Here at Argument Clinic we are trying to eschew ableist invective, since it is almost always inaccurate and causes “splash damage.” Our recommendation to the huddled masses is to resort to using the most deadly insult of all, namely: Truth. But what do we do with ‘Stupid’?
We know you need our guidance, but we have to admit that we are transfixed in Lovecraftian dread at the tendrils of doubt that are wrapping tighter and tighter around our left ankle.
Is this the right room for an argument?
“Stupid” is tricky. First off, it’s a lovely word – you can slide it subtly into a sentence, or you can make it the center-piece of a really good epithet and spit it out like venom; the lead-in hiss, the focal plosive ‘p’ and the dramatic plunking ‘d’ at the end. “That’s stupid.” Boom. You can go around calling things ‘Stupid’ and pretty quickly you’ll be a celebrated new atheist, right up there with Harris and Dawkins. The problem is implication: if someone has a stupid idea, the person with the idea is stupid.
We have no good options for using the word. On one hand there are, certainly, stupid ideas. For example, attempting to drive a dirt-bike down a ski-jump is almost certainly a stupid idea – except for when it’s not. But, in those mitigating circumstances, then it is no longer a stupid idea, it’s merely dangerous, risky, possibly fatal, or whatever. Suppose we have a stunt-person who is offered a great deal of money to drive a dirt-bike down a ski-jump; they are doing their job. They are not stupid to do this thing, it may be a rational choice. The person having the stupid idea may not even be the stunt-person – the stupid idea is the product of the venal crowd-pleasing Lanista (master of gladiators) and the crowd they are trying to please. On the other hand, we have the Jerry Springer Show: perhaps there is no circumstance in which anyone involved in it is being stupid. Everyone involved is deliberately choosing self-debasement, even the audience. The show is not “Stupid” – we do not fully understand the situation.
Avoid, therefore, calling an idea “Stupid” because you are walking into a maze in which you can make a mistake as to the origin of the idea. Perhaps the only idea you can safely call “Stupid” is one of your own. But, more likely, you are wallowing in various degrees of mistaken, blundering, misunderstanding, or making a bad choice.
Another problem – if we announce that an idea is stupid, it may be an idea originating from someone who has suffered a neurological catastrophe, and the dirt-bike rider was trying to humor them by riding down the ski-jump. Perhaps, given our example, “splash damage” is the wrong expression to use – but you get the point.
When verbally cornered, fight like a cornered rat. We have one lifeline if we accidentally call someone or something “Stupid” and that is to attempt to fine-slice the dictionary definition. Oh, I was not wrong to call Richard Dawkins “Stupid” – I meant “Stupid in the sense that he is Obtuse.” And then you must rush to establish your defensive line behind “Obtuse”, which probably makes you Obtuse, too.
Keep “Obtuse” in your back pocket but try to avoid the problem entirely.
Our colleague, Nathan Hevenstone [athe] challenges us to stop using ableist insults, and “Stupid” is one of them. We agree with his initiative:
For one whole month, drop every ableist slur from your vocabulary. Find other ways to say what you mean without resorting to these easy, lazy slurs. Then get back to me.
…
So I very badly want everyone to at least attempt this challenge. For just one month, stop using “stupid”, “moron”, “idiot”, “dense”, “crazy”, “insane”, and similar words, and stop using the diagnostic names of actual conditions (“deaf”, “dumb”, “blind”, “autistic”, “schizophrenic”, “sociopathic”, “bi-polar”, etc) as slurs, as well.
On aesthetic grounds, alone, we ought to be able to deploy invective more effectively and precisely; if we’re going to be cruel, lets do it right. If you wish to hurt someone, don’t lob area weapons at them (unless you are the US Air Force) – put a well-placed verbal dagger in their kidney. Use Truth.
