Question: What Defines Stupidity?
All right, all right. So you’ve heard the story before. You also know the moral--liars aren’t believed even when the tell the truth.A group of timber men had to maintain a flock of sheep so that they wouldn’t starve. In order to protect the mutton while off on their day gig, the axe men hired some kid to look after them. If the boy saw a wolf, coyote or other predator, the child had instructions to take out his cell and dial the Head Lumberjack In Charge (HLIC).
Well, one day, the HLIC gets a call from the kid, who screams at the top of his lungs that a wolf is attacking one of the sheep. The woodcutters immediately stop their work, pile into their Ford pickup, and haul serious tail back to the meadow, where they find the little boy laughing his ass off at the sight of them, with nary a wolf in sight.
“Fooled you,” howled the kid. “Boy, you’re stupid.”
On the one hand, the lumberjacks were relieved to find no real crisis or mishap. On the other hand, they felt sorta, well, sheepish.
The next week, the HLIC gets another call on his cell. “It’s a wol-lof,” cries the kid in panic. “Help me, please help me!”
“Yeah right,” grouses the HLIC. “Do us a favor. Just watch the sheep. We got work to do.”
“But I’m telling the truth this time,” protests the lad. To prove it, he shoots them a photograph of the scene that he’s taken with his telephone. Sure enough, there are a whole pack of wolves filling up on lamb chops and other cuts. The lumber men again race to the scene to find the kid beside himself with laughter.
“You guys never heard of Photochop?” he roars. “You’re even bigger morons than I thought!”
Once again the lumberjacks leave, although now they feel really stupid.
The HLIC’s phone rang the following week. The caller ID showed the number of the kid. The foreman simply turned off his cell.When the woodcutters came home that night, they saw the remains of the kid all over the meadow, an area of about seven acres. From the bite mark patterns, the police determined that he was eaten by a pack of wolves, who pretty much picked his corpse clean.
Curious thing: the canines didn’t seem to have a taste for sheep. They left the flock alone.
But that’s not quite what we’re after here. Obviously, the kid believed that he was smarter than the lumberjacks. But I want to know your opinion. Was he? Were the lumberjacks really stupid? If so, to what degree? For doing what, exactly?
Labels: political theory
posted by X. Dell @ 2:20 PM
39 Comments:
At 3:29 PM,
foam said…
heck, i don't know, x.dell ..
but i'm a mother and a teacher ..
i would have had the hide of that kid who cried wol-lof the first time around ..
for lying and for being disrespectful ..
At 5:59 PM,
yinyang said…
The way this particular version of the story plays out, I think they were all stupid: the lumber jacks, for hiring the kid in the first place, and the kid, for thinking it would be funny to pull pranks like he did. I definitely don't think it was stupid of the lumber jacks for responding to his pranks, because they perceived his claims to be legitimate and in need of immediate attention, given the value they placed on the flock. I also think it might have been stupid to ignore the kid altogether after two pranks, but on the other hand I can understand the reasoning. If they're responded again and it had been a prank, then they would have wasted even more time. But I think they should have responded anyway, and then considered hiring someone else.
I have a personal example that relates to this, too. I think I've mentioned to you before that my grandmother's crazy. Well, recently she called 911 and said her house was on fire, and 5 fire trucks ended up going out there, only to discover there was no fire. Now, the fire department didn't know about her history of delusions and such; but, even if they had, if they'd ignored her call altogether that would have been irresponsible of them, even if it did waste resources.
So, I do think the lumber jacks were stupider than the kid, but not for the reasons he thought.
At 6:17 PM,
NYD said…
They could have put another person there with the kid so he wouldn't have gotten bored enough to start playing pranks. The two of them could have done a whole lot more work for the lumberjacks and it would have saved them the trouble of lost work and a lost life.
Ignoring a warning is ridiculous. Recieving information from unreliable sources and trusting it more than once is even more so.
At 7:10 PM,
JohnB said…
Stupidity could be the inability or choice not to consider the most probable consequence for one's actions, or inactions. -and given that statement both parties in the story are at least partially guilty.
At 7:59 PM,
Charles Gramlich said…
The lumberjacks were stupid only in that they didn't fire the kid after the first time.
At 11:22 PM,
tinkerbell the bipolar faery said…
Why trust someone whom you cannot trust to look after important possessions of yours?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!
Also, it occurs to me to ask, why send a kid to do a man's job?
