Stupidity is socially produced and harms oppressors as much as the oppressed

Evidence

Stupidity, including the stupidity of language, ‘is not a natural quality, but one socially produced and reinforced’. However, ‘stultification is caused not by the oppressed but by oppression, and it affects not only the oppressed but, in their essentials, the oppressors as well’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1010

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment account of enlightenment’s self-destruction, and to the critique-of-political-economy framing this book develops. — connects to: Stupidity is a scar left where curiosity or impulse was crushed by coercion — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 266; Stupidity is a social product, not a natural capacity — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 120; Prescribing behavior to the oppressed absolutizes ignorance and forecloses dialogue. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 435 (+3 more)
• SEED: Angle: stupidity as an infrastructure of power — how enforced ignorance degrades the dominators too, per Adorno.

Broader Connections

• Prescribing behavior to the oppressed absolutizes ignorance and forecloses dialogue. #expands (0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 435
• Mystification makes the oppressed mistake social domination for natural necessity #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 651
• Cultures historically conflated ignorance of local custom with stupidity #exemplifies (0.72)