So, let’s suppose your friend announces their intention to ride a dirt-bike down a ski-jump. What do you do? Your obvious first maneuver is to say something friendly and supportive like, “good god, why?” This allows you to simultaneously stall while gathering more information (tactical battlefield intelligence). Then perhaps:
- “That is the worst idea I have ever heard from you. You have outdone yourself.” (golf clap)
- “Are you planning to monetize this on Youtube? Because it may be too messy for their terms of service.”
- [Desperation stall] “Wait, tell me more.”
- (consults Magic 8-Ball) “Signs point to no.” [Note: that is a blatant appeal to authority]
As we have claimed all along, nothing stings like precise application of The Truth. [stderr]
What are some other situations in which you would formerly have called something “Stupid” or someone “Stupid” and what are you going to use, instead?
I assume there is a “Magic 8-ball App”
The main issue with stupid is the same as with any other one word denunciation of someone’s idea: it is meaningless without an explanation, and it can easily become a reflexive, thoughtless response.
I think the ship has sailed on dumb being used to mean stupid. And the medical term moved on years ago: mute.
Words are tools, it’s the semantics that matter.
Thus Pinker’s “euphemism treadmill”.
I suppose I could use such circumlocutory or allusive phrasing that only if someone is sufficiently intelligent will they understand I’ve essentially conveyed the concept of ‘stupid’, which would negate the validity of the claim, and thus meet the letter if not the spirit of this challenge. For example, a sarcastic “That’s a really clever idea!”.
Hmm. Colloquially, perhaps; logically, not-so-much.
As I see it, the only way for me to meet this, um, challenge would be to either say nothing or say something which would not convey the meaning I intend to express.
—
PS I’ve always thought the concept of a ‘challenge’ as a motivation is, well, very much less than optimal. Must work on enough people, though — I see it used a fair bit in adverts.
I’m aware that many people make this implication, but it’s not even reasonable. There are many possible reasons why an intelligent person could defend a stupid idea. Maybe their boss ordered them to do so. Maybe they don’t know some piece of information without which the idea seems just fine.
If I called something stupid, and somebody else disagreed with me, I wouldn’t respond like this. Instead, I’d reply by giving arguments about why I perceive as unreasonable this thing, which I just called “stupid.”
For example:
Me: “Building a wall on the Mexico–United States border is a stupid idea.”
Trump supporter: “No, you are wrong.”
Me: “Such a wall would be ineffective at reducing illegal immigration, since most immigrants enter the USA at the border crossing checkpoints. The wall would be also extremely expensive to build. Thus the idea is unreasonable, in other words, stupid.”
The way I see it, making a mental list of “bad words” that you should never use in a debate is not the right approach when your goal is to avoid getting verbally cornered. I prefer another alternative: before saying something, I think about whether I can give arguments to support my claim. Could somebody else easily refute my claim? Would they be justified in accusing me of being unfair? If I conclude that I can justify why some idea is unreasonable, then it’s perfectly safe for me to call this idea “stupid.”
By the way, in a debate I could call an idea stupid, but I would never call a person stupid (the latter being ad hominem logical fallacy).
Just like John Morales, I’m also not fond of “challenges,” but, fine, giving these examples is actually a good way how to demonstrate the pointlessness of this challenge.
Option A: “Trump’s idea to build a border wall is stupid. It would be a waste of money, because it couldn’t even fulfill its stated purpose, namely, reducing illegal immigration.”
Option B: “Trump’s idea to build a border wall is unreasonable. It would be very expensive to build, and it couldn’t be effective at reducing illegal immigration.”
Option C: “Trump’s idea to build a border wall is so brilliant that it befits the intellectual capabilities of a single-celled amoeba which has no brain at all. The wall would be utterly useless, because it couldn’t even reduce illegal immigration. The end result would be a huge waste of taxpayer money.”
