WATCH: Stephen Fry Explains Trump’s Lies and Why Some Support Them

“Complete Ignorance Breeds Confidence”

Celebrated, out actor and author Stephen Fry, once voted the UK’s most intelligent man on television, has paired with Pindex to take on Donald Trump.

The video tackles cognitive dissonance, or “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.” Fry discusses the Dunning-Kruger effect, a study which found that less proficient students dramatically overestimated their own ability.

“Dunning found that the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge,” Fry narrates the animated video below, something The Huffington Post noted could relate to some of Trump’s supporters “[believing] just about everything he says when he’s wrong.”

Fry covers a range of topics and how they relate to cognitive dissonance and the Dunning-Kruger effect, including immigration, the environment, the war in Iraq, the media and even American jobs lost to automation. “It effects everyone, from bank robbers to presidents,” Fry says. “With any given subject, complete ignorance breeds confidence.”

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance,” the actor concludes. “It is the illusion of knowledge.”

Watch the full video below:

 

 

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H/T: Mashable