I know I've missed the last couple weeks. I'd like to say it's because I've been too busy, but to be honest I just haven't felt up for writing anything that I don't absolutely need to write. However, I did a bit of philosophizing in the second-best place for doing so - the bathtub; the first is the toilet - and was thinking about the label 'stupid'. Specifically, what does it mean in a human context, and does that differ from animal contexts?
I decided that it does, because of what society does for stupid people that it does not do for stupid animals. Stupid people have the run of the place. If, or rather when, they screw up, they have their social network, their union, their lawyer, and their government to back them out of it. They can keep on being stupid. Stupid people tend to underestimate risks, and they also tend to underestimate their personal impact on their social and physical environments. A stupid person will do stupid things to make your life difficult that would, in a fairer world, mean at least the end of their viability in the community, if not the end of their life, but instead they get bailed out and may even get monetary compensation depending on the consequences of their own idiocy.
Stupid animals, on the other hand, are harder to nail down, but we can perhaps say there are two sorts: there are the kinds who underestimate risks, and those who overestimate them. We all know animals who are afraid of anything strange, whether it be a guest in your house or a new piece of furniture. We know dogs that bark at everything, and cats who are terrified of random inanimate objects. Not too many animals go the other route; although we of course have sexually liberal critters, for the most part, animals who underestimate risks tend to die. They certainly do in the wild, and given that the same social safety nets that work for humans do not work for the furrier of us, they often end up at least in a more difficult situation than they were before in domesticity. Therefore, most stupid animals that we come into contact with are the skittish ones: the ones who overestimate risks, in contrast to their human counterparts.
Can we make a comparison, then? Of course: someone who overestimates risks is much more reserved, and while they may be a detriment to their own lives, they are not, by definition, affecting the lives of others very much, as for them it's all about avoiding doing. One who underestimates is the opposite: he will continue to do stupid things, as opposed to not do smart things, and these actions, in comparison to nonaction, are more potentially detrimental to the individuals and world around them.
A lot of armchair philosophers say that we should be more like our pets. The realist in us says that we might not, since our pets might be kind of dumb, but if you're going to be an idiot, it's still probably best to at least be an idiotic nonhuman. I would let a stupid animal near a person just about any day, but I would never allow a stupid person near my animals.
Just a little stupid brainstorming. Hopefully I can be more regular with posting in the future, but if you're smart, you'll go by my track record and not my word. Until next weekend - maybe!
This may be the easiest time I've had following along with a post by you, though to be fair it's not a terribly complex subject.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the reason for that is partly because I've found myself making comparisons like this before, and while I generally don't think of them as being about stupidity, I suppose that's what it boils down to.
I think part of your post's theme is that humans have a "survival of the fittest" method of doing things, but it fails to hold true in key categories.
I'm having a bit of trouble collecting my thoughts on my own, so I'll end with that. Hopefully your response will stir my mind and get some good solid debating thoughts out. XD A good post, and I look forward to more.
Yeah, just a little random thought that I had that I figured could be used to at least post something here. At any rate, animals have a survival of the fittest method, whereas humans, at least today, don't. That's become something of a problem in some respects.
DeleteMhm. And there doesn't seem to be a huge want for that method to return, at least in my experience. Any time the topic comes up in conversation, I usually end up being the "bad guy" who starts talking about how in many ways the progress made in medicine is BAD, and that while yes, I understand old people may be someone's grandma or grandpa, or be a World War II veteran, they and exceedingly sick people tend to just absorb resources.
DeleteWhat good is living to 97 when you can't do anything for yourself, and in many cases can't remember your own family or even who you are? Now I'm certainly not saying we should just kill off the old folks, but I don't think we should continue down the path we've been taking; and the same goes for terribly sick people. (I'm talking people beyond the point of no return, of course.)
There's also special needs people, and despite people who would probably say I don't understand, and that I'm cruel, etc, etc, well as it turns out I do sorta understand when it comes to special needs people. My little cousin is special needs, and I've known some very nice and cool special needs people from my dad's work. But here's the thing, while some of them can help out at jobs, and simple things that really do need doing, what about the ones that live with their parents until their parents die, then go to a home of sorts?
Some of it also involves the topic of that debate with William, and I'll let you elaborate on that as you see fit.
They do do that, yes. And some of the time they even themselves want to die - and we won't let them. It's not the same as someone who has major depressive disorder wanting to commit suicide, or someone with cancer who stands a chance of being cured wanting to off himself; these people I'm talking about are of sound mind and little argument can be given them apart from, "But life is sacred!"
DeleteAs far as special needs people, it is an unfortunate circumstance, but most of them are capable of getting out and doing things. I don't have a very solid opinion on other situations, though, nor do I feel I have enough experience personally to form one.