Stupid, ignorant or irrational: what is the difference?

Hi there guys, happy new year. I have recently gotten into a discussion with one of my readers when I called my father stupid and my reader corrected me, telling me that the person in question isn't stupid but merely ignorant. This got me thinking: what is the difference between being stupid and being ignorant? I suppose I have to give you the context of this discussion: some time back, I had been in discussion with my sister in Singapore about sending her a sum of money and she was concerned about the tax implication of receiving a big sum of money like that, just appearing in her bank account - after all, she didn't want to pay any tax on it but she wanted to make sure that she didn't fall foul of any of the rules either with the Singaporean authorities. Naturally, she was being careful and my father helpfully gave her some advice: he told her to go to the local bank branch and ask the bank teller for some advice. As this was a Skype conversation, I rolled my eyes in disbelief: the bank teller isn't qualified to give tax advice, she's a glorified cashier. Even if you asked her, she would tell you that she is not allowed to give tax advice and you need to go to a tax expert like a lawyer or a fiduciary consultant. Clearly, my father doesn't know the difference between a bank teller and a tax lawyer - so do you call someone like that stupid or simply ignorant? I called him stupid but my reader said, no he's just ignorant.

Stupid, ignorant or irrational: what's the difference?

The fact is, we were all born ignorant as children. I'd like you to think back to when you were going to start primary school - the teachers had to start from zero and teach us the basics. We knew practically nothing as young children back then and of course, how can you expect say an 7 year old to know how Nelson Mandela is or why the dinosaurs went extinct? These are topics way beyond the normal abilities of a 7 year old to comprehend. The teachers are usually very patient as they teach these young children the very basics. But as we get older and pass through the education system, we constantly accumulate a lot of information and gain new skills until the day we finish our formal education. By which point, our formal education (if it has gone according to plan) would have mostly cured us of our ignorance and we're no longer the same ignorant kids we were now that we're educated - so yes, there is a simple cure for ignorance, it is called education. So if a man in his 20s or 30s doesn't know who Nelson Mandela is or why the dinosaurs went extinct, then you'll start to wonder if there were gaps in their education or if that was a topic that wasn't covered in their school. But that's simply placing the blame on the education system and I don't think that is fair. After all, so many people go through the same education system in the country, yet some students become scholars and go on to very successful careers, whilst others end up working in dead end manual jobs, barely ever using their brains as they scrub toilets or mop floors. I would like to place the responsibility not so much on the teachers to 'cure' us of our ignorance, but on each and every single person to keep educating themselves about the world we live in - this learning should go on until the day we die.

As a man in his 40s, I've finished my formal education an awfully long time ago. Yet one of the most important issues that will affect my life in 2019 will be Brexit - I can't say, "oh my teacher never taught me about that when I was a student, so I don't know anything about it." Heck, I don't wait for a teacher to come along and teach me a topic if it is something so vitally important, I will take the initiative to teach myself everything I need to know about the topic. And that's a really good reason why I think it is vital for young people to go to university: as kids, we sit in a classroom and have information shoved down our throats by our teachers, it is a very passive learning process. You can get through the exams by simply memorizing your textbooks as all the answers are in there. But at university, the spoon-feeding ends and you're expected to come up with your own original theories and do a lot of your own independent research to back up your theories. The answers you need cannot be found in any of the textbooks - you'll often need to create something totally original to demonstrate your mastery of the topic. That's why I do think that my father is stuck in that, "I never learnt that in school, so I don't know about it" mindset and if it involves a topic he hasn't learnt about - be it tax planning or Brexit - then he will simply remain ignorant whilst someone like me would go read up about it and learn until I cure myself of the ignorance.

