Asklemmy

I tend to tutor people randomly. Siblings mostly, sometimes friends, occasionally strangers. It makes me feel good. I get a pretty strong shot of vicarious triumph when I help them achieve a goal.

And I would always hear the same things from people who struggled.

"I'm just not good at this" I would hear.

"I suck at math" would be pretty common too.

This was never spoken by people whose minds were actually incapable of comprehension. Each and every one of them proved smart enough to perform what they deemed an impossible task. But in order to instill the confidence necessary to make it through the problems, I always had to set them straight, open their minds to the possibility that they were wrong about themselves.

At first it seemed kind of inspirational: "no one is too stupid to accomplish their goals," you know? But after it happened enough times, I started to feel like I was some brain surgeon pulling the same damn tumor out of patient after patient, skull after skull. It was a fucking epidemic of self-doubt so strong it literally affected people's entire life trajectory.

At some point, unrelated to tutoring, I wound up chatting with a stranger who had just walked out of some, "Donald Trump's key to success" kind of conference that had taken place on my campus. (It was like, 2013. I didn't know who Donald Trump was back then.) He asked me a few questions. My answers impressed him, and he called me "smart."

And I hated him instantly.

The second that word came out of his mouth, a wave of distrust and enmity washed over me, and I felt like he was trying to scam me. Mind you, I am a 5'11" 180lb man. It's not like he was practicing pickup on me. It was almost-certainly an attempt at practicing the "networking" skills he picked up from the conference he just attended. And the only reason it didn't play well to his audience was because I hated the word "smart" and hated anyone who believed in the concept.

And then, some years later, I was able to finally articulate it after someone chastised me online for calling my own actions stupid -- for using, as a commenter described it, "an ableist slur." Boy did the pieces click together after that.

This is going to seem crazy, but ladies, gentlemen, esteemed in-betweens: there is so such thing as "stupid." There never was.

The human brain is a miraculous thing. It can literally rewire itself if it needs to. With the right techniques, a brain can even be induced to repair itself after certain kinds of strokes. Meaning if, hypothetically, one were "stupid" then the proper application of societal resources could actually turn that same person smart. Just like how I was able to tutor "bad at math" students into "good at math" students.

Which is probably why Rockefeller and Carnegie were so keen on making everyone believe in the concept. Because what I just described is expensive, and if there's a ceiling on a person's potential (like "stupid"), then that gives society a really good excuse to give up on that person before spending a dime.

"We're already doing all we can for these people." the well-intentioned steel monopolist tells you, "They get every opportunity they need. The reason they struggle so much in this society? They just... aren't that bright. They were just never capable of that much to begin with."

"Stupid" is, in other words, a social Darwinist myth created by billionaires to abdicate responsibility for the poverty they were creating. And if someone expresses a belief in, "stupid" I know I cannot count on them. I hope to someday surround myself with people who despise the word and everything it stands for. Because those are the people I can trust to actually improve the world.