A lot of people seem to believe that they are superior drivers, shoppers, bike riders, spellers, etc., and are forced to “put up with” the idiocy of the masses at every turn. Their employers are fools who make poor decisions and their coworkers are lazy dolts who can’t do their jobs. If their job necessitates dealing with customers or clients, of course those are blundering morons whose impossible demands create never-ending misery.
I’m not referring to Lake Wobegon-style above-averageness, which could be a sign of healthy self-esteem, but deep-seated arrogance with accompanying hostility toward the members of society perceived as deficient.
When you are locked ina world mostly populated by idiots, it is pretty easy to assume that the population of the entire world are idiots. Witness many Coen Brothers films:Osbourne Cox: And you’re my wife’s lover?
Ted Treffon: [shaking his head] No.
Osbourne Cox: Then what are you doing here? I know you. You’re the guy from the gym.
Ted Treffon: I’m not here representing HardBodies.
Osbourne Cox: Oh, yes. I know very well what you represent. You represent the idiocy of today.
Ted Treffon: No, I don’t represent that either.
Osbourne Cox: Yeah. You’re the guy at the gym when I asked about that moronic woman.
Ted Treffon: She’s not a moron.
Osbourne Cox: You’re in league with that moronic woman. You are part of a league of morons.
Ted Treffon: No. No.
Osbourne Cox: Oh, yes. You see, you’re one of the morons I’ve been fighting my whole life. My whole fucking life. But guess what… Today, I win. [shoots Treffon in the shoulder][RIGHT]-- Burn After Reading[/RIGHT]
Stranger
For one thing, most people fall into one of two categories. People who genuinely are more intelligent than average; and people who are stupider than average but often don’t realize their own incompetence.
The problem lies not in one assuming that others are idiots: That is in fact quite often the case. The problem lies in one assuming that one is not oneself an idiot.
Basically, because it’s easy to not notice the people who do what they’re supposed to be doing.
Say you work in retail; which are you going to remember, the 30 customers that day who queued, were reasonably polite, paid the right money took their stuff and left, or the one guy who showed up and threw a screaming fit because you didn’t stock the right kind of yoghurt? You only need a few crazy customers in for it to feel like the place was full of mad people all day.
Or you’re driving, who do you notice- the people driving sensibly at a reasonable speed, or the jerk who just screeched past you then jumped a red light? If you saw a few people do that, you start thinking the place is full of psycho drivers.
It really doesn’t take a very high proportion of idiots for them to be the only thing your brain focuses on- after all, they’re the important ones, the ones most likely to cause you trouble.
Have you met other people?
Why is it so common to assume that other people are idiots?
It saves time?
I think we’re very good at justifying, and sympathising with, our own mistakes, because (a) we’re biased in our own favour, and (b) we know all the circumstances and rationalisations behind them. And, we tend not to be aware of all the stupid things we do because often the lack of awareness is the very cause of them.
The oft-observed phenomenon that everybody considers themself to be a good driver is a case in point. We remember all the stupid things other drivers do when we we are alert and paying attention. But we may never even be aware of the stupid things that we do when we’re not paying attention ourselves. And even if we are briefly aware that a certain manoeuvre was maybe a little questionable, we are good at finding satisfactory justifications for it. And the incident is forgotten, and we continue to remember only the cases of other people driving like idiots.
What Filbert said. It’s confirmation bias. In the example about driving, in my thirty years of driving, I can still remember severely bad drivers who could have caused wrecks over the years. Same thing from my time in public service. You’re grateful for all the kind, polite people, but it’s the complete idiots that stand out. And if you have others that routinely request bogus things (the TPS report only stapled with a red Swingline) for no good reason, it grates. Plus, if you see an anundance of ignorance on display repeatedly, it’s hard not to scratch your head over it. I just posted a thread last night about the apparent stupidity of some that don’t understand the complexities of a phone app that’s clearly labeled “for entertainment purposes only.” It makes your heart hurt sometimes. 
Well, there surely exist quite a few people who are average… I believe intelligence tends toward a Bell shaped distribution.
Thinking you are a bit smarter than someone else ought not automatically make you view them as an idiot, let alone fill you with exasperation, anger, or disdain for them. I could see feeling smugly superior quietly to yourself perhaps, but I hear frequent complaining about the “idiocy.” If most people really are idiots, the term loses its meaning, doesn’t it?
Yes!
Ah well, there is where you go wrong right at the start. Your assume a lot of people view other people as idiots. Not so in my opinion.
Mostly other people are benign.
My grandfather used to say, drive as if everyone else on the road are idiots… because they are.
Even not on the road it’s a safe assumption. I’ve said it on these boards numerous times, people are stupid.
Because from my vantage point, some people are.
As just one example, I’ve been driving for 30 years, and I have never been in a car wreck. And I do a lot of driving. Factually speaking, does it mean I am a superior driver? No; perhaps I’m just lucky. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think I was a superior driver compared to most others.
Which is another way of saying that most people just fall into the background. The people you remember and comment on tend (or appear) to be at the extremes of some kind of behavior. You almost never have a conversation along the lines of “You know Alice; she’s just kind of average, smarts-wise,” but it is not uncommon to hear that “Bob is a complete fucking imbecile,” or “Craig is amazing when it comes to frequency analysis and combinatorics.” Like reviews on Amazon.com, most tend toward the extremes, because the people in the middle just don’t care enough to bother writing a review.
Also people tend to remember the stupid things that one has said (and we’ve all said them) over the intelligent things, especially if one’s particular areas of competence are far afield from the topic at hand. I know some people who are clearly very smart (as in, smarter than me on the order of a standard deviation or more) in mathematics and engineering, but I’ve heard the same people say some of the most outrageously idiotic things when it comes to politics, economics, history, and even the basic sciences. This is more than just confirmation bias (that you expect people to be stupid and tend to look for confirmation); it is that nobody is smart about everything, any a deficiency in any area that is particularly near and dear to your heart natively caries more weight than their intellectual accomplishments in some other field. And the more narrow your particular fields of interest or occupations, the more you tend to judge everyone outside of them as being stupid or ignorant.
Stranger
It’s not an assumption, but an observation.
Are idiots inherently not benign?
People are stupid compared to what? Animals? Plants? Chairs?
And how is it a safe to assume that others are idiots?
It leads to thinking things like:
- Instructions? Probably written by an idiot! I know best.
- Warning, roads icy? That means bad drivers, not me!
- I don’t care how many times you’ve done that, I’m doing it my way.
- The teacher gave me a bad grade because she’s an idiot. My paper was just fine.
Good luck learning anything from anyone while you “stay safe” in your assumption that you are surrounded by idiots who know nothing of value to you.
There are two kinds of people: those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t.
I think intelligence is the wrong yardstick here. Most of the Mensa members I know are awful drivers, make stunningly bad career choices, and besides being generally socially awkward, exhibit poor judgement in nearly every foray into any sort of relationship, personal or professional.
Discounting the drooling, slack-jawed yokels, many of the “idiots” out there annoying us may be pretty brilliant.
Well, I have my moments. 
I don’t think they are. From what I see living in a city of over a million people and observing them daily, I’d say idiots are on the spectrum from clueless to malignant. I’ll grant you that most idiots do stupid, irritating things because it never occurs to them not to do them, but there are definitely idiots out there who go out of their way to make life difficult for others.
Yup. I sometimes write other people off as idiots but there are things I suck at too. I am a shitty driver (I’ve had to make accommodations for my bad driving skills like not driving during rush hour or avoiding driving at night if I can help it), my social skills aren’t too good, etc. People have ample reasons to write me off the same way I write other people off.
Knowledge is power.