Quim Monzó returns for Sant Jordi with an original proposal: a book that includes all the articles in which he has written the word idiota or one of its derivatives. Julià Guillamon, who curated the exhibition on the writer and has collaborated with him on two other Libros de Vanguardia titles, has arranged thematically these more than eighty articles in six chapters, with titles such as “They must think that we are idiots” or “I haven’t become an idiot yet”. The result is Preclear Minds. The book of idiots.
In the epilogue, Guillamon recalls an interview with Josep M. Puyal, where Monzó points out his view that clichés fry the intellectual capacity of many people, who “are too lazy to think”. Early on Monzó discovers that there are as many idiots among the moderns as among the progressives, so without realizing it he reaffirms the Second Fundamental Law of Human Stupidity formulated by Carlo M. Cipolla in The basic laws of human stupidity: “The probability that a given person is an idiot is independent of any other characteristic of that person.”
Cipolla distinguishes these types of people: the fools (they benefit others and harm themselves), the intelligent (they benefit others and themselves) and the thieves (they harm others and benefit from them). The fourth type is what concerns us, the idiots, who harm other people and themselves at the same time.
The book collects cases like that of benches in the shape of books to encourage reading, without any proven effect other than a noticeable discomfort when sitting on them; or the motorcyclist who, in a march against the use of helmets on motorcycles, dies in an accident precisely because he was not wearing one; or the result of always smiling in photos forgetting that smiling for no reason is a sign of stupidity in many cultures, which also induces artificial intelligence to generate unreal images like that of medieval warriors all smiling; or a regulation from Lloret to sanction balconing practitioners (assuming they survive) and the hotel where they stay and which is not to blame for the foolishness of its customers.
There is no lack of criticism of the stupidity of restaurants where diners have to endure loud music or perversely dark environments. One of the texts, already accepting the inevitable, details specific recipes to get the vomitous dishes that we often find everywhere. The book is hilarious and another example of the precise writing of an author who uses magnificent Catalan, despite the fact that he predicts a “black future”, and that while it is not concrete it continues to allow him to “