We cannot proclaim to have knowledge about every topic under the sun - take for example the history and culture of Georgia. Until I decided to go to Georgia a few days ago, I didn't know that much about that country - I did watch the 2018 season of Wie Is De Mol, a popular Dutch reality TV programme and that was set mostly in Georgia, it gave me a glimpse of just how stunningly beautiful and fascinating this country is. That's why after watching that programme, I was determined to go to Georgia. Once I had booked my tickets, I wanted to cure my ignorance of Georgia: I read so many Wikipedia pages about all aspects of Georgia from the history to the languages to the food to the culture to the political situation. And of course, I am studying the Georgian language now (which is scarily difficult as it is a language isolate) whilst brushing up on my somewhat rusty Russian which I last used when I was in Estonia earlier this summer. There's also a very practical aspect to all of this: I'm traveling independently, so I have to figure out how to get from Kutaisi to Borjomi to Bakuriani etc - so I have to understand how public transport in Georgia works and it turns out that they have a system called 'Marshrutka' which is so similar to the 'Louage' I used in Tunisia. Yeah, it's like studying for an exam for me right now and the topic is 'Georgia'. I was ignorant about Georgia before I decided to go on this trip but by the time I make my way to the airport to catch my flight, I intend to be an expert. I know the process to cure myself of ignorance of a subject - so whilst I know I can never be an expert on every topic under the sun, I know I can become quite knowledgeable about any topic in a short time and the internet makes it very easy for me to find the information I need.

So, going back to the question: what is the difference between stupidity and ignorance then? After all, even seemingly highly educated, intelligent people will have gaps in their knowledge and topics which they will be ignorant about. Even if you have a super high IQ, you can't possibly know everything under the sun - your brain cannot store information like a massive encyclopedia. Allow me to share a secret with you: there's another aspect to ignorance that makes a huge difference: some of us may be ignorant, but we know how to hide it well. Let me give you an example from my work: I was in a meeting with a client when he asked me a question about a technical aspect that I knew nothing about - I was ignorant about this technical issue and I was afraid that admitting my ignorance may make me look downright stupid. So I was very sly and I said to my client, "I realize that's an important issue for you, so how do you think we should deal with it? Please, could you tell me what solution would be acceptable to you?" So instead of saying, "I'm sorry, can you explain to me what you mean by that? I don't know how that works." I pretended that I knew what he was talking about but then tricked him into explaining what he meant to me. So instead of walking away thinking, "that Alex is such a stupid idiot who didn't even understand the most basic technical aspects of this issue", the client walked away thinking, "Alex really cares about how I feel about the issue, he listened to me and wanted to know how I wanted the technical aspects addressed." It's a game that salespeople like me play all the time, never expose your weakness. So in the case of my sister and I discussing her tax situation, instead of making a ridiculous suggestion like asking the bank teller, he could have simply asked a simple question like, "do you have any friends who may be able to help you with this?" Now that statement would have showed that he cared about my sister without exposing his ignorance about how taxes work.

We live in an unforgiving world where people would often just assume that you're stupid rather than ignorant and it is important to hide your ignorance from the world. After all, there are loads of stupid people out there, not everyone is a genius. Sometimes, you may meet kind people who will not judge you for being ignorant: when I told my sister that I am going to Georgia in January, she didn't know much about Georgia apart from the fact that it used to be a part of the Soviet Union. But why would she know anything about Georgia anyway? It is not like she had any reason to need that knowledge and until I decided to go to Georgia, I didn't need that knowledge either but now, it is vital that I have that knowledge to ensure that I make the most of my holiday there. But then again, if my sister could join me on that holiday (alas, she can't - you know what she is like, Singaporeans work so hard), I know she is educated enough to be able to accumulate a lot of knowledge about Georgia very quickly, much the same way as I did. I know that because my sister is highly educated and very clever indeed. In her job, she often has to deal with issues that she may not know much about and finding the solutions to these problems may mean climbing a steep learning curve very quickly - but that's what highly intelligent people do all the time. Give them something new and they will learn the new knowledge very quickly. Oh and that technical aspect that I mentioned earlier, the one that I didn't understand - I have since done my research and am now an expert on dealing with that. That's what intelligent people do - we buy time to cover up our ignorance so you don't even know that we were ever ignorant. Thus people with excellent social skills rarely come across as ignorant not because we have more knowledge, but we do know how to navigate our way out of those awkward social situations.

