Stupid or Ignorant

Stupid or Ignorant

Two words that some people use interchangeably are "stupid" and "ignorant." In my opinion the two words have clearly different meanings. The first, when used to describe a person, indicates an inability to learn from the past. The latter is not a bad thing. It simply indicates a lack of knowledge about a particular subject.

Some people think that Albert Einstein may have been the smartest man of all time. If he were alive today and you asked him to add a DVD recorder to your home entertainment system, he would have no clue what to do. Does that make him stupid? No. He is ignorant of how the system works. Being ignorant is not bad. I am ignorant when it comes to brain surgery and I don't lose a minute of sleep about it.

Stupid, on the other hand, is bad. I hate it when I'm stupid. I may have done a certain thing wrong many times, but then, when confronted with the same situation, I fail again. Stupid.

Our beloved president is stupid. He studied history. He has supposedly smart people advising him and he still thought he could change the Middle East. And people in any kind of social need or care about people in social need, who may be smart about a lot of things, but still vote for Republicans are just as stupid. Dick Cheney shot his friend by accident. That was stupid.

When you are ignorant about something what do you do? Well, I try to learn more about it. If it comes up again, I am prepared. That's smart. One key to life is contained therein. Education is the silver bullet to ignorance and stupidity.

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