You will never hear me complain about stupid people – well almost.
It’s a little more complicated. Come with me and see if you agree by the end of
this. People who know me well, generally think I’m quite smart. I obviously
can’t give an unbiased opinion on this but I do tend to agree. Now, there are
clearly many people in the world who aren’t as clever as they think they are (I
may well be one of them) but I think most people actually have a fairly
realistic idea of how clever they are. Of course, by definition quite a lot of
people will be of below average intelligence – somewhere around half in fact.
I have no issue with this – people are what they are. We don’t get to choose which talents we are given and I am certainly not qualified to judge anyone. I have in my life seen plenty of prejudice against ‘stupid people’ but I am far more concerned with whether you are kind or not. As Martin Luther King said a child should be judged not on their colour of skin but on the content of your character.
I have no issue with this – people are what they are. We don’t get to choose which talents we are given and I am certainly not qualified to judge anyone. I have in my life seen plenty of prejudice against ‘stupid people’ but I am far more concerned with whether you are kind or not. As Martin Luther King said a child should be judged not on their colour of skin but on the content of your character.
In the same way as skin colour, we don’t get to choose which
talents we have but character is very much a choice. So I am very tolerant of stupidity (whatever
that is) and not impressed by how often quite clever people are the ones I
really wouldn’t want to know.
However.
And this is important. However as I said, it’s the choices
that people make that most shape how I feel about them and for many being
stupid is very different from acting stupid. We are all capable of lapses and a
little kindness goes a long way but how often are people stupid because they
can’t be bothered to think about it. Or if they just listened for a second
would learn that a certain thing is a bad idea. Ignorance is acceptable to me.
Wilful ignorance I don’t think is.
It is often said that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. I don’t like this expression – not because it’s lacking truth but
because it is, I think, an unhelpful focus. Of course in some situations this
is true but how much better would the world be if people always had good
intentions? So often problems stem from bad or selfish intentions. So good
intentions should be the priority and then we can worry about the effects of
said intentions. However and it’s the same however.
It is easy to hide behind good intentions. Good intentions may not be enough
and earnestness means going further and understanding the effects of ones
actions and not just meaning well but doing all we can to ensure well. Of
course we will never be perfect but a little bit of effort and engageness can go a very long way.
We are all endowed with whatever gifts we have or not, but all of us have choices about how we interact with the world and how we treat people. It’s much more important to be kind than it is to be clever but kindness sometimes means being as clever as we are capable of.
We are all endowed with whatever gifts we have or not, but all of us have choices about how we interact with the world and how we treat people. It’s much more important to be kind than it is to be clever but kindness sometimes means being as clever as we are capable of.
AFZ
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