This is excellent. Personally, (3) does everything for me. I don’t need to think I’m especially clever if I think I’m ok being dumb. I’m not causing harm if I express my thoughts, as long as I give people the opportunity to ignore or reject me if they think I don’t actually have any value to offer them. Here are some assorted personal notes on how being dumb is ok, so you don’t need to be smart in order not to worry about it.
Exhibit A: Be conspicuously dumb as an act of altruism!
It must be ok to be dumber than average in a community, otherwise it will iteratively evaporate half its members until only one person remains. If a community is hostile to the left half of the curve, the whole community suffers. And the people who are safely in the top 10% are only “safe” because the dumber people stick around.
So if you’re worried about being too dumb for the community… consider that maybe you’re actually just contributing to lowering the debilitating pressure felt by the community as a whole. Perhaps even think of yourself as a hero, shouldering the burden of being dumber-than-average so that people smarter than you don’t have to. Be conspicuously safe in your own stupidity, and you’re helping others realise that they can be safe too. ^^
Exhibit B: Naive kindness perpetuates shame
Self-fulfilling norm tragedies. When the naive mechanism by which good people try to make something better, makes it worse instead.
1. No one wants intelligence to be the sole measure of a human’s worth. Everyone affirms that “all humans are created equal.”
2. Everyone worries that other people think dumb people are worth less because they’re dumb.
3. So everyone also worries that other people will think they think that dumb people are worth less. They don’t want to be seen as offensive, nor do they want to accidentally cause offense. They want to be good and be seen as good.
4. That’s why they’re overly cautious about even speaking about dumbness, to the point of pretending it doesn’t even exist. (Remember, this follows from their kind motivations.)
5. But by being overly cautious about speaking about dumbness, and by pretending it doesn’t exist, they’re also unwittingly reinforcing the impression that dumbness is shamefwl. Heck, it’s so shamefwl that people won’t even talk about it!
You can find similar self-reinforcing patterns for other kinds of discrimination/prejudices. All of it seems to share a common solution: break down barriers to talking openly about so-called “shamefwl” things. I didn’t say it was easy.
Exhibit C: Why I use the word “dumb”
I’m in favour of using the word “dumb” as a non-derogatory antonym of “smart”.
The way society is right now you’d think the sole measure of human worth is how smart you are. My goal here is to make it feel alright to be dumb. And a large part of the problem is that no one is willing to point at the thing (dumbness) and treat it as a completely normal, mundane, and innocuous part of everyday life.
Every time you use an obvious euphemism for it like “less smart” or “specialises in other things”, you are making it clear to everyone that being dumb is something so shamefwl that we need to pretend it doesn’t exist. And sure, when you use the word “dumb” instead, someone might misunderstand and conclude that you think dumb people are bad in some way. But euphemisms *guarantee* that people learn the negative association.
Compare it to how children learn social norms. The way to teach your child that being dumb is ok is to actually behave as if that’s true, and euphemisms are doing the exact opposite. We don’t use “not-blue” to refer to brown eyes, but if we did you can be sure your children will try to pretend their eyes are blue.
Exhibit D: You need a space where you can be dumb
Where’s the space in which you can speak freely, ask dumb questions, reveal your ignorance, display your true stupidity? You definitely need a space like that. And where’s the space in which you must speak with care, try to seem smarter and more knowledgeable than you are, and impress professionals? Unfortunately, this too becomes necessary at times.
Wherever those spaces are, keep them separate. And may the gods have mercy on your soul if you only have the latter.
This is excellent. Personally, (3) does everything for me. I don’t need to think I’m especially clever if I think I’m ok being dumb. I’m not causing harm if I express my thoughts, as long as I give people the opportunity to ignore or reject me if they think I don’t actually have any value to offer them. Here are some assorted personal notes on how being dumb is ok, so you don’t need to be smart in order not to worry about it.
Exhibit A: Be conspicuously dumb as an act of altruism!
Exhibit B: Naive kindness perpetuates shame
Exhibit C: Why I use the word “dumb”
Exhibit D: You need a space where you can be dumb