Logically, for me at least, the words smart and stupid are closely connected. What I have come to realize is how inexact the use of such words can be. I have a friend who advises me never to use the word stupid with reference to a person. The same friend constantly reminds me that whatever I say in any event is only my opinion.
What is Stupid?
Perhaps, nothing is stupid except in reference to something else. I can regard a statement by someone as stupid because I have heard a different statement from someone else that I would regard as smart. The distance between the two statements is in my mind great enough that one is so significantly different from the other that the statements belong to two recognizable groups, a smart group and a stupid group. My grouping of the statements is probably subjective, but may not be.
For example, if a person who has had three glasses of vodka decides to get into a car and drive, I might say that the person is stupid. I don't necessarily mean to say that the person is permanently stupid, but that the alcohol has affected his brain and the person does not reason correctly according to some social wisdom about drinking and driving. The same statement may, however, be construed differently in that I am merely commenting that the act of driving when having drunk three glasses of vodka is stupid.
What should bother me is that the stupid person, who is drunk and getting into a car to drive it, may actually be smart. Its just that an issue has arisen, a drunken state, in which his thinking and his actions are stupid, or so I assume.
Why Referring to Some one's Behaviour as Stupid Confuses People
When one looks for the word stupid in the English and American dictionaries one gets a very different impression of the social aspects of the term. The dictionaries give examples using other words that are, perhaps, as offensive as referring to someone as stupid.
For example, someone who is boring may be thought of as stupid. Someone who is foolish may be thought of as stupid. Someone who is senseless may be thought of a stupid. Someone who is unwise may be thought of as stupid.
In any event, use of the term stupid with reference to behaviour or characteristic is fraught with problems because it is something that repels people away from the individual in question. Politicians often think their rivals are stupid, but they rarely say so. The reason is perhaps that reference to one's fit within a context is a measure by which others will act.
Saying some one is stupid is a negative advertising for that individual, and is something that person may or may not know how to deal with. If the person is really inadequate, we don't often use the term stupid, and that is because the term is pejorative and demeaning.
The Unwelcome Rebound
Use of the word is likely to rebound back on the individual who uses it. Thus the very act of using the term stupid is stupid, at least for the present!
We use other words instead. We find the phrase 'shameful' an improvement on 'stupid'. One can say openly that a person's behaviour in driving while drunk is shameful, but we don't say the behaviour is stupid. Are we making a mistake? Is there such a thing as stupidity? What do you think?