Stupidity

{{short description|Lack of intelligence}} {{Redirect|Stupid|other uses|Stupidity (disambiguation)|and|Stupid (disambiguation)}} {{Pp-semi-indef}} [[File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Ass in the School - WGA03526.jpg|thumb|The Ass in the School – engraving after Pieter Breughel the Elder, 1556<br />Caption: ''Al rijst den esele ter scholen om leeren, ist eenen esele hij en zal gheen peert weder keeren''. ("Even if the Ass travels to school to learn, as a horse he will not return.")]]

'''Stupidity''' is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, or wit, an inability to learn. It may be innate, assumed or reactive. The word ''stupid'' comes from the Latin word ''stupere''. Stupid characters are often used for comedy in fictional stories. Walter B. Pitkin called stupidity "evil", but in a more Romantic spirit William Blake and Carl Jung believed stupidity can be the mother of wisdom.

==Etymology== The root word ''stupid'',<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stupid|title=stupid|dictionary=Merriam-Webster|access-date=2009-01-18}}</ref> which can serve as an adjective or noun, comes from the Latin verb ''stupere'', for being numb or astonished, and is related to ''stupor''.<ref>{{cite dictionary|title=stupor|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stupor|dictionary=Merriam-Webster|access-date=2009-01-18}}</ref> In Roman culture, the ''stupidus'' was the professional fall guy in the theatrical mimes.<ref>{{citation|translator=Peter Green|title=Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires|publisher=Penguin |year=1982|page=126}}</ref>

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words "stupid" and "stupidity" entered the English language in 1541. Since then, stupidity has taken place along with "fool", "idiot", "dumb", "moron", and related concepts as a pejorative for misdeeds, whether purposeful or accidental, due to absence of mental capacity.

==Definition== ''Stupidity'' is a quality or state of being stupid, or an act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid.<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stupidity|title=stupidity|dictionary=Merriam-Webster|access-date=18 January 2009}}</ref> In a character study of "The Stupid Man" attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC), stupidity was defined as "mental slowness in speech or action". The modern English word "stupid" has a broad range of application, from being slow of mind (indicating a lack of intelligence, care or reason), dullness of feeling or sensation (torpidity, senselessness, insensitivity), or lacking interest or point (vexing, exasperating). It can either imply a congenital lack of capacity for reasoning, or a temporary state of daze, or slow-mindedness.

In ''Understanding Stupidity'', James F. Welles defines stupidity this way: "The term may be used to designate a mentality which is considered to be informed, deliberate and maladaptive." Welles distinguishes stupidity from ignorance, where stupidity means one must know they are acting in their own worst interest in that it must be a choice, not a forced act or accident. Lastly, it requires the activity to be maladaptive, in that it is in the worst interest of the actor, and specifically done to prevent adaptation to new data or existing circumstances."<ref name="Understanding-Stupidity">{{cite web|url=http://www.stupidity.net/story2/index2.htm|title=Understanding Stupidity|author=James F. Welles, Ph. D.|access-date=June 7, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110824041258/http://www.stupidity.net/story2/index2.htm|archive-date=August 24, 2011}}</ref>

==Playing stupid== Eric Berne described the game of "Stupid" as having "the thesis...'I laugh with you at my own clumsiness and stupidity.{{'"}}<ref>Eric Berne, ''Games People Play'' (Penguin 1968) p. 138</ref> He points out that the player has the advantage of lowering other people's expectations, and so evading responsibility and work; but that he or she may still come through under pressure, like the proverbially stupid younger son.<ref>Berne, p. 138-9</ref>

Wilfred Bion considered that psychological projection created a barrier against learning anything new, and thus its own form of pseudo-stupidity.<ref>Salman Akhtar, ''Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis'' (2010) "Arrogance"</ref>

==Intellectual stupidity== Otto Fenichel maintained that "quite a percentage of so-called feeble-mindedness turns out to be pseudo-debility, conditioned by inhibition ... Every intellect begins to show weakness when affective motives are working against it".<ref>Otto Fenichel, ''The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis'' (London 1946) p. 180</ref> He suggests that "people become stupid ''ad hoc'', that is, when they do not ''want'' to understand, where understanding would cause anxiety or guilt feeling, or would endanger an existing neurotic equilibrium."<ref>Fenichel, p. 181</ref>