Options A, B, and C all express exactly the same idea. If a Trump supporter showed up and challenged my claim, I would have to answer in the same way, that is, by giving arguments for why building the wall would have negative consequences. Options A, B, and C aren’t identical though. What differs is the language. B is the more polite option, and this is the wording I’d choose if I needed to make sure that I don’t antagonize people who disagree with me. This makes B better suited for more formal conversations. Option C is more vivid and thus also more memorable (making it better suited for certain other occasions). And option A is perfectly fine for the everyday conversation in which I’m expressing my opinion.
You know, this one isn’t really much more friendly or polite compared to the plain old “this is a stupid idea.”
But I do agree with you, because I like your alternatives much better than the plain and boring option of calling an idea stupid. I appreciate creativity when it comes to word choices.
Since it’s quiet, I’ll note I went to the source of the source of this post and considered the justification given there.
I pretty much concur with everything in [1], but conversely dispute everything in [2].
If one is disabled but no less able at that ability, then in what sense is one disabled?
—
I did hesitate before posting this. It would have been extremely rude to do so in the source’s source, and confrontational in the source.
Ieva — how about “terrible”?
This is a terrible idea. Trump is a terrible person. Doing things that way would be terrifyingly bad.
And “horrible”.
This is a horrible idea. Trump is a horrible person. Doing things that way would be horrifyingly bad.
And “completely without regard for human decency”, that works, too.
Stupid works as a marker-word. It is a marker word of lesser emotional attachment than say fucked up or heinous and it clues your listener/reader into what value you are assigning to what is said. The actual meaning of stupid is irrelevant to it’s necessary use.
The problem with omitting stupid IME is that stupid people or smart people who think every single thing they say as a permanent condition of their smartness no matter how stupid any particular thing they say is. They don’t know or recognize the other words you use instead of stupid, and may not even be able to tell you are upset or find their idea less than ideal in any way. They certainly don’t understand obtuse or if they do they immediately assign a stronger emotional value to what you said over and above what you mean.
Mis-conceived? malformed? Is the context of it being ‘an idea’ significant enough to separate it from biological development where it originates (and the associated connotation that they are somehow wrong or evil)?
I tend to prefer the Socratic method:
Political: Trump is a great raconteur. Is it really a cost-effective idea or just one that he things sounds good to a crowd at a political rally?
Business: What are the stated objectives of the wall? How effective will it be in achieving those goals? What evidence or studies show it as a cost-effective solution? What will maintenance and monitoring cost? How does that compare with current costs to manage existing issues related to immigration you believe would be mitigated?
Intellectual: If someone put up a 2000 mile wall through mostly barren unpopulated unpatrolled territory, and you were being well paid to get past it, how many ways can you think of to bypass it? How many of those are currently defeating the 500 mi of barriers already in place?
Environmental: Do you care about the environment? What would be the effect on animal migration patterns of a 2000 mile long wall?
I stick with “I” words: Inept. Inane. Incompetent. Ill-educated. Ignorant. It’s much harder to call them insults when they’re descriptive and not pejorative.
Many assume “ignorant” is a synonym for “stupid”, even though it isn’t. I’m ignorant of particle physics and the Spanish language, and creationists are ignorant of science and evolutionary theory. The difference is, I’m not trying to dictate how science is taught nor arguing to ban Spanish, like they would.
One thought that occurred to me is this is like the tactic of avoiding labeling, or tabooing the term so as to get to the actual problems with the ideas by articulating them.
Another thought is that, tentatively, the word “stupid” need not be used as a slur, but to describe a situation where the people involved really should know better. E.g.: Creationists aren’t stupid (that is, they are not all obviously of low intelligence), but creationism is a stupid idea because it means deliberately ignoring the massive accumulated scientific evidence for a universe that is old, an earth that is old, and organisms that have evolved on this earth in the universe.
Finally, an idea I’ve been considering is using the term “confused” (to refer to people or ideas) rather than more pejorative terms, when discussing them in such a way that I don’t want to immediately cause offense. Anyone can be confused, even people who are otherwise very smart. I want to emphasize universal fallibility rather than a specific personal failing. Or something like that.
Wow, it’s been two years since the Argument Clinic on Labeling.