My point is, how do you gauge stupidity and in what context? Is being articulate enough to be considered intelligent? If so, that's a bit unfair. Why is PRACTICAL intelligence not so highly thought of? If Tarzan and Einstein turned up on "Mastermind", I would stick my money on Albert. If Tarzan and Einstein were dumped in the African jungle...well, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. Is the intelligence required to thrive in the jungle less important than the intelligence required to win "Mastermind"? There's a touch of "The Admirable Crichton" about this.
For the record, I would die on Mastermind in half an hour and in the African jungle in 4 minutes.
It's a valid point, and perhaps my point is not that practical intelligence doesn't have a value, given I'd last five minutes or less on Mastermind and a little longer in the jungle. Personally, if asked, I'd probably rate practical intelligence over intellectual intelligence, whilst wishing I had more of the latter. If asked however I would also probably plume for being too stupid to reflect on life, to any serious degree, allowing for Minces argument that all can reflect. I guess you could liken it to having a belief system, it must be quite nice to view life, and death, with faith, nothing about an atheists viewpoint is anywhere near as pleasant.
I'm fairly certain, and I see evidence most days, that stupidity is the new normal, so I believe that theory is fairly functional. It does not in itself decry stupidity, it does not make a judgement on stupidity, it simply states that taking issue with stupidity these days seems to draw more ire upon the complainer than the act of stupidity itself.
I would like to believe as Mince does, that everyone can do something about their happiness, but I don't. The second part of my post related to the value of stupidity in terms of reflection, again it does not decry that stupidity, it merely asks which is better. A lot of this argument of mine is fairly simply based [I like to keep to my strengths], so here is an example, again for Mince, but I am in no way sure it proves any point whatsoever.
When I was fourteen I lived in a bedsit. I had a job. Every Friday night I would hit the local nightclub where I would minesweep most of my drinks. Oh yes, I was also a virgin. I met a twenty year old Irish girl and by the end of that summer it was a serious love job. After that things went to batshit and that was mostly my fault. Now most of that relationship was positive, and good, and wonderful and yes, quite sexy. Now, I personally would like to be stupid enough to reflect on that relationship on such a superficial level that all I remembered was the positive, if I reflected on it at all. Sadly I am not, so while I can push myself to remember the positive aspect, I can't for a moment loose the negative.
