Against Stupidity

[spike]

Stupidity isn't ignorance

I think there is a connection between the two because if we are ignorant of something we tend to be stupid about it or act stupidly, because we are ignorant of the facts or truth.

Take for example about how some people vote. Many people vote against something that could be in their own best interest, like universal healthcare or gun control.

Kant talked about the ignorance of the masses. I think he was also taking about the stupidity of the masses. And I don't think he felt that would change much over time, thinking that people would remain ignorant and stupid. That's why I think he believed in a strong and all-controlling state, like that in which he lived, Prussia.

The world has changed, though. We are not as stupid as we used to be. And because of that the power is now more in the hands of the people than the state. Moreover, it's the mass education promoted by the state that has made most of us less ignorant and stupid, and more in control of our lives.

Yet there are people who think that on mass humans are still stupid. But I think that sentiment comes from the idea that by now we should be living in a perfect world but we are not.

[Conde Lucanor]

I would suggest that the difference between ignorance and stupidiy lies in the context of the information people get acquainted with and their voluntary actions regarding this information. If you don't get in touch with some information, you're just ignorant of it. It's really not your fault and you cannot be accused of being stupid. If you do get acquainted with some information that can potentially modify your point of view about reality, but you voluntarily choose to ignore it and let your attitudes and actions remain unchanged, you are being stupid. And if you voluntarily avoid contact with the information you have been provided access to (which is the same as voluntarily ignoring that path of knowledge), you are acting stupid. In summary, stupidity is choosing your ignorance.

[spike]

I just heard somebody say "That's just plain stupid" and I thought of this forum index.

I think there is a distinction between the stupidity that Niels Bohr was alleged to have experienced and plain stupidity. There was nothing plain about Niels Bohr's stupidity. It was an alleged stupidity. There is nothing alleged about plain stupidity. It is plain as dirt and out in the open for everybody to see.

Bohr's stupidity was a self construct stupidity, like a social construct, constructed from an enlightenment. Plain stupidity is plain and simple, born of a common sense, not of the complexity Bohr had been dealing with. Moreover, Bohr's stupidity had nothing to do with anything plain or common sensical. His required a discovery. Plain stupidity doesn't require research or a discovery. So I argue that what Bohr experienced was not stupidity, but something people confuse with stupidity.

Bohr believed the atom could not be split. When someone showed him that it could he admitted his wrong by slapping himself on the forehead and saying "How could I have been so stupid?". But really, he hadn't been stupid. (It was just an expression, a figure of speech.) He was just ignorant of the facts and he admitted it by using a common self-disparaging remark. Instead he could have said 'Why didn't I see that?'

I don't believe anybody else called Bohr stupid for not seeing from the get-go that the atom could be split. He admitted he was wrong. Now if he had continued to insist that the atom could not be split after learning that it could, then that would have been stupid. And the fact that nobody else called him stupid should be a sign the he wasn't stupid and far from it.