Dumb or stupid?

They are two different phenomenon.

It is hard to understand what one doesn’t know

He (Eric Kalenze) also discovered books by E.D. Hirsh Jr. and Diane Ravitch that reinforced his initial feeling that what was called “progressive” or “constructivist” pedagogy didn’t place enough value on building students’ knowledge through explicit instruction “ Wexler, Natalie, Why So Many Kids Struggle To Learn, American Scholar, Winter 2022,P. 41

The basic idea is that reading comprehension depends on stored knowledge so that the reader has a context for the new information being obtained. Without this context the reader is confused or bypassed as the information goes over their head. Explicit instruction of primary concepts and knowledge is needed for understanding to be achieved. Merely decoding words with phonetic articulation doesn’t provide the meaning of the word.

In other words it is important for a person to know stuff if they are to learn more about it.

The even more problematic situation is when people think they know stuff that they don’t. This is a common phenomenon called the Dunning Kruger effect. The Dunning Kruger effect is acknowledged in the slogan, “A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” 

The Dunning-Kruger effect also highlights the difference between being “dumb” and “stupid.” Dumb is when a person is ignorant and doesn’t know. Stupid is when a person thinks they know but doesn’t.

Dumbness can be easily dealt with. Stupidity, however, is a whole other challenge.

With all the disinformation and misinformation available now on the internet stupid people are a bigger danger now than ever because they think they know things but are really way in over their heads. When these folks are in decision making positions where their decisions affect the welfare not only of themselves but other people society has a huge problem. The biggest threat to our democracy at the current time is people who elect people to office who are incompetent. The test of competence is outcomes. Does the person’s efforts produce good results, no results, or bad results? Sometimes this is referred to as the person’s record. Records don’t seem to count much anymore in ascertaining a person’s credibility to make good decisions and function in a competent way. Without considering a candidates record, the voter, themself, is incompetent and we have a situation where incompetents are supporting incompetents.