Stupidity
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
First of, this topic is based on my reflections of a documentary, I don't really remember its name. The documentary goes on about one single subject: "Stupidity", with capitals.
What would you say that Stupidity is? There's no single sistematic work on Stupìdity until today, so the scientific community and by consequence the linguistic community has not offered a definition of Stupidity appliable with certainty to all cases. An abstract of all those cases is needed in order to discuss it properly, even more considering that Stupidity is valorative and as such has a "shades zone" in wich it's more difficult to say if it's appliable or not. The only works that exist up to this date are anecdotic at best, but Stupidity is an important subject in social science as for today, considering that new terms have appeared in the last century, like "mass society". Stupidity is linked with the phenomenum of"mass society", this phenomenum that verifies a social representation of reality reflecting that of the majority, is very important in order to get a definition of stupidity. Not only the majority creates this representation of the masses, but almost subliminaly, it seems to give orders and get obidience in exchange from most people. What clothes we dress, what words we use and what music we hear is in most cases determined by this phenomena. Of course the human still has his will, but could it be that weak?
A case that's heard most of the time related to this subject pops up when a question is asked: Do you do everything that its told to you? Or what rules do you follow? Or do you follow any rule at all? That rule seems to be given by the previously mentioned social phenomenum. Is this phenomenum new? No it isn't, but it's now more expanded than ever thanks to the increment of the mass media and the correlated increment of people who have access to it and tend to use them more per day. The answers to this questions are often: No I don't do everything I'm told to. I only follow my own rules, I don't care what everyone thinks... But is it really that way, or does this person then goes on into the rage that the rest of the public has entered after hearing the words of a public speaker, or does he starts jumping senselessly while hearing the DJ's music. The latter seems to be the most probable case, following the rule of the mass. Is the human kin condemned in this mass society to the lack of original thinking or even his own will? Or is this phenomenum a direct consequence of that wich we call Stupidity? And for instance. Can it be overcome? Even if it's in a few cases.
But are we really "condemned" to be stupid, i.e. is it really something bad and wich should be reduced. Some people believe that wars, for example, are stupid by definition because, among other things, it leads to the species destruction, wich of course is unintelligent, if we want to accept that stupidity is the lack of intelligence. I'll risk a definition of stupidity: to me the term means the celebration of ignorance, this is, not only the lack of knowledge but the self-eulogy of it. But is really ignorance a bliss. Some argue that it's. Intelectualism has been attacked since it arose after the Renacemento, however only now it's attacked for a new current of people who don't offer traditions, romanticism, religion or morality as the weapon that should destroy intellectualism or excesive intellectualism. They offer simple stupidity, wich they say is the calm consolation on ignorance, an statification of ignorance in oneself. Many of this people equate, however, stupidity with religion or non-rationalism, wich is a mistake, and thus they tend to accept some religious dogma as salvation or to reject the process of reason willfully.
So, we should be stupid to be happy (if that's even the goal of an human being). Stupidity causes an state of selfcentration and balance, mostly in one's personality, making people happy of enjoying the present without awareness of the future. Wars are, following this current, a consequence of human intellingence and not of it's stupidity. Man wages war (to take only one example) because he rationalizes everything, because he "thinks too much". To prove their point they use an analogy with natural life. A fish in a barrel "seems happy" he doesn't know where he's, but he feels that he needs to eat, breath, sleep and reproduce, and that's everything he needs. This fish could be swiming in circles inside said barrel without noticing that he's actually swiming in circles, because his memory won't last more than four seconds. This movement won't argue that we should reach such state of "stupidity" because it's impossible, but we should approach it more and more every moment to be happy. It's more, even if we reach that "perfect" state of stupidity we'll never know that we reached it because we'll be completely unaware of our surroundings. So what we should do is ignore as much as we can on purpose to reach that state of balance, of equilibrium.
The effect of this mass society seems to be unavoidable in most cases, because the representation that we all have of the world is mostly created by what we experience and we experience very little of what we "know" today. This tends to create a fantasy about others in general, standards that are recognized by most people as a social law (if you want), the stereotypes are one of this standards. Should we do as Rousseau proposed in the "Emile" and teach everyone in isolation so he can escape this effects (wich wasn't the purpose of his work of course) or is there a more realistic approach?
So what do you think: Is there such a thing as stupidity? What's stupidity? Is it a condemnation? Is ignorance a bliss? Is stupidity inherent to human nature or a consequence of his social behavior? Do we've to end or reduce this stupidity or should we embrace it?
I think that for now I'll say no, even if it's for practical reasons. Political regimes tend to take advantage of the ignorance of the general public because they've the means and the vission to do so. So, even if it's to protect social order, freedoms and coherence I'd say no...
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Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars
However you still may try.
Someone enjoying the bliss of ignorance is happy that they are enlightened about all the things they know while being oblivious to the things they don’t. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Ignorance, bliss and enlightenment are all relative terms.
Do you speak it anywhere near as well as your write?
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