However, I notice that people like my father are quite happy to have glaring, huge gaps of ignorance in their lives - my father hates the English language (and white people in general). Sure he had some English lessons when he was at school, but he is highly reluctant to ever use it. You'd like to think that in an English-speaking country like Singapore, he has ever incentive over the years to make some effort to try to improve his English but I think I've made more effort with the Georgian language in the last few days than my dad has with the English in the last few decades. Every time he gets an important looking letter from the bank or the government, he would just hand it to my sister or mother for them to translate it for him. His excuse? I went to a Chinese school, I'm Chinese educated - but he conveniently ignores the fact that he was still taught English as a second language back then and quite a number of his peers who did also go to Chinese schools are capable of speaking some English today. My father chose not to try to improve his English despite the fact that it is causing trouble for him in his daily life in Singapore - for example, once he got a parking ticket because he couldn't understand the instructions on the signboard in the car park which were of course, only written in English (explaining when parking was free and when you had to pay) and he was on his own. So that's a simple example of how a basic command of English is vital of everyday life in Singapore, when doing something as basic as using a public car park. He has had quite a few decades to fix the situation with his English skills but he chose to live with the ignorance.

Is it easy for someone to simply fix his ignorance about a certain issue, especially if he hasn't had the benefit of a good education? No. It is perhaps too unkind of me to judge my father's refusal to learn English because he never had a good education to begin with. But then again, he is a teacher himself and he is married to another teacher - can you be a good teacher if you refuse to learn something that is evidently so useful and vital to your everyday life? This kind of learning comes easy to some people and not to others, so if you have tried to do something but failed miserably, then you're unlikely to want to try again. Some people are simply not intelligent enough to pick up new skills, new languages, new information as quickly as others - their minds cannot figure out new concepts and learn as quickly as others, hence we tend to label these people stupid. It's not their fault that they can't learn - so even if you enrolled my father in a course at Tsinghua or Fudan university (two of the best universities in China), guess what? It is highly unlikely that my father would be able to pass any of the exams there because his brain simply isn't equipped to pick up new information the way a top university would expect their students to process very complex concepts. So with stupid people like that, it's not like they have become so ignorant because they have been deprived of the process to learn - rather, they probably know that trying to learn anything difficult or complex would be a futile process so they don't even bother and they have simply gotten used to living with their ignorance; that's what I see my father doing. He has simply given up trying to fix his ignorance decades ago whilst people like me are always desperately trying to fix the many gaps in my knowledge bank.

I am always finding excuses for my father's ignorance.

So really, the key difference is that you can fix ignorance - simply given me a week and I'll learn enough about a topic to have an knowledgeable conversation with you. Indeed, when I was in Malta a few weeks ago, I got talking to some of the locals and one of them old Maltese men thought that I must have either lived in Malta or have visited Malta many times given my intimate knowledge of the country and the Maltese language. He was shocked that it was my first visit to Malta and he was like, "but how come you know how to speak so much Maltese?" And I replied, "it's amazing what you can learn on the internet these days." But you can't fix stupidity I'm afraid, it's not that stupid people can't learn anything, but there is a limit to how much they can learn and how fast they can learn. I may be able to pick up the basics of a new language in a week or two given that I am a polyglot, but someone who is stupid may spend years studying the language and still come away with very little. I have this friend in London whose son is stupid - not my words, it is the word of his father. This friend has two kids: a daughter and a son and even by his own admission, his daughter is brilliant, his son is an idiot. He has decided to make them both learn Chinese and after a few years, I can have a basic conversation in Mandarin with his daughter whilst the son would simply say random words in Mandarin to me like, "熊猫" and expect me to be impressed. I don't even now quite how to react, like, "okay, do you know what that word means? Can you use it in a sentence?" The boy would look perplexed because instead of saying "well done" like all the other adults who treat him in a condescending manner, I start testing how much Chinese he actually knows and I usually scare him away because in doing so, I make him feel stupid - especially when his clever sister is quite happily jabbering away with me in Mandarin.