At 5:39 AM,
X. Dell said…
Foam, I'm sure a lot of us, just on GP, would feel like slapping the kid silly. But the question here deals with stupidity. Let me put it to you this way: are you saying the lumberjacks were stupid for not disciplining the kid after the first incident?
Interesting reasoning, Yinyang. Suppose, though, that the kid was the only person available to watch the sheep. Also note the fact that the lumberjacks didn't lose any of their sheep. (Also, read my response to NYD).
NYD, I understand where you're coming from. It's like Yinyang said: why hire the kid in the first place?
But I can think of many a time we've ignored warnings to no ill effect. During the previous administration, for example, we always seemed to get these strategically-timed color-coded terrorist warnings. I know in this story we only have two repetitions--because, let's face it, any more would be too boring to read--but people really do numb to unconsequated warnings. And perhaps they should. After all, people might continually make us jump up and down through hoops. We'd never get anything done if we had to pay attention to every warning from sources proven unreliable or with hidden agendas.
John, that's interesting in that a lot of times people take bold actions without ever considering the consequences. And, as you point out, that seems to have been the case here on both sides.
Charles, what if the kid is the only one available?
Tinkerbell, glad to see you, old friend.
I understand where you're coming from. Why ask someone inappropriate to do a job they're not qualified for? Well, it happens all the time. But sometimes it's the only choice you have. In other words, assume that it's either this kid, or nothing.
At 5:49 AM,
dr.alistair said…
don`t expect what you can`t (or won`t) inspect.
the child showed nothing less than normal intelligence with a desire to pull pranks, probably for having to do mundane repetitive boring work, and while he did end up killed, he may not have had a working understanding of how wolves can actually act, suggesting again not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of experience with wolves.
phd. anthroplogists get eaten by bears, lions and tigers all the time....and skewered by fish.
intellectually bright. practically....stupid.
this specific wolf seemed to act in a peculiar fashion, not only acting alone.....but focusing only on the boy.
a moral dogmatist possibly.
the lumberjacks showed a lack of management aptitude by picking the wrong person for the job. whether this shows a lack of intelligence on the lumberjack`s part is debatable, though thier decision to delegate critical tasks to a child showed poor judgement. this could have been merely lack of management experience.
one would have to have seen how they applied known facts and experience to thier field of competance, in this case lumberjacking, as a judge of applied intelligence.
in conclusion, it would seem that there are various ways to rate intelligence and stupidity.
at the end of the day, both parties, lumberjacks and boy, displayed competence in some areas, and gross stupidity in others.
one boy dead and a group lumberjacks exposed to losing thier food stock.
fail.
and as to whether i really exist......
.....debatable.
At 6:07 AM,
dr.alistair said…
http://hypgnosys.blogspot.com/2006/06/stupidity.html
and this may help.
At 6:38 AM,
Devin said…
You labeled this very well with "political theory" Xdell-very interesting way to present the information! I will have to think on this some more in some ways-this reminds me so much of voting here in the USA-and people believing in the current -o crap-what would you call it-scare-meme-that the good folks in our govt decide to promote-such as the o so successful war on drugs -terror etcetera-which usually make things worse than they already are -I pretty much agree with yinyangs analysis about both the lumberjacks and the kid being stupid-maybe the lumberjacks were more stupid than the kid -but the kid did wind up dead -amusing story also in many ways-best as always!!
At 9:50 AM,
X. Dell said…
Although I seriously doubt that PhDs get eaten by wild animals ALL the time, I get yuor drift, Alistair. There's a problem here in picking the wrong person for the wrong job, and then plcing that amount of trust in him.
Of course, this is an old story. One of the reasons why this might have made more sense in days of yore is because of the nature of pre-induistrial life--children, as a matter of course, had to assume a lot of responsibility, especially in rural settings. Of course, this being a story, the child is merely an allegory.
I would also say the question here isn't one of assessing intelligence, but rather assessing stupidity.
Dein, I should have known you'd be a jump ahead. This is very much in the realm of political theory, although it has other applications as well. I would be curious to know, however, why you would think the lumberjacks are stupider than the kid.
At 1:04 PM,
dr.alistair said…
the lumberjacks may have been stupider than the kid, in my view, as they had more experience, there were more of them, and they had more at risk, being directly responsible for the sheep.
At 4:09 PM,
SJ said…
Haha Dr Alistair good pun. A wolf = DOGmatist!
At 4:13 PM,
SJ said…
The boy was more imprudent than stupid. Taht he didn't try to call the HLIC or any other LIC through other means might have been the stupidity.
