Did any of you catch Karan Thapar's "How Not to be an idiot" in his HT column last Sunday?
You can read it here:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=ViewsSectionPage&id=7afea3c5-151b-4437-a47c-848abc338428&&Headline=How+not+to+be+an+idiot&strParent=strParentID
It presented a challenge that I felt would be of special interest to law students; especially the etymologically inclined among us (read-Ameya)
To paraphrase, he (Thapar, not Ameya) observes that "idiocy" is defined as the lack of "intelligence" whereas "intelligence" is defined as the absence of "stupidity" and "stupidity" defined as the chief mental attribute of an "idiot" and so on and so forth. There is thus no objective standard or footrule to measure and describe the attribute of either intelligence or idiocy. That we can at best contextually understand them as being distinguished from the other. That while we may agree instinctively that certain behaviour is "stupid" we find it difficult to define why it is stupid without launching into a circular definition.
The Supreme Court recently did attempt to define idiocy as Thapar points out. This is their definition-
"An idiot is one who is of non-sane memory from his birth, by a perpetual infirmity, without lucid intervals; and those are said to be idiots who cannot count (to) 20, or tell the days of the week or who do not know their fathers or mothers or the like."
You'll agree the definition isn't much.
The challenge to the Society is to define an "idiot" in a manner that does not employ synonyms or antonyms. It should describe the attribute itself in a way that no other concepts such as "intelligence" or "stupidity" need be understood first.
Cheers!!
Monday, September 8, 2008
To Celegrim- A challenge!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
hmm.. interesting. Considering I have always read it as being defined as anyone having an intelligence quotient less than 20.
To begin with, the court tried to define the word idiot in the context of consciousness, however faint that may have been, of the consequences of one's actions; which, in my opinion, was not a flawed/ incomplete/ subjective definition. I think it was the most simple explanation that could have been given for the word in that context.
If we look at the modern Wechler Adult Intelligence Scale(WAIS)- the last edition (not sure how many existed..!), i wont say that it is the best way of knowing the most intelligent/able/the-other-end-of-the-spur if-an Idiot-was-on-one-end person alive. In fact there are tests with better recommendations for that. The WAIS, however, consists of the most basic tests giving a good representation of observation, knowledge, reasoning, concentration (just about enough for the thinking process to continue at all) etc.
Even if i consider the critics of the said method, it cannot be denied that it tests certain very basic mental processes, the complete absence/negligible existence of which would qualify putting the individual in the category of severely mentally retarded(idiot).
The test of WAIS would give numerical representation (less than 20 in this case to be precise)based on its specialized scale; however, the words that could be used to explain its final conclusion for someone scoring less than 20 on its scale, can very well be the words used by the court.
The court, to give due credit, explained it in the most precise and ordinary way possible. It deliberately leaves little room for fancy interpretations that tend to lose the very purpose of legally defining the word at all. There may be books written on each of the terms, namely, 'Idiocy', 'stupidity' and 'intelligence" separately, but in a nutshell, the court's definition of the word 'Idiot' is agreeable.
Cheers
P.S.- Stupidity isn't the same as Idiocy. The latter seems to have been given its fair share of words (maybe more), the former is actually a common characteristic for all human beings. I will stop short of explaining it in detail for i can already feel Ipsita and Tra wanting to kill me for even mentioning this particular piece of information in this space!
Thats like the LHS experiment. One tries to find an expression of the most basic things. Its like asking a scientist to define weight while not including mass in that definition. What you suggest is, in my opinion not possible, unless the entirety of the definition of an idiot is based on illustrations that cover every aspect of the word. That again is impractical.
What of the greek definition? Or has that already been discussed...
Why do you need to define an idiot or an intellectual?
We can all be idiots at times and vice versa. IQ tests are outdated, moreover defining someone's intelligence based on their ability to perform certain defined tasks is flawed. There are things associated with intelligence like creativity that can never be measured by any scale. Don't we just surround ourselves with these labels for our convenience?
Post a Comment