The following is an excerpt from my book “Principles of Applied Stupidity.” The Irregardless Effect is a time honored and highly effective method of manipulating large numbers of people.
Fighter pilots often use the phrase “target fascination.” This term refers to becoming so focused on the enemy plane in front of you– i.e., the one you hope to shoot down–that you lose track of the enemy plane that is lining up behind you, which, incidentally, is hoping to shoot you down.
Something very similar happens with stupidity.
When people encounter a large mistake or error of some sort, they suffer from “stupidity fascination.” All they can see is the one big mistake. Everything else becomes invisible to them. There can be other mistakes, or worse, there can be chicanery, but their senses and perceptions are overwhelmed by the one large error. It’s like someone shining a bright light in your eyes in a dimly lit room. Your iris closes down, and all you can see is the bright light and nothing else.
This makes it very easy to manipulate many situations, by using what is known as the “Irregardless Effect.”
The Irregardless Effect is achieved by making a blatant and very obvious error, one that everyone in the room will immediately and collectively recognize as such. When this happens, everyone in the room will become totally mesmerized by the error, and will not see, or be able to think about, anything else.
It may seem counter to all your smartist training that you, or anyone else, would purposefully make an obvious error in full view of everyone. That is why it works so well. Since most people are governed by Principle #4 (Fear of Looking Stupid Is an Enormous Force), they will also assume that everyone else is also terribly afraid of looking stupid, therefore it will never occur to them that you or anyone else would actually make a mistake on purpose. So when you display a huge contrived error, this fascinates the average observer. They are now under the spell of the Irregardless Effect.
They will be so fascinated by that one big mistake you have put in front of them that they will not notice anything else you may be doing. You can pretty much get away with anything, and you can do so right under their noses.
Just one example of the Irregardless Effect at work:
There was once a video producer who often utilized the Irregardless Effect in his line of work (in fact, he used it on me for years, and this is how I learned the technique).
This fellow was in the business of creating little “industrial” videos for corporate clients (to show at company meetings, etc). When he made preliminary versions of these little TV shows, he knew he would have to deal with a lot of middle managers who had authority to critique the production. Most of them, of course, knew virtually nothing about video or movie production, but they all wanted to help. “Rub their smell on the project” is the phrase he used.
Anyway, when showing the “final approval” versions to these middle managers, he would put a really obvious error in the show. This would be something like a misspelled name of the company’s CEO, or worse, sometimes he would even misspell the name of the company itself.
When the various vice-presidents would come in to view one of these “final approval” versions, of course, they would all immediately see this planted error. Right on cue, they would all jump up in a fit of smartist ecstacy and say, “Oh my goodness, you made such a terrible mistake, good thing I was here to catch it.”
This producer would then proceed to act very obsequiously, pretending to be very dumb and saying “Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you were here to catch that awful mistake.”
With their need to feel smart having been satisfied, all the people in fancy suits would then walk out of the meeting feeling important and vindicated, and no major difficult changes had to be made. (In fact, the show with the correct spelling was usually already done, just in case no one caught the blatant error). The correction of the phony error would be the sum total of the clients’ input, as the one error was so huge that everything else looked great to them in comparison. It was a very simple, yet very effective, application of the Irregardless Effect and the Principles of Applied Stupidity.
Don’t be too quick to condemn this guy. There was a very good reason why he planted these intentional “stupid mistakes.” As you know, people in middle management positions generally feel compelled to justify their high salaries. If there was no obvious error to find, they would still feel obligated to find something to change . . . maybe something that probably shouldn’t be changed. By planting a faux error to find, he cut down on amateurish meddling, while making clients “take ownership” of the project by making them think they had made a major contribution.
Here is another example of masterful use of the Irregardless Effect, used by none other than George W. Bush. This was done in full view of millions of people, but, due to the power of the Irregardless Effect, no one noticed it:
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, retired a few years ago, and it was up to George W. to appoint her successor. Now there is nothing in the Constitution about how many women need to be on the supreme court, but it was pretty much assumed that to be politically correct, etc., another woman should be nominated to replace O’Connor. So George nominated . . . Harriet Miers. I have never met the woman, and I am sure she is very nice, but she had never served as a judge. An interesting choice.
When this nomination was announced, a lot of people, both Republican and Democrat, and even the ones who wanted a woman to be appointed, jumped up and said, “Good grief, this woman is totally unqualified.” There was a big political hooha, and the nomination was rejected. So Bush’s next nominee—who just happened to be a man—had credentials that looked so good relative to Ms. Miers that he sailed through the confirmation process.
George W. killed two birds with one rock here. While he appeared to be doing something that everyone thought was incredibly stupid, he got free of an implied requirement to nominate a woman. (“I nominated a woman and they turned her down.” What a great excuse.) He also got tremendous leeway in who he could pick, as anyone he nominated with even an ounce of actual judging experience was going to look like a star in comparison.
Principle #20:
People Are So Fascinated by Large Mistakes That
They Will Fail to Notice Little Mistakes,
or Anything Else for That Matter.
* * *
The Irregardless Effect is so powerful that it can be used with great effect on people in positions of authority above you, but of course it can also be used to manage subordinates.
For example, let’s suppose you have five assistants. You want their input on a PowerPoint Project or a memorandum, or perhaps you just want them to proofread a letter. You want to make sure that they are actually reading it and not just avoiding work by telling you it’s fine as is. How do you do this? It’s very simple. You just put in some obvious errors.
You can certainly use your own imagination, but to start you off, you can use things like “its” where it should be “it’s.” Phrases like “they was” are always good, and of course there’s the gold standard of bad writing, which of course is the word “irregardless.” If you sprinkle any or all of these errors into a document draft, and someone that you have
assigned to edit and/or critique the work says it’s fine as is, you know you have a shirker on your hands.
Most bosses would cringe at the thought of being caught making a mistake that was viewable by an underling. But it’s a fabulous way to test for due diligence. Because of Principle #5 (Everyone Wants to Look and Feel Smart), people love to comment on mistakes you have made, and if someone doesn’t comment on a mistake you have made, there is a 99% chance that this is not because they are being polite, it’s because they did not do their homework.
Of course, there is a small drawback to this problem, which is, once they see the word “irregardless” and fix it, the rest of your document, warts and all, will look fabulous in comparison.
This is a very powerful Principle of Applied Stupidity. You should use it with caution, and at your own risk. — JL
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