Can I point out that these two kids had the same Chinese teacher and were taught the same way - so what other conclusion can I come to apart from the one that the boy is stupid? After all, his father had arrived at the same conclusion. You see, many people would give people like this boy the benefit of the doubt, not because they have any evidence to the contrary, but they are just being kind. Can you imagine me telling my friend that his son is, well, plain stupid? No, that would be a very hurtful thing to say. But here's the thing: even stupid people can still learn and I've observed some stupid people who may not be fast learners, but they don't give up - they keep trying and they do continually enrich their lives with new knowledge, new skills and new experiences. It may take them a lot longer to learn the same things as a clever person, but they will learn at a much slower pace and get there eventually. Of course, all this time, they are still reaping the many benefits of challenging themselves to learn something new and difficult - that's why my friend is forcing his "less intelligent" son to still learn Chinese like his super intelligent daughter. Then there are people like my father who refuse to try to do anything new or learn anything new, thus as a result accumulate huge gaps of ignorance in their lives after several decades. I wonder if my father cares if people think he is stupid or ignorant - after all, he spent his entire life as a primary school teacher facing young children, so he's always more knowledgeable than his students. But once he steps into the big bad world outside the school gate, it isn't long before he realizes that he doesn't have the knowledge to even negotiate his way through a public car park in Singapore. Is my father truly stupid? I'm not sure his IQ is that low, but his extremely negative and pessimistic attitude towards learning anything new is what keeps him very ignorant about so many vital things in life and that often results in making him come across as a  stupid person. 

I grew up listening to my father talk a lot of crap - I'm sorry for being blunt, but he often talks like an uneducated person. He would say things like, "put ginger juice on your scalp and it will stimulate the hair to grow". And I told him that there's no scientific basis for that - he claimed that the acidity of the ginger will act like fertilizer, at which point I thought, how do I even begin to explain this to you, you're a retired teacher yet you are just spouting complete nonsense. Even if someone relayed an old wife's tale to me, I would question the scientific validity of it instead of blinding trusting it. Certainly, an educated, intelligent person would look at a pharmaceutical product and want to understand how the active ingredient works - I would look at the active ingredients in my toothpaste as I am fascinated by the fact that some brands are a lot more expensive than others, but so few people actually ask why if they mostly contain the same active ingredients to clean our teeth. People like my father usually just equate the more expensive brands to be the better product, without once looking at the list of active ingredients. Do I have a degree in dentistry, pharmacology or chemistry to understand how the active ingredients of toothpaste work? No, but it doesn't mean that I can't learn about it and make sense of it. I don't need a teacher in a classroom to explain it to me. But no, my father would hear some crazy rumour about ginger juice being good for your hair and not even question the validity of it before passing it on - that's exactly what a stupid person does because they don't have the ability to verify things like that. Even if I am ignorant about say a certain aspect of an active ingredient in a product like Minoxidil (a popular hair-loss prevention product for balding men like me), I can easily cure that ignorance with some research online. Too bad it isn't as easy to cure my male pattern baldness - alas.

Oh and amongst the most stupid things he ever said was, "fat people are more jovial and funny". And his reason: two of his favourite comedians are fat, Lydia Sum and Moses Lim. Talk about a face palm moment. So okay, let me get this right - Sum and Lim are both comedians, they are both overweight, they are both very funny, so by that token, all fat people are jovial and funny; as if there's some kind of link with being obese and being able to tell funny jokes to make others laugh. Groan, like where do I even begin? If anything, fat people are more likely to have all kinds of medical problems as a result of their obesity - not a good start if you want to be jovial and funny. Besides, have you ever seen how fat kids are bullied in school? Kids already face such a harsh environment in this day and age when it comes to bullying and standing out because you're hideously obese is only going to make you a target for bullying - again, that's hardly going to make you jovial and funny. Oh then he said something that made me gasp in disbelief - he said that thin girls are attractive and the boys will be chasing after the pretty, skinny girls; but the fat girls have no choice but to tell hilarious jokes and make themselves the center of attraction by being the comedian in the group otherwise nobody would pay attention to them. I tried to explain to him that being jovial and funny like a comedian is an art form, doing comedy is extremely complex and it an intellectual process that has nothing to do with being fat or thin - after all, there are plenty of great comedians who are thin as well, so that totally destroys his theory that 'fat people are more jovial and funny'. At which point he couldn't defend his argument apart from, "but Lydia Sum and Moses Lim are so funny!" Never pick an argument with a stupid person, especially one who is so oblivious to his own stupidity, it is a pointless exercise that will only end in frustration.

