Random Thoughts on Stupidity
Clouds of Stupidity – A Short Poem
Ignorance in abundance
My mind struggles with ambiguity
An occasional bolt encompasses a few disparate ideas
Just as suddenly, the clouds of stupidity reobscures the truth.
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Hanlon’s Razor…
“states that we should not attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity. “
[https://fs.blog/mental-models/]
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On Stupidity – A Short Story
I am stupid”, he said.
Despite the emphasis of the statement, I knew he was just trying it on for size.
As we nursed our lime and tonic waters, I contemplated the merits of the statement just the same.
Grammatically, the utterance was sound. He rarely used contractions in his speech or his writing. He believed that saying two words in one syllable such as “I’m” signaled ambiguity if not indolence. When someone, say a student in his writing class, said “I’m going to finish the paper tomorrow”, what he heard was “I might try to finish the paper tomorrow…unless you tell me I have until the end of the week”. Whereas the statement “I am going to finish the paper tomorrow” was declarative. It was spoken to oneself as much as to the listener. In this context, “am” is an action verb that must be spelled out independently, not hidden behind the aprons of the subject.
His academic accomplishments, on both sides of the lecturn, were profound and his social and family life could only be described as fulfilling. So, taken literally, his statement implied a radically uncommon definition of “stupid”.
This led me to my own definition of “stupid”. Surely there must be multiple meanings of the word not to mention various interpretations in other languages and cultures. I realized that, though I had used the word, mostly in fits of despair at some untenable situation, I didn’t really have a clinical definition for “stupid”. I imagined that it was related to a condition of coginitive inertia rather than an actual deficiency of knowledge. Unlike “imbecile” or other forms of insanity, “stupid” must be something that can be overcome under the influence of appropriate incentives. This form of “stupid” did not fit the evidence at hand.
Another, broader meaning of “stupid” involves willful delusion. That is, intentionally believing and acting on a low probablility hypothesis. This is a question of judgement or value and is sometimes upgraded from “stupid” to “brilliant” or, more often, “just lucky”.
Without the benefit of explanatory context, it was difficult to understand exactly what definition of “stupid” he was using at the moment so I just let the statement hang there and continued sipping my tonic and lime.
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