Dumb is NOT the new smart

I just had a flashback with some girl on my school bus attempting to taunt me with "You think you're so smart!" All I was doing was trying to get the rest of my homework done on the bus. My reply was, "If I was so smart, it wouldn't be so hard for me to maintain a B average." This was decades ago, so I don't remember the rest of the exchange if there was one. But that part of the conversation lingers with me, while I listen to the conversations around me. Most of the conversations are gossip, who's going out with whom, what happened at parties on previous nights. Some work stuff, some political stuff, but the latter two not so much. Now I might get into a conversation where the issue isn't intelligence, but opinion. Today's schism in US politics in particular. I consider myself a moderate, and I loathe the extremism on both right and left sides. I sometimes wonder if those attempting to get me to the dark side think that I'm not intelligent for not following their opinion. For example, most people are mystified when I tell them I've been voting third party candidates since the 90's because I don't like neither Democratic or Republican parties. They tell me I will never "win." Is that the purpose of voting? Or is it to make it known, to express, who I want to hold the office? If I vote for a Democrat or a Republican and they win, how does that make me a winner if I didn't want either of them? So most of the time I would just skirt around the issue with new people I meet. It will probably look like I'm less intelligent. But the fact would be I just get tired of expressing this opinion and having people think I'm either not intelligent or a nutcase. Doing it for love I will meditate more on.

I am dumb most of the time. Of if I thought I make a clever conversation, it turns out other people don't understand me. So, I resort back to being dumb.

I agree, stupid is not the new smart. People should be educated, people should aspire to more, and people should want more than what they have and want more than what they have already achieved. People should constantly want to improve who and what they are.

First of all, maturity and intelligence do not go hand in hand. In fact, people who are born dumb, most of the time, will grow up dumb and enter into old age dumb. The phenomena of girls and women acting dumb so as not to challenge a male, and perhaps to win his approval has been around a long time. There are studies that demonstrate that once a girl reaches about sixth grade she may deliberately refuse to excel at math or any other male dominated subject for fear of not being liked. It happens, if I am not mistaken, to at least fifty percent of our young women. The girls who learn to like themselves and display their natural intelligence are really more attractive, but do not realize that fact. The fact is, there is nothing new about people deliberately dumbing themselves down.

As a young man I had to pretend to be not dumb but not as bright as I am, in order to get girls! all the best urban

Me either, I am who I am and if you like it that is just fine and if you don't like it, that is your problem. Another thing that I would never do is try to act smarter than I am to try to impress someone. I have always been the kind of person that wants people to accept me as I am. That said, I wouldn't say that I am an extremely intelligent person, but I also know that I am in no way a very stupid person.

Oh yes, making yourself seem less intelligent does help… at least I see it all the time in my office. There are a few of us who (let’s say) just love doing our work straight and clear. We say it clearly when we understand a brief and even when we don’t, we make a genuine effort and at the end of the day, we do have a clear idea of what’s expected from us. Now the situation is such that most of the responsibility in the office gets dumped on our ‘capable’ shoulders and overburdens us most of the times… while all those ‘stupid’ people who just stare incoherently most of the time (as if they’re not really comprehending) get away doing much less. Also, (and I’, not generalizing here)….I’ve seen women acting stupid in front of men and getting extra advantage by just being stupid and weak.

Some people are too smart that they ended up so stupid. When did i discover this? last election. and it was the worst realization that i have ever experienced. almost three months of telling the people who's the better and yet they stick to loyalty and popularity. i feel sad for those who couldn't see reason.. I felt depressed for days, not even my own family wouldn't listen to me. but that was then. it's part of life, maybe if i was insulted in a way, i would be too defensive too. but never this stupid.

You get a lot of it in some schools. Certainly the one I went to it was considered uncool to be intelligent and because some of the thickest kids were also the biggest thugs a lot of kids pretended to be dumb to avoid being picked on. I don't get your friend at all. If a guy only liked her if she was dumb he's not worth having.

I would never consider being diumb as the new smart. We should never belittle our intelligence. There is nothing wrong with being smart. you don't have to be dumb to be accepted by others. if you feel that you do, then those people are not really worthy of you in the first place.

can that be a reflection of problems with the system of education? or of society in general? hmm... i'd rather not include genetics...i don't think it's just to call people dumb because they were born that way or something. though i do believe that having smart parents is a huge plus on some people. there are a lot of dumb people in my country, but it's because of our awful system of education. we have bad facilities, bad (underpaid) teachers...i feel sad just thinking about it. maybe some people pretend to be dumb because dumb is cool. smart people are losers. i've seen this theme so many times in movies. i'm not sure if it's true in real life though. anyway, maybe you find people dumb because you measure their level of intelligence relative to yours. if you're as smart as you said, then you're probably above average, which doesn't make you an ideal benchmark. a LOT of people WILL seem dumb beside you (that would probably even include me).

I actually used to come across really...uhh.not so intelligent..people when I was younger. It made me want to smack them. I always try to avoid individuals like that by taking advanced placement courses. Anyways, I have noticed that there are people out there that pretend to be dumb in order to benefit. Supposedly intelligent people are found to be annoying, which I completely disagree with. It frustrates me to see how many people just don't care about building their intelligence....I just don't get people nowadays.

My friend and I share the same sentiments with you. I know a lot of people who pretend to not know things just so they could be on the good side of a senior. There were instances in my college life wherein our instructors obviously didn't know a thing that they were talking about and even admitted it to the class. I didn't listen to a word she was saying. I even tried to correct her but she simply ignored my comment. When we had the exams, she gave out the supposedly right answer, which was so wrong. I had to stand up in front of the class and tell her her mistake. I would have preferred to have corrected her error discreetly but she challenged me to do it.

That's such a modest post you've got there... Anyway, some older people might not have had the chance at education you've had, or might have never been that blessed with brains to begin with. Not everyone has the capacity to become "intelligent". Sadly, one thing you're right about is today's generation's tendency to think dumb is cool. It's just sad, really.