So, stupid. It’s important to face one thing about stupidity: We can’t get away from it. It’s all around us. It doesn’t take a team of professional investigators to discover that there are stupid people in the world. Their presence (and its effects) speaks for itself.
But where do these stupid people come from? Well, they come from American schools. But while they’re attending these schools, they’re never identified as stupid. That comes later, when they grow up. When they’re kids, you can’t call them stupid. Which may be contributing to the problem. Unfortunately, kids, stupid or otherwise, come under a sort of protective umbrella we’ve established that prevents them from being exposed to the real world until, at eighteen, their parents spring them on the rest of us, full grown.
There are stupid kids. And I do wish to be careful here how I negotiate the minefield of the learning disabled and the developmentally disadvantagedin other words, “those with special needs” (All of these being more examples of this tiresome and ridiculous language.) I just want to talk about kids who are stupid; not the ones with dings.
One of the terms now used to describe these stupid kids is minimally exceptional. Can you handle that? Minimally exceptional? Whatever happened to the old, reliable explanation, uThe boy is slow”? Was that so bad? Really? “The boy is slow. Some of the other children are quick; they think quickly. Not this boy. He’s slow.’ It seems humane enough to me. But no. He his minimally exceptional.
How would you like to be told that about your child? “He’s minimally exceptional.” “Oh, thank God for that! We thought he was just kind of, I don’t know, slow. But minimally exceptional! Wow! Wait’ll I tell our friends.” Political correctness cripples discourse, creates ugly language and is generally stupid. I haven’t quite finished this section. (I’m sure I needn't remind you P.C. people that “The opera isn’t concluded until the full-figured woman offers her vocal rendering.”) I know. I really had to strain to get that in. I’m thoroughly ashamed. But before I leave this section, I wanted to make the point that, on a practical level, this language renders completely useless at least one perfectly good expression: “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” becomes uIn the kingdom of the visually impaired, the partially-sighted person is fully empowered.” Sad, isn’t it?