stupidity by alan

Stupidity as research ethos and tactic

Stupidity is something to cultivate.
Not all the time, but strategically — as a kind of tool of research trick.
It gives you permission to ask basic questions — these might be obvious, equally they might not be.
Basic questions can be productive because others haven’t thought to ask them — as they are seem to straightforward.
Stupidity — in the sense of not knowing things — gives the researcher permission to ask about obvious things.
This is useful in all sorts of settings — in first observing a research site, in an interview, in learning how to do something.
It gives the researcher permission to start doing something — watching, talking, learning — without having a direct sense of where things are going.

On the other hand …

Stupidity as feeling or state of frustration
Often stupidity isn’t something chosen or cultivated.
It can be a state or feeling that the researcher is inadequate to the task they have set themselves.
A sense that the thing being researched has the researcher stumped.
Or that the researcher is inadequate to the task of getting into the research site (or project) in a way that others will find worthwhile, or important, or smart.
This feeling of inadequacy can then take the research away from the research site (and material generated from it) and towards theory.
Because theory is obviously ‘clever’, and it is where well developed ideas can be found and ‘applied’ to the research site (which also gives us a natural community of others who ‘use’ this theory).
So, we need to be careful with this feeling of stupidity — because it can lead us to doing ‘stupid’ things in order to impress (or fit in) with others.

Ying-Tzu

Stupidity is a limbo where the researcher feels everything and nothing at the same time. It’s a stage when one knows enough about the existing realm that other people have studied therefore triggers existential crisis and imposter syndrome.

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‘Stop fooling around!‘

Panic and anxiety triggered by the sense of stupidly often stop the researcher to observe and to ask basic questions. Is there anything new to add in front of a giant? It blinds the obviousness in front of the face.

Another case is to question the legitimacy of questions being asked at the first place. All important questions must have being asked and answered. This can’t be new. Nothing is new. The self-doubt can brew cynical in one.

Perhaps to remain the cultivated stupidity yet not brewing cynical out of frustration is more than a quest of finishing the PhD but to develop a healthy relationship with knowledge in general. The second time the sense of stupidity comes back it seems to be bearable.

Clemens, based on Lauren’s term:

FLUMMOXED

"And my 'pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don't prove a alleybi, he'll be what the Italians call reg'larly flummoxed, and that's all about it."

People have looked, but found no Italian says this.

Turns out that was a joke by Dickens.

Flummoxed may be onomatopoeic, where the sound of the word is its meaning. Like BAM! Or kladderadatsch, as Marx imagined the sound of capitalist collapse.

Can this notion operate as a thing to aim for? Like Anneke mentioning “Elegance” as a criterion/alternative for ‘good’?

Can we dwell in being flummoxed, instead of merely stupid, just fallen to pieces and seeking to reassemble yourself again?