The lumberjacks were acting on the information available to them each time. Maybe their reaction to the last call might show a prejudice against the boy though not a totally unjustified one.
At 8:05 PM,
Libby said…
in my opinion, everyone here had at least a touch of stupid in them...except the wolf, of course, which also relates to politics...
At 9:02 PM,
X. Dell said…
Okay, Alistair. I think I have a bead on your position.
SJ, how would you define stupidity?
Libby, exactly what makes each party "touch" stupidity? Is it the same thing? Are there varying degrees?
And is the wolf really all that smart?
At 9:54 PM,
Libby said…
x, no, maybe each person wasnt thinking & it's not that the wolf was smart, just lucky!
At 12:58 PM,
X. Dell said…
Okay, Libby. But what I'm asking is how you define stupidity.
At 4:51 PM,
C-dell said…
I'm sure it has been said here but fool me once.... how that old saying goes. I think that either of them or both of them could be for a number of reasons. The loggers for hiring a boy to watch for wolves or for not going every time true it might look foolish but the sheep are their well being even on the off chance he might be telling the truth they should at least go check it out plus there were many other ways to check for wolves, fences, motion sensor, cameras. The boy could be stupid too for play the same joke over and over on people who don't know you that well it was the wrong joke to be playing. I guess it goes to degrees of stupidity in this case the boy was clearly more stupid but the men don't get off scott free either.
At 1:10 PM,
dr.alistair said…
wolves, as far i as i understand, don`t have an intellect....so therefore aren`t intellegent.
they operate instinctively, any intelligence is an anthropomorphic projection.
that`s why i thought it odd that the wolf would focus on the boy while there were many sheep about that weren`t touched.
this wolf seemed to behave more like a teacher.
stupidity, to me, is doing damage to the self or others.
in the story, the people who did damage were the lumberjacks, as they exposed a boy to the teeth of the wolf.
they didn`t delegate properly.
why didn`t they send one of thier own, for instance?
At 2:01 PM,
dr.alistair said…
unabashed self-promotion alert!
http://hypgnosys.blogspot.com/2009/08/radio-interview.html
my recent radio interview with marc stevens of the no state radio show.
we had lots of fun discussing pre-conditioned fear responses when dealing with government and it`s agents.
let me know what you think.
At 6:22 AM,
X. Dell said…
C-Dell, I get where you're coming from. But how are you defining 'stupidity'?
Alistair, I'll check out your interview when I get a chance.
Actually, one doesn't need intelligence to teach. I've taught over fourteen years, for example. Seriously, though, there's a lot we learn from that has no actual purpose. Random events and other things can be quite intructional.
At 7:37 AM,
Middle Ditch said…
Ha-ha-ha .... this happens at work all the time ..... flipping smoke alarm goes off again ..... nobody bothers ...... life goes on .... kids go in and out ... someone goes to inspect the burning toaster ...... one day it's not the toaster and still nobody bothers. Or take those car alarms! Who ever bothers to check that out?
Anyway, the others have answered the question.
At 4:57 PM,
C-dell said…
I guess what defines it is doing thing that are harmful to your own vital interest or putting others in unecessary danger which the loggers & the boy both qualify
At 11:52 AM,
JohnB said…
You mention "bold actions without considering the consequences"...I have thought about that and I think you are speaking about a special case. The question we should ask is "why are they taking a bold action?" What is a
bold action" anyway? In the story, one could argue it was a bold action for the woodcutters to hire an infantile immature idiot to perhaps attain something that wouldn't put them out too much, thus minimizing the opportunity cost. -But they clearly didn't think this through (acting much like corporations), the consequence being pretty extreme.
If by "bold action" you mean someone like Orestes commiting matricide at the promptings of his sister Electra, thus securing him as a target to the Furies, which then eventually lead to a perfect demonstration of the court system (a good outcome, at least from someone's perspective) thus eliminating the rule of vengeance up to that point...no one possesses the prescient ability to foresee all consequences.
Above the Dr was talking about the wolf, and how it is unintelligent having no intellect. I was always taught that the biggest difference between animals and humans were that animals can only react to their environment, while humans not only have the ability to react but to act on their environment. Maybe stupidity could be equated with being animalistic, that is the degree of a human's ability to act or not on their environment rather than succumbing to the inherent nature of their physical selves. I think the most opposing thing to that of stupidity is for the human to not be restrained by preconceived perceptions of their animalistic limitations, but the ability to think outside themselves.
