Good read on the attainment of perfection and accepting our flaws.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
3 points

I don’t think there’s really a difference.

Then we’ll never agree on this subject because I believe there is a great deal of difference between stupidity and ignorance.

There’s also an element of subjectivity; for example I think that Jordan Peterson is stupid, but there are plenty of people who disagree with me. I believe his stupid because his ideas are in congruent with my established perspective. Jordan Peterson would consider me stupid for being unwilling to adopt his perspective, by your definition.

Well yeah, just like morals/ethics what is and isn’t stupid is going to be entirely subjective to the individual.

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

I’m happy to have my mind changed on the difference

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

IMO ignorance is chiefly a lack of knowledge. If you drop someone who has no knowledge of cars into a mechanics shop and tell them to fix a car, they’re going to be really incompetent and look bad compared to the mechanic. But, if they had car manuals to read and learned some mechanical engineering and watched the mechanic work and spent time tinkering with the engine, they could figure it out.

Stupidity is a failure of logic and self-reflection, like continuing to insist that obviously wrong things are true when presented with undeniable facts (“this isn’t a car at all, it’s a plane, nobody can fix planes, that’s why I’m failing!”) holding two ideas that are in opposition to each other and not acknowledging the dichotomy (“all car mechanics are really stupid but they make these cars so complicated that no reasonable person could ever figure it out”), flip-flopping back and forth between statements, blaming other people or things (“this is all Big Oil’s fault”) and generally not thinking things through.

Both might make equally terrible cars at first but ignorance is a lot more fixable and might not be the person’s fault (like if they grew up Amish and never saw a car’s engine before), while stupidity is more about refusing to learn or self-correct when given the option.

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

I just feel like that’s too subjective to be useful in anyway.

My uncle is a bishop and has a doctorate in theology for example. Is he stupid? There are numerous contradictions and denial of “facts” when it comes to such a perspective, but is it “stupidity”?

I’d also argue that facts change all the time and there are paradoxes that we haven’t been able to reconcile even now; is that stupidity?

I understand where you’re coming from. I just don’t feel like it’s a term that helps anyone.

It’s just used to deride a perspective that we ourselves don’t hold. It would be stupid to deny gravity, but it it’s also something we don’t really understand. Is it stupid to believe and accept without understanding?

permalink
report
parent
reply

Humanities & Cultures

!humanities@beehaw.org

Create post

Human society and cultural news, studies, and other things of that nature. From linguistics to philosophy to religion to anthropology, if it’s an academic discipline you can most likely put it here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Community stats

  • 75

    Monthly active users

  • 341

    Posts

  • 1.1K

    Comments