I tried to understand how my father's mind works - if something seems reasonable or logical to him, then he just assumes that it is the case, the same way he has assumed there is a correlation between obesity and being 'jovial and funny' or his assumption that somehow ginger juice can promote hair growth. Being severely autistic of course, he's incapable of trying to see things from another person's point of view, so trying to present an alternative argument to disprove his theory usually gets me nowhere - he is incapable of processing that information. So if you're willing to be kind, you could say that he is both ignorant and autistic but not necessarily stupid. Thankfully, my father is now retired and in his 80s, so he can do what the hell he likes and it wouldn't matter at all as he never has to work again so this is just a situation that we have to deal with as a family. But here's the thing: genuinely stupid people are incapable of curing themselves of their ignorance because they don't have the mental capacity to learn anything too difficult whilst autistic people are often incapable of curing themselves of ignorance because they are unable to see things from another person's point of view (and thus incorrectly assume that their point of view is the correct one, no matter how wrong they may be). The processes may be somewhat different but ignorant or stupid, the result is still the same. Hence, is there any difference?

Actually I think there is - after all, I know I am autistic and so I go out of my way to challenge myself to see things from a different point of view all the time and whilst I still make some mistakes as an autistic moron sometimes, I am at least aware that I have a problem. This is similar to my friend Sean who is colour blind: he cannot see the colour red and any colour which involves some kind of combination of red such as purple or pink. Sean is aware of his colour blindness of course so he goes out of his way to be careful and compensate for it; you may think that it may concern matters like food safety or even something as basic as traffic lights. But Sean would often take a photo of a shirt, tie and suit he wishes to wear for an important meeting and then send it to me (I am not colour blind but more importantly, I do have a good eye for men's fashion). I would then advice him if the colours do go well together or if they clash badly. So for example, he sees bright pink as a kind of dull grey - so sometimes I would have to warn him that wearing a bright pink or magenta shirt may be a somewhat bold choice for a formal situation and whilst I am not afraid of using such bold colours in my ensemble, some colours just don't go well together. When he is about to buy clothes online, he would usually double check with me before making an order and sometimes we would go shopping together. Thus like Sean, I am aware that my autism may impede my ability to judge a situation properly and so I can try to compensate for it - that's a lot easier than trying to ask a stupid person to think/act like an intelligent person because they are simply incapable of doing that.

Finally, I would like to address the point made by my reader Choaniki and in his own words: "If you are going down this slippery slope of argument then you are calling the majority of Singaporeans stupid. You can't imagine the number of educated ex-collegues I got into an argument with when I told them that Singapore is not the best place to live and that the ruling party is doing a pretty shitty job for the amount of money they are paying themselves. But that is why I keep my opinions to myself nowadays. Some people just can't handle having their worldview challenged. Call them stupid, ignorant or close-minded or whatever. I just don't want to have to deal with a whole bunch of brainwashed sheep." So, is it possible to be well educated and seemingly intelligent yet quite ignorant at the very same time? Evidently so, as described by the Choaniki in his comment above. I don't think the problem here is that of intelligence, but whether or not one chooses to be reasonable or rational. A lot of well educated and intelligent people can make downright crazy and illogical decisions when they allow their emotions to overwhelm them to the point that it prevents them from making rational decisions. Being intelligent enough to say, graduate from an excellent university doesn't necessarily mean that you are emotionally mature - that is something else altogether and in the case of Choaniki's ex-colleagues, he talked about people who just can't handle having their worldview challenged and the problem there clearly isn't intelligence or ignorance, but whether or not these people are in control of their emotions and so this could lead to irrational behaviour.

I remember a story from many years ago in Wales - this Welsh couple in a small farming village have a son who is always getting into trouble and has spent some time in jail for various crimes; nonetheless  they love him unconditionally and would always take him back regardless. One night, the son came back and confessed to his parents that he had killed a man in a drunken brawl at the pub. The father said, no it has gone too far, we need to go to the police now - the son refused, instead he wanted his parents' life savings so he could run far away and avoid justice. The father then marches out of the house to try to avoid a confrontation with his son whilst the mother is trying to calm her son down. However, fearing that his father is about to call the police, the son runs after his father, they get into a struggle the son accidentally kills the father in the process. Now the son has killed two people in one night and what does the mother do? She covers up for her son: she makes it look like they had a burglar on the farm and she would raise the alarm the next morning. In the meantime, she drives to the nearest ATM to withdraw as much money as possible to give to her son - who then takes the money to flee abroad. But she then goes out of her way to lie to the police about what happened in order to mislead and distract them, whilst buying time for her son to escape to Ireland. Eventually she was arrested and sent to jail for aiding a criminal when CCTV from the ATM revealed that she had withdrawn a large amount of money that night. Now in this story, this mother isn't particularly stupid or uneducated - she had simply been emotionally overwhelmed by the sudden turn of events and the tragic death of her husband, thus she acted irrationally against her own interests. Yes this is an extreme example, but it shows how a smart woman could be very irrational under duress.

