Live a little longer, and then you’ll probably understand.
~VOW
I have this argument often with one of my friends.
I say that it makes no sense to say that most people are stupid, because humanity is the only standard by which we can gauge intelligence.
I think it makes more sense to say that humans are flawed, and thus often do things that are unpredictable or irrational, so it’s best to prepare for that by driving defensively, checking other people’s work for errors, et cetera.
You’re describing the Fundamental Attribution Error. We tend to attribute the behaviour of others to dispositional characteristics (he cut me off because he is a tool) whereas we attribute and excuse our own behaviour according to situational causes (I cut him off because I was running late, distracted by the kids, etc.) Google it; I can’t do a link from here.
In some life situations, it’s a trick we have to play.
Me, I’m not particularly attractive nor agressive, so salespeople, often give out “tells” that they think they’re dealing with a lesser being.
They can’t not feel this way, because it’s the core value they live and die by. But they still need to reconcile what they need to do with the basic human need to think themselves as nice people.
I think back to school, and how the fat girl who was teased, or the early-developing girl who was sexually exploited, or us gangly boys who were bullied were all stupid as well as tubby or slutty or geeky, so it wasn’t social injustice, just natural law.
Yes, that describes it, but it doesn’t explain the motive behind it. Seeing things as they are should be to our advantage. If the truth is that I am a bad driver, I should strive to improve or try to get better drivers to drive me, not conclude that the other drivers are idiots and continue putting my life at risk (and the lives of others as well, of course).
I’d say the same to you.
I’ve encountered plenty of idiocy already. How will the passage of time make me think that only idiots are capable of idiocy? Alzheimer’s?
I think it’s partially due to specialization. Most of us are really good at something, while we watch the rest of the great unwashed struggling with it. We just forget the other thousand things we suck at (each of which has an expert somewhere who believes we’re the moron).
When I was younger, even though I had test scores and accelerated classes affirming my “smarter than the average bear” intelligence, I had a tendency to assume that I was “average.”
As I got older, encountered more people in my life, and ESPECIALLY as I moved about the work force, I realized that people were basically stupid.
With that realization, it helped me to tolerate the increasing encounters I had with said stupid people.
I remember having a discussion about the stupidity of people with my mother. She had an interesting observation, which still makes me smile to this day:
“Yes, people are stupid. I don’t blame them for being stupid, it’s just the way they are. However, many people are also IGNORANT. And while I don’t blame them for their ignorance, they seemed determined to STAY that way!”
Momma was a wise woman.
~VOW
I subscribe to the Grocery Shopping Cart Driver theory of selfishness and (in)competence. In numerous direct observations and planned (on my part) interactions, most grocery cart drivers are selfish, clueless and just plain idiots. No matter how empty or full a grocery aisle may be, they think they are the only ones in it, display aggressive and territorial behaviors, and too stupid to make a selection and move on. I’ve tested this theory in the same grocery store chain for years, including different stores in different socio-economic areas, all with the same results. I’ve since expanded it to include department stores such as JC Penney, Target, Macys, Sears, etc. The results remain the same.
The lone exception is Walmart. Excessive idiocy across the spectrum, including Walmart staff. Every time. Still working determine why Walmart is such a haven for extreme stupidity outside of the standard deviation.
This!!!
This. Read up.
I have a choice between assuming other people are idiots and assuming I’m an idiot. If I thought I was an idiot, I’d be even more neurotic than I already am. But I’d make whatever changes I’d need to make, in order to evolve past my idiocy. At my age . . . I’ve been through enough positive changes over the years that I’m confident that I’m not an idiot. Therefore, other people are idiots.
Very far reaching question here.
I would say it’s a mixture of a need to be confident in life and social conditioning.
People don’t like to doubt themselves because it’s an uncomfortable feeling. I would say that accounts for the obliviousness when it comes to their own faults.
The negativity I would say is in large part due to social conditioning. Recently, I’ve been making a conscious effort to say in my head “equal” to overcome this bias. I think it’s helping.
Many good observations here, but one thing I would like to add: in any particular encounter, where one person assumes that the other person is stupid, ignorant, or an idiot, it may be because the first person is not able to put himself in the other person’s place. That is, you don’t know what he understands or doesn’t understand, you just see one narrow range of behavior.
A good teacher or trainer understands this. If you are training someone, and you give them information in one form that they don’t follow, you try another form. If after three or four different tries they still don’t get it, you go back one or more steps, and try to see where communication is breaking down. If you start out after one or two tries by assuming the other person is stupid, you will fail and so will the other person. If you have tried everything you know and they still don’t get it, then you may be up against one of the (in my opinion) small percentage of the really stupid.
Another good example, in my experience, is writing an instruction manual. The good writers understand where their readers are coming from (mostly zero); the bad ones forget that other people don’t know as much about these kinds of things as they do.
I am often in the position at work of receiving instructions from trained programmers or system engineers. Because I’m reasonably smart and have some experience, they seem to forget that I am not trained, I have just picked stuff up as I went along. I can’t count the number of times that I have had to go back and ask for more detail or for them to explain what they are talking about. I don’t know what they think about me, but I know what I think about them.
Roddy
None of this is true for most of the people I know who subscribe to the belief that a lot of the population are morons. Instead, they believe the cream rises to the top and they are the ones, usually, who write the user manuals, warn us of severe weather or grades the tests. Typically, anyway.
I know stuff, therefore if you don’t know it, you’re an idiot.
But the fact that you know stuff I don’t know doesn’t make ME an idiot! 
I know what you mean, I think. Instead of recognizing that reasonable people can disagree or do things differently, it’s very common nowadays to label everyone else as an idiot.
Even when doing so is, well, idiotic. An example that has come up a lot lately (and I really mean this only as an example) is folk who do not believe in God labeling having faith as stupid. Er, yes, certainly, you are obviously more intelligent than say, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Jefferson, C.S. Lewis…
Hubris.
Also, not recognizing various kinds of intelligences (or thinking only one sort is worthwhile.) I’m pretty good at basic arithmetic, which many people people (imho, mistakenly) recognize as being “intelligent”, but I can’t fix things for shit (and when I do, it usually looks like crap.) Does my ability at math make me smarter than the guy who remodels my kitchen or the guy who is a master salesman? Of course not - we’re just smart at different things, in different ways.
This part sounds like me
I don’t assume people are idiots, and I hate when I get a compliment because I don’t understand how what I am doing is any better or more competent than what anyone else could do. Yea, I have my Master’s, I am a mother of twins, I have been married for 8 years, etc. but so what? I don’t think what I have done with my life or accomplished is any greater than what most people could do. I always think I could be doing better and accomplishing more, so who am I to call anyone else an idiot?
It’s harder to notice smart than stupid when it comes to behavior, for one thing. A clever person will maybe get a task done a bit faster than average while a dumb person will not only take longer but set fire to the place.
I think some people also measure too often by their own yardstick. It’s common enough to hear a group of specialists-- let’s say engineers or programmers-- complain about how stupendously stupid managers are. Dilbert is pretty much made of this. In reality, bosses don’t need to know much about the technical side of the business and are, in fact, playing an different game than the specialists are.
There’s also narcissism and misanthropy, but examples have already been provided.
Voicing the opinion that other people are idiots does not reflect favorably on one. Even if it’s true, it triggers a negative reaction in me towards the person who said it. That probably isn’t logical at all but I don’t think I care. Which might make me one of the idiots.