And after all, if stupidity did not, when seen from within, look so exactly like talent as to be mistaken for it, and if it could not, when seen from outside, appear as progress, genius, hope, and improvement, doubtless no one would want to be stupid, and there would be no stupidity.
Or at least it would be very easy to combat it. But unfortunately there is something very winning and natural about it. If one finds, for instance, that there is more artistic achievement in a printed reproduction than in an oil-painting done by hand, well, the fact is that there is a kind of truth in this too, and one that can be proved more satisfactorily than the truth that van Gogh was a great artist. Likewise, it is very easy and rewarding to be more powerful as a dramatist than Shakespeare or a more even story-teller than Goethe; and a thorough going platitude always has more humanity in it than a new discovery. The long and the short of it is, there is no important idea that stupidity does not know how to make use of, for it can move in all directions and is able to wear all the garments of truth.
Truth, on the other hand, has only one garment and one road and is always at a disadvantage.
The Man Without Qualities | Robert Musil
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