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Status:
"Trump is the BLOAT...Biggest Loser of All Time!"
(set 6 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,789 posts, read 3,621,342 times
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..then why have tutoring high school students who can’t grasp Chemistry, Algebra, etc. in the first place? Or even have adult literacy classes and social skills training for the Aspergers-afflicted, for that matter?
Don’t agree with the answer implied in that question?
If not, then maybe, just maybe, that pithy phrase is simply just a convenient but false justification for certain people (not necessarily you yourself) being impatient, irritable, and even abusive toward those of less mental skill (whether intrinsic intelligence, lack of opportunity to learn, or lack of mental tools need to even begin overcoming their mental blocks in the first place.
I have been known to tell someone complaining to me about how stupid some co-worker was that if not for that "stupid idiot" being there that said complainer would be "the idiot"........and should go thank him for making him look so good........
You can fix stupid. That's just a matter of imparting knowledge on someone and hoping they accept it as the truth. Ie, 1+1 = 2. The person accepts this to be true and sees the sense in it.
The issue comes in when this person wants to remain ignorant. Ignorance you can't fix. Ie: 1+1 = 2. Person says they do not think so, will not reason with you. They want to remain ignorant. You can't fix that, and it's best you not try when you're met with staunch resistance. Sometimes people want to talk out a matter, have a constructive conversation, etc, and in those cases, both parties usually come out the wiser.
Then there are those who want to hoard their wisdom/knowledge for themselves and see it as too much of an effort to simply inform others or offer up what they see as the truth on a matter. These people are the ones who see the rest of the world as "stupid" and find some sort of odd justice in keeping knowledge to themselves.
..then why have tutoring high school students who can’t grasp Chemistry, Algebra, etc. in the first place? Or even have adult literacy classes and social skills training for the Aspergers-afflicted, for that matter?
Don’t agree with the answer implied in that question?
If not, then maybe, just maybe, that pithy phrase is simply just a convenient but false justification for certain people (not necessarily you yourself) being impatient, irritable, and even abusive toward those of less mental skill (whether intrinsic intelligence, lack of opportunity to learn, or lack of mental tools need to even begin overcoming their mental blocks in the first place.
I guess what they mean is, "you can't fix the willfully ignorant, and you can't help those whose problems are out of your scope of understanding."
..then why have tutoring high school students who can’t grasp Chemistry, Algebra, etc. in the first place? Or even have adult literacy classes and social skills training for the Aspergers-afflicted, for that matter?
Don’t agree with the answer implied in that question?
If not, then maybe, just maybe, that pithy phrase is simply just a convenient but false justification for certain people (not necessarily you yourself) being impatient, irritable, and even abusive toward those of less mental skill (whether intrinsic intelligence, lack of opportunity to learn, or lack of mental tools need to even begin overcoming their mental blocks in the first place.
Maybe because in the cases you cite the problem isn't stupidity, it's lack of preparation, poor learning environment, lack of socialization or any number of other things. If somebody really is stupid - the acknowledgement of which now seems to very unPC - no amount of tutoring or literacy classes is going to teach them chemistry or calculus. With patience and consistency they might be taught to show up for work on time and push a broom.
I employ just such a guy to push a broom. He's from a state-run employment readiness program for the mentally challenged. 40 years ago people would have just called him "stupid," because he is. He's unable to learn normal social skills, retain details, needs to be told what to do on an hourly basis despite doing exactly the same thing every single day. That can never be fixed by anything.
..then why have tutoring high school students who can’t grasp Chemistry, Algebra, etc. in the first place? Or even have adult literacy classes and social skills training for the Aspergers-afflicted, for that matter?
.
Because you are confusing two or more different things. Tutoring helps with a lack of knowledge, which is different from being stupid. Special training for those with mental issues helps them with whatever their issue is, but again that's not being stupid.
Stupid is the person who refuses to learn. Not from a lack of knowledge, or training, or handicap. But from willful, intentional ignorance. It has nothing to do with intelligence or education. There are some who learn from others. There are some who make a mistake, learn from it and never repeat it.
---Then there are some who get multiple DUIs, lose their license, yet still head out, get drunk, and wrap their car around a tree at 120, but not before taking out a young family along the way. So don't try to say that person wasn't intentionally STUPID.
..then why have tutoring high school students who can’t grasp Chemistry, Algebra, etc. in the first place? Or even have adult literacy classes and social skills training for the Aspergers-afflicted, for that matter?
