I have never met a stupid person. Unwise, thoughtless, ignorant, uncouth, vain, angry - yes. Stupid no. I have never met someone I believed I could not make understand something, if I articulated it in the right way. I never met someone who, if confronted with a wrong action was intellectually incapable of understanding what was wrong: emotionally yes, but not intellectually.
I think stupid is just an inaccurate term and being pejorative brings little to any understanding of a situation or a person.
Really, truly? The interesting question to me is then: why not? Or how? There are many individuals on the planet who, through no fault of their own, have severely limited mental capacity. You've never met one?
I have met people with mental disability, who would have had significant limits on their intellectual capabilities, but I didn't consider them stupid.
If it helps to clarify: I can't explain relational databases to someone who doesn't have basic numeracy and you can't explain (say) quantum mechanics to me and the hyper-intelligent aliens can't explain ?$%>$£DDDD to you...but none of us in that chain are stupid. And all of us with sufficient power of articulation can convey the elements of those things to each other that matter to the person within their context.
But that's quite circular. I have never found a cup that would overspill, if not poured to beyond its capacity.
I think I understand the sympathy you're trying to convey, and the insight that you should try to explain things to the capacity of the other people. It's a mine field of perceived ability and all, but yeah.
Well then the other way to look at it is that we are all stupid. The point I'm making is that the term itself does not mean what its users intend it to mean. It is actually a way of excusing our own lack of ability to communicate in a meaningful way.
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I have never met a stupid person. Unwise, thoughtless, ignorant, uncouth, vain, angry - yes. Stupid no. I have never met someone I believed I could not make understand something, if I articulated it in the right way. I never met someone who, if confronted with a wrong action was intellectually incapable of understanding what was wrong: emotionally yes, but not intellectually.
I think stupid is just an inaccurate term and being pejorative brings little to any understanding of a situation or a person.
Really, truly? The interesting question to me is then: why not? Or how? There are many individuals on the planet who, through no fault of their own, have severely limited mental capacity. You've never met one?
I have met people with mental disability, who would have had significant limits on their intellectual capabilities, but I didn't consider them stupid.
If it helps to clarify: I can't explain relational databases to someone who doesn't have basic numeracy and you can't explain (say) quantum mechanics to me and the hyper-intelligent aliens can't explain ?$%>$£DDDD to you...but none of us in that chain are stupid. And all of us with sufficient power of articulation can convey the elements of those things to each other that matter to the person within their context.
But that's quite circular. I have never found a cup that would overspill, if not poured to beyond its capacity. I think I understand the sympathy you're trying to convey, and the insight that you should try to explain things to the capacity of the other people. It's a mine field of perceived ability and all, but yeah.
Well then the other way to look at it is that we are all stupid. The point I'm making is that the term itself does not mean what its users intend it to mean. It is actually a way of excusing our own lack of ability to communicate in a meaningful way.