The world hangs by a hair (in the hand)

If we are to believe Hammerstein’s typology, the most common people (at least in the army) are lazy fools, perfectly adapted to routine tasks. The greatest danger is stupid workers, who only cause disasters. Long live the lazy people!

Baron Kurt von Hammerstein (1876-1943) spent his entire career in the German army. Until his opposition to Nazism pushed him to give up his post as general. From his very long experience in command, he learned a lesson which he expressed as follows: “I distinguish four species. There are intelligent officers, hard workers, stupid ones and lazy ones. Generally, these qualities come in pairs. Some are intelligent and hardworking, those must go to the general staff. The following are stupid and lazy; they make up 90% of any army and are adept at routine tasks. He who is intelligent and at the same time lazy qualifies for the highest command tasks, because he will bring there the intellectual clarity and the nervous strength to make difficult decisions. We must be careful of those who are stupid and hard-working, because they will only ever cause disasters.”

This classification remained under the name “Hammerstein typology” and can be applied to any large organization. The first lesson to draw from this is that laziness has a surprisingly positive connotation in the case of intelligent people, since it allows them to resolve the most difficult dilemmas. It’s even quality that makes the best chefs, if we are to believe von Hammerstein. We will taste the biting irony coming from a career soldier who elevates Gaston Lagaffe’s main occupation to the rank of cardinal virtue for commanding troops!

The second lesson is even more important: laziness can often prove to be a safeguard against pests. Thus, 90% of people are stupid but harmless, because laziness prevents them from carrying out any stupid plan that comes to mind. The truly dangerous people are those in whom a hardworking mind increases the effects of a deficient brain. Laziness therefore appears here as a tool for protecting society against idiots! The hair in the hand is a blessing! A highly original thought, obviously coming from a very clever lazy person, and which really deserves more attention.

Because it is a known fact: the world is made up of a majority of imbeciles. Obviously not you, esteemed reader, but everyone else! Certainly, the history of Humanity has not been a long smooth river, and at the moment things are going very badly with the worst horde of morons and other detractors of science ever brought to power almost everywhere across the planet. But if we exclude the current period, we can admit that Homo sapiens has not fared too badly, since it has survived several hundred thousand years without disappearing despite a very high stupidity quotient in the population.

This miracle is therefore due to laziness, a key element of the human psyche whose primordial influence on our survival as a species is only now being understood.

Far from being an obstacle to evolution, laziness is the mechanism that allows it to be channeled by filtering out all bad ideas. It is thanks to her that we did not have to endure the distressing spectacle of the stone submarine, the three-handed sword or the catomobile car, so many heartbreaking inventions that remained at the stage of vague dreams because their designers did not find the strength to get out of bed to make them a reality.

It remains to be understood why this protection against pests no longer seems to work today. If we examine the Trump administration, we can only see that the abysmal stupidity of its members is coupled with absolute laziness. The president spends his time playing golf or watching TV, and refuses to read the files submitted to him. Despite a clear classification in the Hammerstein typology which should make him a harmless newbie, he causes unprecedented damage. How is this possible?

The most likely hypothesis is technological. While Trump and the technofascist hyperbillionaires are investing huge sums of money in artificial intelligence, we can only assume that they are making massive use of it themselves. We would then be faced with the new case of lazy people who have their most stupid ideas realized by machines. All the fantasies which until now would have remained confined to the depths of moldy brains now become real through the magic of robots. This provides an additional reason to unplug AI: for its survival, Humanity must at all costs fight against technologies that increase the productivity of idiots.

This text and this drawing can be found with a host of others in issue 727 of “Vigousse”, the little French-speaking satirist, on newsstands (or in the mailbox, for subscribers) every Friday.