In rather different fashion, the novelist Doris Lessing argued that "there is no fool like an intellectual ... a kind of clever stupidity, bred out of a line of logic in the head, nothing to do with experience."<ref>Doris Lessing, ''Under my Skin'' (London 1994) p. 122</ref>

==Persisting in folly== In the Romantic reaction to Enlightenment wisdom, a valorisation of the irrational, the foolish, and the stupid emerged, as in William Blake's dictum that "if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise";<ref>William Blake, ''The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'' (London 1927) p. 7</ref> or Carl Jung's belief that "it requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never."<ref>C. G. Jung, ''Alchemical Studies'' (1978) p. 180</ref>

Similarly, the philosopher Michel Foucault argued for the necessity of stupidity to re-connect with what our articulate categories exclude, to recapture the alterity of difference.<ref>Michel Foucault, ''Language, Counter-Memory, Practice'' (1980) p. 188–90</ref>

== Impact == In his book ''A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity'' (1932), Walter B. Pitkin warns about the impact of stupid people:

{{quote|Stupidity can easily be proved the supreme Social Evil. Three factors combine to establish it as such. First and foremost, the number of stupid people is legion. Secondly, most of the power in business, finance, diplomacy and politics is in the hands of more or less stupid individuals. Finally, high abilities are often linked with serious stupidity.<ref name=Pitkin>{{cite book |last=Pitkin |first=Walter B. |author-link=Walter B. Pitkin |title=A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity |date=1932 |location=New York |publisher=Simon & Schuster |page=6 |oclc=530002}}</ref>}}

Dietrich Bonhoeffer indicated stupidity to be "a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil" because there is no defense: "Neither protest nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved."<ref name=burns>{{cite web| url=https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity-explains-the-world-perfectly-957cbb3fbac1 |author=Peter Burns| title=Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity Explains The World Perfectly| publisher=Lessons from History| date=November 10, 2021 |access-date=January 28, 2022}}</ref> The great danger of stupidity manifests itself when it affects larger groups. In a larger group, "the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil".<ref name=burns/>

According to Carlo Cipolla the efforts of stupid people are counterproductive to their own and other's interest. He maintains that reasonable people cannot imagine or understand unreasonable behavior making stupid people dangerous and damaging, even potentially more dangerous than a "bandit" whose action at least has a rational goal, namely his benefit.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cantrip.org/stupidity.html|title=The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity|publisher=The Cantrip Corpus|last=Cipolla|first=Carlo M.|access-date=January 27, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130216132858/http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html|archive-date=February 16, 2013}}</ref>

==<span id="Goofball comedy"></span>In comedy== The fool or buffoon has been a central character in much comedy. Alford and Alford found that humor based on stupidity was prevalent in "more complex" societies as compared to some other forms of humor.<ref>Finnegan Alford; Richard Alford. ''A Holo-Cultural Study of Humor.'' Ethos '''9(2)''', pg 149–164.</ref> Some analysis of William Shakespeare's comedy has found that his characters tend to hold mutually contradictory positions; because this implies a lack of careful analysis it indicates stupidity on their part.<ref>N Frye. ''A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance.'' Columbia University Press, 1995.</ref>

Today there is a wide array of television shows that showcase stupidity such as ''The Simpsons''.<ref>R Hobbs. ''The Simpsons Meet Mark Twain: Analyzing Popular Media Texts in the Classroom.'' The English Journal, 1998.</ref> Goofball comedy is a class of naive, zany humour typified by actor Leslie Nielsen.<ref>{{cite web|title='The Naked Gun' actor Leslie Nielsen dies in Florida hospital at age 84|url=http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101129/101129_leslie_neilson/20101129/?hub=CP24Entertainment|work=CP24 – Toronto's Breaking News|publisher=Bell Media|access-date=22 June 2012|author=Canadian Press|date=29 November 2010|quote=Leslie's huge heart and fierce intelligence defined goofball comedy and he was its undisputed master.}}{{Dead link|date=June 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }} – Paul Gross.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Dargis |first=Manohla |date=2008-07-25 |title=Once More to the Well of Goofball Comedy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/movies/25brot.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251108233533/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/movies/25brot.html |archive-date=8 November 2025 |access-date=2026-02-04 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

