Hatin’
Over the years, I’ve come across many people who share a dislike/hatred of ‘stupid/ignorant’ people. For these people, I ask two questions.
What makes someone stupid/ignorant?
Why do you dislike/hate them?
I’ve found that most have to think for several moments before they can even begin to respond to either question. And often, the answers given lack any actual substance. It’s puzzling. For being so vehement in their statements, the reasons and explanations for them are well, practically non-existant. I compare it to a sponge. The claim is that nice fluffy yellow part but…it’s full of holes.
And while this post started off about the supposed ‘retarded’ and ‘retarded’ haters of the world, this kind of thought and spoken claims towards people are reflected across several subjects/topics/etc. People, including myself, are just natural born haters that rarely have actual reasons to hate.
After concluding that, I find myself becoming more amused whenever I hear “I hate ….. people….” or something of the sort. And when I catch myself saying it or thinking it, I pause and mentally slap myself before laughing in my mind. It’s funny that we hate for no reason. And I enjoy laughing at myself whenever I can.
Like everyone should because being too serious can reduce your time and we all only get a limited amount of minutes to prance about the earth.
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”
-Norman Cousins
Posted on October 29, 2013, in My Blog, Quotes & Bits of Wisdom and tagged bits of wisdom, deep thinking, haters, laugh at ourselves, mess of thoughts, thoughts. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Simply Miko 
An interesting topic. I can be a hater sometimes, not even gonna lie. To answer your question, I define “stupid” (whenever I call someone stupid) the inability to think about their actions and improve upon themselves. I believe stupidity has become an insult, but it really shouldn’t be. I think stupidity is a mental health issue that every human being has to deal with. It can be improved, but just because you’re not commonly perceived as stupid, it doesn’t mean that you don’t ever make inferior decisions or make mistakes.
The level of stupidity for each person varies based on their own ability to learn and adapt. I believe that’s where the main difference lies between the more common categorization of stupid and smart.
I can be intolerant of “stupid” people sometimes because they slow me down. It is human nature to strive for efficiency because we only have a limited time to live. When someone slows me down, no matter how unintentionally, it’s difficult for me to be patient and embrace the differences.
If ya didn’t hate at one point in your life, you wouldn’t be human. I find your explanation of stupidity very interesting and far better than any other I’ve heard before.
So do you believe that all us are stupid but the levels of stupidity varies among us and at one point that level indicates intelligence?
Often, I find myself not calling people stupid but ignorant. While similar, they are not the same thing. What’s your take on stupidity and ignorance? Is one worse than the other?
Yes, I believe that everyone is stupid on some level, there isn’t a “perfectly smart” human being, stupidity levels vary, and each person’s level can change based on their ability to learn and adapt.
The definition of ignorance is very broad in the dictionary; a lack of knowledge. It doesn’t really define the cause of that lack of knowledge which I think is the defining characteristic of ignorance. I’ve always used ignorance as in a person’s obvious lack of knowledge even though he’s in a situation where knowledge is accessible and attainable AND he has the mental ability to learn.
I think those two make up the criterion for ignorance.
For example, I wouldn’t call a starving child in Africa who has no knowledge of the outside world ignorant because that knowledge is unattainable in his situation and environment. Also the child being malnourished means that his brain can’t function to its potential.
However, I think in general ignorance IS stupidity in the modern world that we live in. When a healthy, capable person has access to information, but simply “ignores” it, that’s true ignorance. On a more detailed level, it would be extremely difficult to identify the mental abilities of a person who has access to knowledge but doesn’t learn it.
And that’s where it gets tricky because having a seemingly slower brain and learning curve doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is truly stupid. I believe that people learn differently and a lot of times the mainstream society’s way of education and information sharing simply doesn’t work for some brains.
Einstein said “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” I truly believe in that and it can be reversed while maintaining its meaning – everybody is stupid, and a lot of people remain stupid because of the rigid, one-size-fits-all ways that we have come up with to teach people.
Anyway, I guess I think of stupidity as a level of true mental disability, a brain malfunction if you will. And that’s completely different from what I think of as ignorance.
Sorry for such a long response! I really enjoy this discussion so thanks for opening up the opportunity.
And I definitely think ignorance is worse than my definition of stupidity (a physical brain disability). 🙂
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