he uses wit and irony to help you arm yourself against stupidity, challenge your biases and turn obstacles into opportunities.

Examining some of the most influential ideas from psychology, theology and history in engaging, bitesize chapters, this is an essential toolkit for navigating the chaos of modern life.

Review

A clear, provocative guide to thinking more freely, How Not to Be Stupid explores the myriad ways we can get stuck without realizing it – through fear, habits, language and conformity – and offers instead a path to curiosity, clarity and liberation -- Christine Gross-Loh, bestselling author of The Path

Read this deeply unconventional book and you will start to get unstuck -- Dana Mackenzie, co-author of The Book of Why

Sibaldi shows that stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence – it's the opposite of freedom. His twelve 'functions' map the hidden ways we get stuck: in borrowed words, borrowed authority, borrowed desires. This book is a quiet provocation disguised as a self-help guide, and it deserves a wide readership -- Luke Burgis, author of Wanting

About the Author

Igor Sibaldi is an Italian writer, philosopher, philologist and scholar of theology. He is the author of several long selling novels and non-fiction books such as I Maestri invisibili (The Invisible Masters) and Il libro degli Angeli (The Book of Angels). He has translated War and Peace and other Russian classics, translated and commented on the Gospel of John from Greek and a large portion of Genesis from ancient Hebrew. Since 1997, he has held and attended over 1000 lectures and conferences in Italy, Switzerland and Central America, and he also directs and performs for the theatre. He is of Russian origin. How Not to Be Stupid is his first book to be translated into English.