In theory, this shouldn't be very long. My consideration to write it is because I can talk about the big and small. We have national examples and I have my personal life. I hope to explore the parallels and differences.
Why and when do we bother calling something stupid? At first pass, it's to create a kind of dismissing distance. If something is stupid, it can be written off, ignored, or ridiculed with impunity. The stupid object or person has to run against a kind of grain that the person judging takes as correct. It's stupid to dart out into traffic. Stupid then has to be qualified. Is it stupid for a child to run out into traffic? If they don't know any better, we're more comfortable calling the parents stupid instead of the child. Stupid suggests we know better.
Like all words, it can start to bleed into other kinds of judgments. Is it stupid to lock your keys in the car? You may feel stupid or call yourself stupid even if it only happens once every 5 years. If it was every other week it would prompt you think of yourself as “absent minded” or in the same way someone who falls over a lot is a “klutz.” Stated differently, stupid is a variation from the normal. The degree and frequency of exhibiting “stupid” pushes you to more specific or more forgiving language.
I want to quickly distinguish “stupid” from “good” and “bad.” This isn't meant to be an abstract about interpretation. I'm hoping to get at what using stupid means about the person employing it and how we should receive it.
So let's consider my personal life. I readily admit that I purposefully engage in stupid things. Whether it's a night out of drinking too much, getting bored and toying with something in my house until it breaks, or online trolling pissing matches. It's the last one that has prompted this.
It's safe to say I have an exceedingly easy and relatively stable life. Part of engaging in stupid activity is to even provoke something to talk about. This doesn't make it right, but it does make me a simple human cliché. Coincidentally, I just watched a Jordan Peterson philosophy lecture a few days ago where he talks about, I think Dostoevsky, claiming that had man all of their worries fixed and sound reason to rule them all, man would go insane to keep asserting their choice and dominance of the situation. Or, my problem is one that philosophers have mused about for a rather long time.
I tend to think pissing matches and being a little stupid are okay. The problem can be in identifying when a line has been crossed. I'll talk shit all day, but I'm not going to threaten your life. I'm not putting together a plan to find and destroy your real life. Unfortunately, you don't know who might be opting to do that towards you.
So my specific situation is shit talking getting out of hand, me deciding to talk to police and put it on their radar, and then block and hopefully move on from a crazy townie. He decided to invoke my family's names and set off a massive red flag, as he did the first time when he used mine. Cops, still trying to help, explain this as legally gray. Girlfriend, very pissed off, helps turn the line red.
Now say we move it away from small potato idiots with too much time on their hands. What are we supposed to think about Drumpf or the republican party in general? When they make a threat, what should we think? When they make a “joke,” are we supposed to find it funny? How many little points of stupid do we merrily skip past out of our fellow man that eventually add up to Hitler 2?
The line starts to blur in peoples' minds as to when things get “serious.” Is it always serious when I get into a pissing match? Potentially, but the evidence is lacking and nothing has ever come from it. Are there always going to be crazy people running for president or in politics? Absolutely, but their voice isn't just them, their combatant, and the local police. They're taste makers. They're standard bearers. For as many times as I've invoked “be the change you want to see in the world,” that doesn't mean there aren't people with significantly more influence actively being the change I'm completely terrified to see. You can't think of these people as “just” anything. They don't get the hazy middle ground of interpersonal antics we might enjoy to stave off boredom.
When someone wants to fuck with me online, in general, I find it kind of funny, kind of annoying, and kind of a point of pride about pissing faster and longer than the asshole on the other side. When it pisses off my girlfriend or invokes family, there's a kill switch. It's no longer serving the right kind of purpose and the wheels have come off. The kill switch for what we're going to accept in our adult lives needs to be made larger. The first racist and violent comment needs to disqualify you. The first threat should get the police involved. The first defense of their “political acumen” should be met with argument and anger. Otherwise, we're all as dumb as our worst personal lives in online forums, but with significantly greater consequences.
So, be stupid, but don't sacrifice what it means to be a healthy adult who recognizes what there is to lose by giving it the power to dictate the rules.
