Who among us at least once a day does not have a reason (to himself) to exclaim: “What a fool!” And some supposedly only such people meet in life … What do we really mean when we insult another?
Evening traffic jams on the ring road. Unexpectedly, after overtaking, some off-road vehicle sharply takes to the right and continues to rush forward, hitting cars. “Moron, idiot!” This reaction is instinctive. And in a tense moment, even vital, says psychotherapist Charlie Kungi.
“This judgment arises in us under the influence of emotions as a reflex defense that allows us to ease internal tension.” Such an emotional reaction is more likely to manifest itself in situations of stress, when “we, busy with worries, get the feeling that everything is going wrong, and failures are due to others.”
“I would be in his place…”
“Estimating another, we report something not so much about him as about ourselves,” says psychoanalyst Nelly Jolivet. – The exclamation “fool!” means: if I were in this person’s place, I would act differently. I wouldn’t hook everyone in a row, I wouldn’t interfere with the neighbors’ sleep …
“Fool” offends our moral beliefs. If we forbid ourselves to overtake others, then whoever dares to do so puts our internal censorship to the test, causing an unconscious desire to go beyond the limits prescribed by morality.
Hence the insult – as if we wanted to say: “He is doing something that I don’t want to do, because it will make me feel guilty …” And yet how pleasant it must be to slip where you need under the noses of everyone else !”
Self-censorship and envy
But it’s one thing to swear at someone in a situation of sudden stress, and another thing to call (or consider) most of those around you to be idiots. For some scrupulous, self-controlled and self-censoring people, literally every new meeting – no matter with whom – becomes a challenge to their beliefs. It is from them that complaints are constantly heard that they are surrounded by only fools.
Such people from childhood have deeply learned parental requirements and prohibitions, notes psychiatrist Christian Zakzik. To such an extent that it becomes incredibly difficult for them to perceive another, different from themselves and their ideas of a person.
I can’t stand it when another has more than I have, because he must be equal to me in everything.
There is another explanation for the all-encompassing pejorative view of “others.” A century and a half ago, the French historian and sociologist Alexis Tocqueville explained that “in any egalitarian (proclaiming the equality of its members) society, in the end, the predominant feeling becomes … envy.”
The logic is this: I can’t stand it when another has more than I have, because he must be equal to me in everything …
A cure for profanity
A person who has committed stupidity is not always hopelessly stupid. Most often the opposite. And therefore, summarizing, calling him a fool is at least unfair, that is, not good. How to clean your vocabulary from such expressions?
“Before reacting to someone’s words or actions,” advises Charlie Kungi, “it’s worth asking yourself:“ What exactly caused my desire to call this person a fool, an idiot? “Is it possible to call his act more precisely – for example, impoliteness, aggression, unprofessionalism?”
And then ask yourself another question: “What do I gain by making such a judgment, what does it give me?” After thinking and understanding, we will most likely come to the conclusion that by turning on a “fool” in our environment, we only increase our own stress level. And often, admittedly, the other person’s stress level.
Us and others
The word “fool” is a completely innocent abuse, and fools, and especially fools, can be sympathetic and even succeed, like the fabulous Ivanushka. The history of this word is rather vague, and there is no consensus regarding its etymology: either it is related to the word “other”, or it goes back to the same Indo-European root as the verb “to blow”.
Carried away by the search, you can attribute to the “fool” a relationship with the Latin durus (hard) and even the Turkish durak (stop) … But we know much more about the “idiot” thanks to the encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron. This word came to us through European languages from Greek, where it originally meant “private person”. Hence, one step to the ignorant person, as opposed to the knowledgeable, initiated.
Among the Romans, this meaning developed further, and ignorance and mediocrity in the sciences and arts began to be called an idiot. In modern Russian, “idiocy” is both clinical dementia and just ordinary stupidity – in other words, a high degree of mediocrity, ignorance and social “exclusion” that happens to everyone from time to time. And then we say to ourselves or another: “Well, what an idiot (ka)!”