==In film== ''Stupidity'' is a 2003 film directed by Albert Nerenberg.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399704/|title=Stupidity|publisher=IMDB.com|access-date=June 17, 2011}}</ref> It depicts examples and analyses of stupidity in modern society and media, and seeks "to explore the prospect that willful ignorance has increasingly become a strategy for success in the realms of politics and entertainment".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1164158-stupidity|title=Stupidity (2003)|publisher=rottentomatoes.com|access-date=June 17, 2011}}</ref>

''Idiocracy'', a Mike Judge film from 2006, explores a dystopian future America where a person of average IQ is cryogenically frozen and wakes up 500 years later to find that mankind, increasingly dependent on technology built by previous generations that it does not properly maintain or understand, has regressed in intelligence to the standards of current-era intellectual disability, and that he has become the ''de facto'' most intelligent person on Earth. Americans have become so stupid that society faces famine and collapse, and according to Pete Vonder Haar of ''Film Threat'', "...each laugh is tempered with the unsettling realization that [Judge's] vision of mankind's future might not be too far off the mark".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/idiocracy/reviews/?page=2&sort=|title=Idiocracy (2006)|publisher=rottentomatoes.com|access-date=July 24, 2017}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist|colwidth=40em}}

== Further reading == * {{cite book|title=Stupidity|author=Avital Ronell|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-252-07127-0|author-link=Avital Ronell}} * {{cite book|author=Edmund Bergler|title=The talent for stupidity: the psychology of the bungler, the incompetent, and the ineffectual|publisher=International Universities|year=1998|isbn=978-0-8236-6345-3|author-link=Edmund Bergler}} * {{cite journal|author=L. Loewenfeld|year=1909|url=http://textlog.de./loewenfeld-dummheit.html|title=Über die Dummbeit: Eine Umschau in Gebiete menschlicher Unzulänglichkeit|language=de}} * {{cite book|author=Paul Tabori|title=The natural science of stupidity|publisher=Prentice-Hall International|year=1962}} * {{cite book|chapter=Moral Intelligence and the Pathology of Human Stupidity|title=The pathology of man: a study of human evil|author=Steven J. Bartlett|publisher=C.C. Thomas|year=2005|isbn=978-0-398-07557-6}} * {{cite book|author=William B. Helmreich|title=What Was I Thinking? The Dumb Things We Do and How to Avoid Them|publisher=Taylor|year=2011|isbn=978-1-58979-597-6|url=https://archive.org/details/whatwasithinking0000helm}} * {{cite book|title=The Power of Stupidity|author=Giancarlo Livraghi|publisher=Monti&Ambrosini|location=Pescara|isbn=978-88-89479-15-5|year=2009}} * {{cite book|title=Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid|editor=Robert J. Sternberg|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-300-10170-6}} * {{cite book|author=Stephen Greenspan|chapter=Foolish action in adults with intellectual disabilities: the forgotten problem of risk-unawareness|title=International Review of Research in Mental Retardation|volume=36|editor=Laraine Masters Glidden|publisher=Academic Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-12-374476-0}} * {{cite book|title=Story of Stupidity: A History of Western Idiocy from the Days of Greece to the Present|author=James F. Welles|publisher= Mount Pleasant Press |year=1988|isbn=978-0-9617729-1-8}}

==External links== {{Wiktionary|stupidity}} {{Wikiquote}} {{Commons category}} * [http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf "Unskilled and unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"] The authors received the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in psychology. * [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01072.x/abstract 'A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organisations'], published in the ''Journal of Management Studies''

Category:Limited intelligence