Something I’ve come to realize is that there’s a sort of irony in thinking people are stupid. It typically means you value a specific form of intelligence, and are too biased to recognize other forms when they occur in other people.
My friend’s mom hates computers and software, but is incredibly technically competent when it comes to weaving and looms. She has fixed so many old machines, learned to do such cool stuff with them, does amazing work with dying and processing, and so on. She would strike your average tech bro as pretty clueless and out to lunch (she’s a little whacky and eccentric) but she’s so technically inclined in a different way it’s absurd.
Obviously some people are intellectually disabled and can’t do things like this, but stupid seems like a derogatory term in that context. And even then, I sincerely doubt you couldn’t find useful insight and intelligence there too.
I’d say that thinking other people are stupid is simply failing to recognize or appreciate the value other people bring.
Having said that, I’m pretty stupid so I could be wrong
> Something I’ve come to realize is that there’s a sort of irony in thinking people are stupid. It typically means you value a specific form of intelligence, and are too biased to recognize other forms when they occur in other people.
There's a great book by Todd Rose titled The End of Average; great read.
Premise is exactly that for centuries, we've measured "intelligence" in such a narrow scope focused on the foundations of industry (reading, writing, arithmetic) often at the expense of other forms of intelligence like spatial (e.g. sculptors, artists), emotional, and even dextile (I think I just made up a word?).
I have more recently been thinking about what intelligence means in this era when AI is advancing so quickly in processing information in volumes far surpassing humans ever could. I think that in the future, we'll see a realignment on intelligence.
My friend’s mom hates computers and software, but is incredibly technically competent when it comes to weaving and looms. She has fixed so many old machines, learned to do such cool stuff with them, does amazing work with dying and processing, and so on. She would strike your average tech bro as pretty clueless and out to lunch (she’s a little whacky and eccentric) but she’s so technically inclined in a different way it’s absurd.
Obviously some people are intellectually disabled and can’t do things like this, but stupid seems like a derogatory term in that context. And even then, I sincerely doubt you couldn’t find useful insight and intelligence there too.
I’d say that thinking other people are stupid is simply failing to recognize or appreciate the value other people bring.
Having said that, I’m pretty stupid so I could be wrong