Essay: Discourse and Acumen

 Concepts. What am I today in difference to days gone? I am older (and all which that entails). I believe that's where it ends. Am I smarter? What I can note is that if I were to compare what I  learned, as a child, from grade 1 to grade 2 , or later in college from one semester to another, I cannot say with determination that I am smarter if the accumulation of that amount of knowledge is what is to be judged. Do I know of more things that I knew then/yesteryear? Unquestionably. Do any of these things purport intelligence? No, they do not—on their own. I posit, the fact that I (or the average person) have read possibly millions of lines of text in my lifespan, where said words/text  had no coherent purpose—unless the repudiation of all ideas can be considered purpose for purpose’s sake—thus refutes reason and blocks comprehension which may very well work against the prospect of intelligence. 

I know, some may say, the sun spins around the sun, colloquially speaking. That statement does not denote intellect any more than children talking about how ants go to the bathroom. Arguably, speech is recognizable as some part of intelligence, but is it? Communication and intelligence must be different, right? In earnest, what is the difference between a message delivered verbally as “come here", as writing on a board spelled out, or with the gesture of a hand’s motion where a hand, palm faced inward, goes from far from the body to closer to it? The communication delivered is to approach. Is it intelligence though? Why would someone ask you to approach? What if the conveyance to approach is because they want to jokingly fart when you come near, or what if the monkey is holding some poop on their hand when they motion you to approach; is it intelligence then? What if the quiet hand motion to approach is to keep you from danger, would that qualify? 

These somewhat philosophical questions are at the heart of the concept of what many (average persons) believe intelligence to be. The fact that a person perceives a color one way and a colorblind person does not, says nothing about intelligence; or does it? Which, if either, is an observational/intellectual statement: a whale surfaced to breathe, or a whale surfaced because it saw the boat coming? Is an observation by definition then part of intellect? Can we call anything that is perceived by our senses as a form of or stemming from intellect? 

In an age where the profound sense of intelligence permeates social media, use of the word ignorance has become ubiquitous to stupid. I dare say that has become an endemic issue, one where a perceived-to-be ignorant person is labeled as stupid by a stupid and often arrogant person; there is need for this issue to be thwarted somehow. It could be argued that the person(s) using the word stupid in this context is not aware of the meaning of the word, and when they are aware, oxymoronically use it. This essay, in terms of opinion, juxtaposes a simple view about the belief of what is considered to be intelligence by a so-called-average person versus what the same may consider to appear to be ignorant and in so doing apply a label disproportionately; especially when arrogance is taken into account. Where a person is-or-not ignorant or stupid is not the subject of scrutiny here, but rather a belief that something is inherent in something else, be it intelligence, ignorance, stupidity, or the value inherited by the application of said label(s). I know not about the metamorphosis of the acumen of perceived  knowledge, where any form of discourse is being judged by all of its participants, in the same way that, I know not why there is value to be found in said discourse and acumen.