Weakness and stupidity as moral failings?

Yeah Bobby basically aced the thread.

I'd like to add however that catering too much to stupidity tends to encourage people to not bother to learn better. People tend to learn best from their mistakes when:

• They survive them, and
• They have a motivation to do any better.

There is such thing as being too shielding — that's a moral failing.

edited 14th Sep '11 10:43:01 PM by Pykrete

@OP: Weakness and/or Stupidity can certainly hinder a person's growth, just like any other factor. But I'd hesitate to call them moral failings in and of themselves, simply because too many people have risen beyond such limitations to achieve great things.

And after all...drama runs off such things, in myth as in life. No one wants to see a protagonist who never missteps...we want to see a hero who has a problem and overcomes it, because that helps us believe that we can do the same thing. In seeing it, we see that it is possible.

G.K. Chesterton said it best..."Fairy tales don't exist to teach children that dragons exist. They are there to teach children that dragons can be killed".

Okay, got a little off-topic there....but the point is sound.

I prefer when the heroes and villains are both hypercompetent and impossibly awesome, but meh

Another thing to note is that intellectual and emotional weakness is perceived as more easy to control, especially to control in any particular moment.

Say, if one is physically weak, and it somehow led to themselves or other people getting harmed, it is still assumed that they could not do better. Sure, they could spend a year in a gym and build some strength, but right now at the moment of action there is nothing they could do to overcome their weakness.

However, if someone is a mentally weak coward, it is still perceived that they technically could "snap out of it" at any moment, so not doing so is their own fault.

A similar things with intelligence. Although intelligence in itself is often perceived as even more difficult to improve than physical strength, even a dimwit does not do stupid things at every waking moment. So any particular moment of stupidity that led to tragic consequences is perceived as controllable and avoidable.

People also don't understand how much those things intertwine..

Lets take fighting, as an example, so long as people are bringing up physical adeptness. I was at my friends studio the other day, teaching a baton class. A guy I work with who goes there was sparring with the owner of the studio.

The owner is a small filipino dude, 5'6, and a former Army ranger. My friend is a burly 6 foot tall Navy Master-At-Arms. He's definitely stronger than the owner, he's got some massive guns on those arms of his, and he can throw one hell of a haymaker.

He got the floor wiped with him by the ranger. Why? Knowledge. Even physical practices such as fighting require the intelligence to learn the information and the cunning to use it well to form a proper strategy. Being able to apply your strength is intelligence. If you're weak and smart, or strong and stupid, you are at a severe disadvantage.

So if you're intelligent, you can always become stronger with far less effort than it takes to become more intelligent. If you're stupid? Well, you're probably writing youtube comments right now.

edited 15th Sep '11 12:43:33 AM by Barkey

"I prefer when the heroes and villains are both hypercompetent and impossibly awesome, but meh"

Nothing stops them from becoming so...

• puts on some Pantera*

edited 15th Sep '11 12:44:54 AM by MRDA1981

That being said, if your biceps are as thick as my wrists and you're smart as hell, I'm probably going to whoop your ass in a fight.

If they're smart in any way that matters, they won't be picking a fight with somebody that much bigger than them.

Definitely this. Kindness doesn't mean handing everybody everything on a platter.

I get this a lot. I consider myself the type of person who is very intelligent and introspective (people sometimes tell me that I scare them) albeit in a very unusual way—i.e. people tell me I have no "common" sense, but I seem to be gifted in other, perhaps more abstract ways. So, when I've made mistakes (commonly the obvious "duh" moments,) I've noticed that people around me seem to be as upset, if not more, than if I was just to do something maliciously and deliberately. In one sense, I can see where they are coming from...the consequences of my actions would be nearly the same whether they were by accident but stupid, (say, misplacing needed money) or deliberate but immoral (spending needed money frivolously.)

At the same time, I think what pushes weakness over the edge for some people is the very fact that because it is a weakness it kind of absolves the culprit from culpability, as opposed to immorality where you can just write off a person as being an asshole/bastard/inhuman monster and just direct your ire at and blame them, full tilt. When you have someone who is weak or stupid, it pisses people off even more because, despite the fact that the culprit is a tornado of destruction, you can't fully blame them, because they didn't CHOOSE to be weak and stupid.

Indeed. In a way, people are pissed off more because they cannot, rightly, be pissed off.

I think it's more of a frustration thing, really. While maliciousness is arguably worse than incompetence, an immediate solution is very much viable in regards to the former.

The latter, by contrast, isn't something that can be solved immediately. All you can do is work with the person and try to make them get better. The anger comes from this detail, because people can't just "fix" it.

edited 15th Sep '11 8:13:07 AM by TotemicHero

Well Barkey, I'll make sure to never get into a fight with you unless I have some kind of ace in the hole in mind then ;D