day no. 17,266: stupid is as stupid doesn't

"This kind of thinking is not just stupid, it is wickedly stupid. It is a sin to be this stupid. You can’t be this stupid without it being at least partly your fault." — Douglas Wilson, Marriage, Miscegenation & More

Stupid is not being ignorant, stupid is knowing better and choosing poorly.

Proverbs 12:1 (ESV)

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, 

but he who hates reproof is stupid.

The stupid person is not the one who has no idea what to do, it is the person who is told what to do, but refuses to listen. 

“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.” — C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia, #6)

In other words, there is culpability for stupidity. You are not at fault for what you do not know per se even if you may be responsible for not knowing it. Ignorance is not an excuse, but it is a different problem than arrogance. Stupidity is arrogance. It is thinking you know better or at least refusing to think well of the wisdom of others.

Stupid is as stupid doesn't. Stupid doesn't do what it was told to do. Ignorance doesn't know what to do, arrogance refuses to do what it knows. Being stupid is being arrogant.