Likewise, my friend Irma has traveled to North Korea this year - anyone who visits North Korea has to join a guided tour where you are carefully monitored by your "guides" who ensure that you never go wandering off on your own and you cannot leave your hotel at night, for example. Irma did get along very well with her guide Miss Pae, who was very friendly and spoke English pretty well (albeit with a North Korean accent). As they got more comfortable with each other, Irma couldn't resist asking Miss Pae more challenging questions such as about human rights in North Korea and Miss Pae didn't once deviate from the script - she eloquently defended North Korea's vision of a socialist utopia whilst citing examples such as income inequality, police brutality and the way the people in the West are utterly brainwashed by 'fake news' to demonstrate that the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence, but simply that different countries had different problems. In fact Miss Pae got quite defensive of her country during these conversations; you could claim that Miss Pae was totally brainwashed by the North Korea regime, but you do wonder how a seemingly intelligent person like Miss Pae can actually believe everything she is taught about her country? Is she really unaware of the horrific labour camps in North Korea? Could it be that it is simply easier and more convenient for someone like her to buy into the propaganda, because it is virtually impossible to rebel in a place like North Korea without dire consequences for you and your extended family? Given that any kind of dissent is out of the question by that token, perhaps it's just easier for her to give in to the brainwashing - it is the path of least resistance and that has little to do with whether Miss Pae is clever or stupid. So in the end, Irma decided to avoid such provocative conversations, given how frustrating they turned out to be.

Thus I think we have to go back to the very basic definition of what it means to be stupid in order to draw a line on this issue: a person with very low IQ (like a mentally disabled person) would be totally incapable of learning anything too difficult or complex; thus that is the cause of them being very ignorant simply because they are incapable of learning. However, there are other reasons for people to be ignorant: it could be a temporary gap in their knowledge, take the example of my super intelligent sister - who has till today had no reason to require any knowledge about the country of Georgia, thus she is ignorant when it comes to that topic or there could be a far more complex problem like autism, which prevents the autistic person from seeking knowledge about certain topics if that means having to see things from another person's point of view. Then of course, you have people like Miss Pae in Pyongyang who are seemingly intelligent, eloquent and highly educated, yet somehow they can only be at best described as 'irrational' when it comes to the huge blind spots they have. In fact, she may not be 'ignorant' of what is really going on in North Korea, but she conveniently chooses not even to acknowledge those troubling thoughts. So is it necessary to to work out whether or not the ignorant person is plain stupid, ignorant or perhaps autistic? I actually think so - because you can then decide how you wish to deal with the situation. With a genuinely stupid person, the only logical response is to walk away and leave them in peace. But in other cases, you may want to decide if you can actually help enlighten that person and 'cure' them of their ignorance with some knowledge that you could share. Whether or not you choose to do so will depend on the situation.

I would like to go full circle and return to that awkward conversation with my sister and my father - is it possible for my sister or I to educate my father about the complexities of her tax situation? I think so, that would involve us sitting him down, explaining it slowly and clearly in Mandarin - it won't be easy but we could have at least tried. But neither of us bothered because it is ultimately not his tax situation that we're concerned about - it's not his problem, so really as long as I can guide my sister to the right solution, whether or not my father understands what we're doing is completely irrelevant. We never expected any hep from him anyway. Thus by that token, we often just don't bother explaining anything to him because we deem that it is just not worth the effort. So in principle, we could potentially cure him of his ignorance, but in practice, we never do and thus he stays ignorant and perhaps you could then hold my sister and I partly responsible for that. So, that's it from me on this topic - what do you think? Do you ever try to differentiate between someone who is ignorant and someone who is plain stupid? Does this difference actually matter given that the result is ultimately the same? Have you ever met someone like Miss Pae and how would you deal with her? Do you blame people like her for being so ignorant? Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading and happy new year everyone.