Erminia wrote:
"Note on stupidity: etymologically (being Italian it comes easy to me, the
etymology of words: I am not trying to intellectualise the matter), it
comes from the Latin stupor (the being amazed). So to be stupefied, it is
to be subjected to the effects of something amazing which causes stupor.
But stupidity sprung out from the application of the term "stupor" to a
psychiatric pathology, which resembles dementia, but it is not. It
describes, in fact, my doctor-husband informed me this morning half-asleep -
a state of mental fixation (eyes fixing the void without responding to the
environmental stimuli) and emotional unresponsiveness.
Stupid as an adjective derives therefore from this apathy of the mind,
(therefore the term qualifies someone obtuse, slow in mind, unintelligent, -
and not "mad" in the sense of sized by folly, hyperactive, visionary -
therefore the terms "stupid " and "stupidity" are not applicable to poets
and poetry (mad and madness, yes)."
Not quite so, I'm afraid. 'Stupid' is also applicable to acts, as in
'I/he/she/we/they did something stupid', and in that usage it does carry the
overtones of being 'seized by folly'.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Erminia Passannanti" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 12:18 PM
Subject: Re: Back on Planet Earth + stupidity
On Tue, 27 Nov 2001 22:57:50 -0000, domfox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>The cerebral dominance of intellection is meat and drink to me.
(first essential feature in selecting the mating male)
>I expect the dominance of anything very much is inimical to poetry -
Wrong, possibly. Poetry is the excercise of control of the language over
the unconscious.
>I'd like to pretend that I make up poems by choosing a subject and then
>intellectualising extremely hard about it,>Dominic
(to try to do things extremely hard seems to me a respectable behaviour).
Note on stupidity: etymologically (being Italian it comes easy to me, the
etymology of words: I am not trying to intellectualise the matter), it
comes from the Latin stupor (the being amazed). So to be stupefied, it is
to be subjected to the effects of something amazing which causes stupor.
But stupidity sprung out from the application of the term "stupor" to a
psychiatric pathology, which resembles dementia, but it is not. It
describes, in fact, my doctor-husband informed me this morning half-asleep -
a state of mental fixation (eyes fixing the void without responding to the
environmental stimuli) and emotional unresponsiveness.
Stupid as an adjective derives therefore from this apathy of the mind,
(therefore the term qualifies someone obtuse, slow in mind, unintelligent, -
and not "mad" in the sense of sized by folly, hyperactive, visionary -
therefore the terms "stupid " and "stupidity" are not applicable to poets
and poetry (mad and madness, yes).
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