Don’t agree with the answer implied in that question?
If not, then maybe, just maybe, that pithy phrase is simply just a convenient but false justification for certain people (not necessarily you yourself) being impatient, irritable, and even abusive toward those of less mental skill (whether intrinsic intelligence, lack of opportunity to learn, or lack of mental tools need to even begin overcoming their mental blocks in the first place.
Tutoring is teaching which is very different than the phrase states. Being less knowledgeable in a specific area is not being stupid.
Being stupid would be the last words uttered by someone who threw himself off a cliff sitting in a lawn chair with a bunch of helium filled balloons tied to it into the path of a flock of birds.
And those words would be:
To me stupid means that the person knows better but assumes the odds don't pertain to him. For example, bicycling on a busy road without a helmet; passing several slow cars in a line, around a mountain bend; riding a horse while drunk; talking on a cell phone while ignoring your children in a crowd; buying $100 worth of lottery tickets when you can't feed you kids properly. Many more examples exist.
That is the kind of stupid that is hard to fix without at least one disaster happening first.
Status:
"Trump is the BLOAT...Biggest Loser of All Time!"
(set 6 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,789 posts, read 3,621,342 times
Reputation: 5702
Agreed with most, if not all, of what you all say. Maybe my question was a bit provocative, but it is because “stupid”, the word itself, carries such strong emotional content I thought a rhetorical question was the best way to counter the phrase in the title – at least for openers.
Lack of knowledge vs. unwillingness to learn definitely is the key here. The former can be fixed, assuming the person has the intrinsic ability to learn (picture child born to a very impoverished and uneducated family in VERY impoverished geographic areas (the Mississippi Delta, Central Appalachia, Lower Rio Grande Valley, Native Reservations, or “Ghettos”).
“Stupid” carries with it attitudes of disdain, spite, even contempt. There is just no way around that explanation. Using this word causes several problems:
It brings to the front of our mind those sentiments in such a way that demotivates many of us from offering aid to people who really need it, even if that person does have the intrinsic mental ability to absorb new information and apply that information toward correcting the error they hold. Thus, “stupid” is effectively a talent destroyer (not intrinsic talent, but the opportunity for that person to contribute to the world to his or her maximum ability).
“Stupid” also makes lack of knowledge or mental ability into an excuse to abuse, even oppress, others. Nothing in that word encourages people to think about any other positive qualities that person may have. In fact, if anything, it encourages us to think of those “other positive qualities” more as consolation prizes for the so-called ‘stupid’, rather than as qualities of intrinsically equal or greater worth than intelligence. I doubt anyone on this thread would say Bernie Madoff (surely a smart man) deserves more respect and/or is less deserving of contempt than the janitor kletter1mann speaks of. Which brings up the next point.
Using “stupid” implicitly betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the proper role of scorn. Legitimate scorn’s role is limited to expressing disapproval of acts, attitudes, expressions, etc. that hurt, harm, or degrade others with clear malicious intent or willful indifference. Merely having low intelligence, education, experience, information, or skill does not qualify as a conscious intent to harm (or willful indifference to the same). Thus, “stupid” qualifies as an illegitimate use of scorn.
It seems the only possible purposes of the word is to either as either:
*a release valve for feelings of frustration and impatience, or
*as a verbal weapon – namely to disempower and demoralize the intended target directly, or else to motivate other people to downgrade his or her worth as a person (“better” yet, get those others to actively hold the person in contempt).
Thus, whatever short term benefit comes from using “stupid” is more than outweighed by the long term damage done; most obviously to the target of the word but even to society as a whole. The sooner this word is banished from polite, civilized society, the better all of us and our society will be in the long run.
..then why have tutoring high school students who can’t grasp Chemistry, Algebra, etc. in the first place? Or even have adult literacy classes and social skills training for the Aspergers-afflicted, for that matter?
None of these things represent "stupid".
I was once tutored in high school Chemistry...I caught onto it right away from another student. The problem was the teacher (couldn't teach). I aced college and grad school Chemistry after that, with no help.
Adult literacy also has nothing to do with stupidity. Many of those people simply had other life issues to deal with during the time they would have been developing literacy skills. Asperger's people are usually very bright. The problems they have with socializing have nothing to do with their intelligence, and many times cannot be corrected, at least not complteely.
But when it comes to real "stupidity", THAT can't ever be corrected. Please do not ever mistake lack of education or skills for stupidity. Stupidity does exist, and can't be offset by education.
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