According to Osho, about ninety percent of 'idiots' are manufactured by society and only ten percent are born - and even those exist because a competitive, hierarchical culture needs them. Constant comparison, prohibitions ("Don't!"), imposed ideals and media manipulation cripple natural intelligence. If people were allowed to blossom in their own nature without coercion, such stupidity - and the elevation of photogenic leaders - would largely disappear.
Most idiots are made when society keeps scolding, comparing, and shaping people instead of letting them grow naturally.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, ARE IDIOTS BORN OR TRAINED? Nirupa, it is a complicated question. Almost ninety percent of idiots are trained. Ten percent are born. And the ten percent are born because of those ninety percent who have been trained. Man from his very beginning has lived a very weird life -- weird in the sense that it needs idiots. If you don't have idiots you will not have wise men; if you don't have the idiots, you will not have the so-called giants of intellect. It is almost a necessity that the category of idiots should remain. Nobody has looked into the deeper layers of how the society has functioned up to now. But the way it has functioned can only be described as utterly criminal. The society needs categories, hierarchies.
Mr p'ang of ch'en had a son who was clever as a child but suffered from an abnormality when he grew up. When he heard singing he thought it was weeping; when he saw white he thought it was black; fragrant smells he thought noisome, sweet tastes he thought bitter, wrong actions he thought right. Whatever came into his mind -- heaven and earth, the four cardinal points, water and fire, heat and cold -- he always turned it upside down.
A CERTAIN MR. YANG TOLD HIS FATHER: 'THE GENTLEMEN OF LU HAVE MANY ARTS AND SKILLS, PERHAPS THEY CAN CURE HIM. WHY NOT INQUIRE AMONG THEM?' THE FATHER SET OUT FOR LU, BUT PASSING THROUGH CH'EN HE CAME ACROSS LAO TZU AND TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO TELL HIM ABOUT HIS SON'S SYMPTOMS. 'HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOUR SON IS ABNORMAL?' SAID LAO TZU. 'NOWADAYS EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS DELUDED ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG AND CONFUSED ABOUT BENEFIT AND HARM. BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE SHARE THIS SICKNESS NO ONE PERCEIVES THAT IT IS A SICKNESS. BESIDES, ONE MAN'S ABNORMALITY IS NOT ENOUGH TO OVERTURN HIS FAMILY; ONE FAMILY'S TO OVERTURN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD: ONE NEIGHBOURHOOD'S TO OVERTURN THE STATE; ONE STATE'S TO OVERTURN THE WORLD. IF THE WHOLE WORLD WERE ABNORMAL HOW COULD ABNORMALITY OVERTURN IT? SUPPOSING THE MINDS OF EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WERE LIKE YOUR SON'S, THEN, ON THE…
Osho, why is it that only humans repress, manipulate, kill, try to conquer the natural flow in nature, the tao? Why are we so stupid?
Hindus and Mohammedans, whenever they are in a murderous mood, become united amongst themselves; otherwise they go dull, dead -- they start vegetating again. It is very strange. Why people are so much interested in destruction? If you are going on the street and you see two people fighting -- you may be going for a very urgent work -- you will forget all about the urgent work; you will stop there. First you will see the fight; you cannot leave that place. The urgent work can wait; in fact there is no more any urgency than to watch the fight. Why? Why a crowd gathers when two persons are fighting? You become identified with the fight. And this happens in many ways. Just a football match or a hockey match and you see thousands of people shouting, going almost mad, jumping, ready to kill each other. Why so much…
Osho, are the children really as intelligent as you say they are, before the society starts destroying them?
A CHILD is pure intelligence because a child is yet uncontaminated. A child is a clean slate, nothing is written on him. A child is absolute emptiness, TABULA RASA. The society will start writing immediately that you are a Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Mohammedan, Communist. The society will immediately start writing the Bhagavad Gita, Koran, Bible. The society cannot wait. The society is very much afraid that if the child's intelligence is left intact, then he will never be a slave. He will never be a part of any slavery, of any structure of domination. He will neither dominate nor be dominated. He will neither possess nor be possessed. He will be pure rebellion. His innocence has to be corrupted immediately. His wings have to be cut, he has to be given crutches to lean upon so he never learns how to walk on his own feet, so he remains always…
Osho, why are people so fanatically committed to groups and organizations of all kinds: religious, social, and political?
It is good that these people don't participate in your Olympic races; otherwise your great runners will just look silly. You cannot move like monkeys from one tree to another tree. They go on jumping from one tree to another tree for miles; they need not touch the ground. You cannot fight even with a monkey. This has to be accepted: that man is the weakest animal on the earth. And this is the foundation of his whole behavior, his commitments, his groupings. He has to be part of something bigger than himself; only then does he feel safe. He had to invent all kinds of weapons. No animal has bothered to invent weapons. There is no need; their hands, their teeth, their nails, are enough. From the earliest days man had to invent weapons -- first made of stones, rocks, then slowly slowly with metals. Then he had to…