Meditations on the Nature of Stupidity

[Sibling Chatty]

Moving discussion of stupidity away from another area, but preventing Rant status from allowing it to go into...well, ranting...

The nature of stupidity can often be such that we perceive as stupidity that which is actually the lack of a base of what we, in own small cocoon, consider common knowledge.

We often encounter it in LWPB, in that a British or European "common" term is totally unheard of by the average, or even above average US'ian, and even some Canadians. I'm not always the brightest flame on the Menorah, but I had no frickin' idea what dessous(?) was. At all. OK, I find out in's some sort of fancy underwear. Still don't know exactly, or if there IS an exactly to know. (At this point, it's no longer stupidity, it's lack of motivation to bother finding out.)

AHA!! So, does that indicate stupidity, in that there's something that I know I don't know, and COULD find out? Or is that a lack of interest/time/concern with fancy underwear??

We have a tendancy to dismiss as stupid those people who do not bother to utilize their intellectual capabilities to gather that information that WE think they should have and understand. However, we might find that THEY think of us similarly, in that there are things they know that are important in their viewpoint, and we're clueless.

How many people here can bake bead from scratch? With no recipe?? There are those that would consider that dangerousy ignorant. How could you be stupid enough to NOT know how to provide yourself the absolute minimal food?? Can you grow and preserve crops for the times that you can't eat from your garden? How about capture and prepare game to eat, or find wild eggs and determine their edibility? Survive on wild berries and mushrooms?

No, huh? Sure you can program in 4 languages, but that presupposes a computer. OK, you can install a muffler, but that presupposes an auto, and a premade muffler.

Where does stupid start? How do we choose to set ourselves as the judge of smart and stupid? Other than subjectively, is there a criteria?

OK, I meditated. Discuss!!

[beagle]

I'd distinguish between intelligent and smart. Intelligent means good at doing the IQ tests or writing piano sonatas or whatever. Smart means being able to adapt to the world, or adapt it to you, to your advantage. The two seem almost independent, though exceptionally powerful when combined.

I know very intelligent people who literally could not wire a plug (in the days when they weren't all moulded on). Conversely (at least in the UK) we probably all know tradesmen who have the villa in Spain, the string of buy-to-let properties ,and so forth. In general I'd say smartness+focus beats intelligence in terms of worldly achievement, unless you are so bright you can patent or create something entirely new, and even then you need the smartness not to let your agent make all the money. On the other hand extreme pure intelligence on the Newton/Darwin scale is what drives societies as a whole forwards.

By the way, I didn't know dessous either. There's obviously no excuse for me not getting some catalogues in to read up about it though.

[goat starer]

I didn't know what a Dessous was either (other than that it means 'below' in French). That said I can wire my house, build, grow vegetables, bake, preserve etc and would probably do OKish in the event of the global collapse of civilisation.

As with many questions of this sort the meditation by chatty above comes about because our language is not as sophisticated as we would like to think. tupidity means very different things in different places, times, contexts etc

I tend not to consider anybody stupid because everybody can contribute something I cannot or do not want to (the basis of my left wing beliefs) and as social creatures the divides we make between different roles and capabilities are entirely artificial and subject to change. Blacksmiths were once powerful members of the community but now nobody needs them much!

PS. I said I can bake and it is true that I can make a passable range of baked goods but I bet there are people on here who could make better ones! I I were pushed I would say that being a master at anything (rather than jack of all trades) is a mark of value.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I think there is such a thing as stupidity, which I define as the lack of common sense. I know a few people, while not smart (reverse Beagle's defintions for mine), are some of hte nicest people I know, and definately not stupid.

[beagle]

They might be smart by my adapt to the world or vice versa criterion. Who's to say that finding a quiet niche and being happy and nice isn't the smartest move of all?

[Griffin NoName]

I only apply the word stupid to two people. Myself and my mother.

Clearly there is a need for yet another new word (um better make that three words) in the vocabulary.

Differently-Thinking challenged.

[Swatopluk]

An old German dictionary gives the definition of Dummheit (stupidity) as "the inability to draw correct conclusions from observations".
There is a quite entertaining book by a German neurologist Über die Dummheit (On Stupidity) that takes this as a start and observes among other things that there is a type of stupidity only occuring with highly intelligent people. The greatest blunders are committed usually by them because they are entrusted with the things that can wrong in a large way. Would you trust a moron with e.g. the US presidency?...Eh, never mind .

I indeed presumed that dessous was an international term for erotic underwear while I was unsure about the exact connotations of simple "lingerie".
On the other hand English is the probably rare example of a language where it can easily happen that one is not understood despite only using words from a normal dictionary (i.e. not deliberately using obscure wording). In German it is more the pronounciation problem instead, once written down the problem usually disappears to a large degree.

[Griffin NoName]

On the other hand English is the probably rare example of a language where it can easily happen that one is not understood despite only using words from a normal dictionary (i.e. not deliberately using obscure wording).

I believe The Times Cryptic crossword was the original cause of this facet of the English language 

[Swatopluk]

I'd say it was those Norman bastards (led by a guy who wanted to replace his unflattering nickname) that doubled the thesaurus content and changed the pronounciation from read-as-written to read as who-knows-?
ghoti=fish

[Griffin NoName]

I have been doing some profound thinking over Xmas and am currently considering whether it is stupid to meditate on the nature of stupidity. I am tending towards a belief that I am too stupid to know whether it is or not. I may need rescuing.

[Swatopluk]

It's like madness. If you believe you are, you probably are not.