Including, I daresay, the narrator of this video, whose supercilious lecturing tone throughout clearly conveyed to me that he somehow imagines himself a superior form of life. Interesting, isn't it, that it's always "those people" who display stupidity, never ever Moi?
I'm actually honest enough to admit that I often do display stupidity. My own life choices have demonstrated this to me unequivocally time and time again. Given that we're all stupid to some degree, then, it would appear the ones you really have to watch out for are those who lack any self-awareness of their own stupidity, which I'm sorry to say now appears to be the overwhelming majority of our species.
The sad irony (and mankind's true intellectual defect) is that we only ever seem to recognize our stupidity in retrospect. I admit, that's true of me. I'm never intentionally stupid. Just the opposite: I always strive to make the smartest decision about whatever. I think that's true of most people. We can only recognize our stupidity when we see the consequences of our past decisions and reflect on negative outcomes, and if we actually have the potential for intelligent behavior, we adapt our thinking and responses so we don't make the same mistake again. So people who have displayed stupidity in the past can learn to do better, but only if they have the capacity for self-reflection, which as I said previously is today an exceedingly rare trait.
I think my typical response to my stupidity is "It seemed like a good idea at the time." As time hurries on, I start to see where some well intended, well thought out, decisions, may not have been the best. I can find myself caught up in the moment, based on prevailing thoughts and currents, only to see afterwards, like some Twilight Zone twist, that there was more going on than I reasoned. But it is prevailing thoughts and currents, and attitudes, that direct us daily, and my own Pollyanna attitudes can only protect my outcomes just so much.
I was thinking about this earlier today... or at least something related to it. If you sit in a room in a training session or something, you always hear about how "THEY" (other people) are stupid or annoying or whatever, but in reality if that was really the case, all anyone would have to do is take that training class and suddenly the world would be one gigantic conflict-free in-group.
By necessity, we're all seen as "stupid" to somebody else from time to time, even if they're objectively wrong.
I've noticed from time to time I'll also have little blips of feeling like I "did something wrong"... for example after confronting somebody in a maybe rude way, or overdisclosing a little, or something like that.
I think by definition it's only possible to be stupid in hindsight, if you're halfway smart... because as you say in your other post, the alternative would be that you would detect that you're about to be stupid, and therefore avoid it.
Honestly if you dig deep enough the whole discussion is a little bit flawed because it's not like "stupidity" is one concise condition... it's generally kind of a pejorative catch-all.
I think your point about self-awareness, and for that matter a reasonable amount of empathy for others, seems to be really what's missing the most these days. Like I recently was in a chat group in telegram where they were talking about such and such who "came in just to deliberately offend [some trans people in the channel] and then blamed them for being too sensitive, and isn't that just worst kind of trolling?" (etc.) Well, come to find out, after hearing some stories from other people who witnessed it, it really DOES seem like the person made some comments that were more or less innocent, if maybe a little insensitive, and the ensuing drama created its own little escalation to a point where everyone was offended and arguing with each other.
TL;DR: If people would just stop and think a bit more, and find ways to resolve problems without resorting to labeling or namecalling, etc., I think the world would be a better place. :-P
But for sure "stupid" does also capture a lot of what happens with certain people throughout the globe. :-\ And there are aspects like "showing them facts, but they don't have reason so they dismiss the facts as irrelevant." At some point you get into "whose facts are more valid" so I dunno.
At the end, maybe the only best solution is to just stay home and not interact with people. ;-)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-11-12 09:36 am (UTC)To a greater or lesser degree, we are all stupid.
Including, I daresay, the narrator of this video, whose supercilious lecturing tone throughout clearly conveyed to me that he somehow imagines himself a superior form of life. Interesting, isn't it, that it's always "those people" who display stupidity, never ever Moi?
I'm actually honest enough to admit that I often do display stupidity. My own life choices have demonstrated this to me unequivocally time and time again. Given that we're all stupid to some degree, then, it would appear the ones you really have to watch out for are those who lack any self-awareness of their own stupidity, which I'm sorry to say now appears to be the overwhelming majority of our species.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-12 09:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-12 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-13 03:29 am (UTC)By necessity, we're all seen as "stupid" to somebody else from time to time, even if they're objectively wrong.
I've noticed from time to time I'll also have little blips of feeling like I "did something wrong"... for example after confronting somebody in a maybe rude way, or overdisclosing a little, or something like that.
I think by definition it's only possible to be stupid in hindsight, if you're halfway smart... because as you say in your other post, the alternative would be that you would detect that you're about to be stupid, and therefore avoid it.
Honestly if you dig deep enough the whole discussion is a little bit flawed because it's not like "stupidity" is one concise condition... it's generally kind of a pejorative catch-all.
I think your point about self-awareness, and for that matter a reasonable amount of empathy for others, seems to be really what's missing the most these days. Like I recently was in a chat group in telegram where they were talking about such and such who "came in just to deliberately offend [some trans people in the channel] and then blamed them for being too sensitive, and isn't that just worst kind of trolling?" (etc.) Well, come to find out, after hearing some stories from other people who witnessed it, it really DOES seem like the person made some comments that were more or less innocent, if maybe a little insensitive, and the ensuing drama created its own little escalation to a point where everyone was offended and arguing with each other.
TL;DR: If people would just stop and think a bit more, and find ways to resolve problems without resorting to labeling or namecalling, etc., I think the world would be a better place. :-P
But for sure "stupid" does also capture a lot of what happens with certain people throughout the globe. :-\ And there are aspects like "showing them facts, but they don't have reason so they dismiss the facts as irrelevant." At some point you get into "whose facts are more valid" so I dunno.
At the end, maybe the only best solution is to just stay home and not interact with people. ;-)