Consider how Einstein discovered the existence of relativity by the simple matter of riding on a train. He first had an idea that was something outside himself, that the preconception of the physical world possesses something unseen, maybe a matter of imagination even. Then he had to apply what he was seeing to that imagination and make it work. This "acting" on his environment is what I would call, the opposite of stupidity. Stupidity then would be the inability to "act" on one's environment.
At 2:02 AM,
dr.alistair said…
so, intelligence could be seen as the wolf lying down with the sheep.
that would pass some turing test for a behaviour exhibiting intelligence...but would it actually be intelligent?
eventually, computers will be fast enough to make an analog of all human thought and decisions, and therefore be able to perform human tasks.
would they then be intelligent?
At 2:37 PM,
K9 said…
it all worked out in the end!
At 8:20 AM,
Middle Ditch said…
Okay, enough. Where the hell are you?
At 5:11 PM,
SJ said…
Exactly. WHERE THE F ARE YOU!!!
I might define stupidity as you ignoring me. :)
At 7:57 PM,
foam said…
yeah .. what the other's said ..
where are you?
i might even have to call ....
despite this phone phobia i have ..
At 7:39 PM,
X. Dell said…
Monique, car alarms are excellent examples of the boy-who-cried wolf phenomenon. Fire alarms too.
C-Dell, I would suppose that the general consensus would be that the boy would have been stupid for ultimately putting himself and the flock at risk. The loggers would be stupid for choosing the wrong wolf-watcher and for failing to come to his rescue when he needed them.
John, I guess the example of Einstein might illustrate the concept of intelligence, or genius. But I'm more interested in what defines stupidity. As elusive a concept as intelligence actually is, stupidity becomes even moreso. While we have a number of criteria (as you can tell by the comments), what this comes down to is a definition created by popular narrative. So, in a sense what I'm asking is how people have heard the narrative.
Alistair, I would suppose that the more pertinent question would ask if we were all that intelligent in the first place if we ask machines to do our thinking for us:-)
K9, I would understand that you would say that because, well, you're K9. You have a bias towards your order. So naturally it worked out in the end, since the ending was happy only for the wolf.
Monique, SJ, Foam I'm sorta off the air because my access to the Internet has become somewhat limited. I'll try to peak over to your boards and explain sometime this weekend.
Meanwhile, I'm still preparing a new series. It's going kinda slow, right now, because my time is also limited. But like snow, it will come.
SJ, e-mail me with a good time to call you.
At 11:00 PM,
Devin said…
Xdell -I am so sorry for not coming back to your response (and the others) earlier-I actually came over tonight because I was going to inquire about your health-I assume you are just very busy and it is really none of my business-but what are friends for if not to "stick their noses in" Really I guess the major reason I thought of the lumberjacks were so dumb or dumber than the kid is that in regards to "political theory" they seem like voters-falling for the same thing over and over again. I have done so many stupid things in my life I hesitate to even call these hypothetical lumberjacks stupid:) Very interesting analogy in this tale-I hope you are doing wonderfully and just busy-best to you as always!!
At 11:25 PM,
Devin said…
Xdell -now that I have read your latest replies I am not so worried!! I can't wait to read the new series and sorry for any net or other probs you may be having-best to you as always and have a great weekend!!
At 10:49 AM,
Middle Ditch said…
PHEW!! Worries are over
At 8:08 AM,
X. Dell said…
Devin, happy to know you were thinking of me. I'm okay, just disconencted to the Net. When I get cybertime, it's usually limited, and occurs amid a lot of other things.
I'll be back, but for awhile, I'll still be scarce. I hope you and everyone else is doing fine.
Moniqeu, I'm fine. Just not connected to the Internet for the first time in years, almost to the very beginning of the blog. So things will happen, just more slowly.
At 2:38 PM,
foam said…
i see you've gotten rid of a ton of comments .. lol ..
At 9:33 AM,
X. Dell said…
Not comments, Foam. Spam. I've tracked down the IP address of the sender, and have written his/her service provider to investigate. Meanwhile, I'll have to have the verification engaged, something I promised never to do. But so far, I've spent what little net time I have deleting close to 2000 spam messages.
At 5:08 PM,
foam said…
actually, x.dell, i saw that they were spam ..
from china actually. i briefly did a search and apparently other people are being inundated too.
in your case word verification seems quite warranted.
At 7:54 AM,
dr.alistair said…
are we intelligent if we allow machines to do our thingking for us?
human.
and we do allow machines to do everything else that we can`t do, so why not thinking also...the types of thinking we are incapable of.
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