Idiot

The Idiot by Evert Larock

Idiot was formerly a legal and psychiatric category of profound intellectual disability, where a person's mental age is two years or less, and he or she cannot guard himself or herself against common physical dangers. Along with terms like moron, imbecile, and cretin, the term is now archaic and offensive,[1] and was replaced by the term profound mental retardation (which has itself since been replaced by other terms).

Nowadays, "idiot" is a derogatory term for a stupid or foolish person.

Etymology

The word "idiot" comes from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs 'a private person, individual', 'a private citizen' (as opposed to an official), 'a common man', 'a person lacking professional skill, layman', later 'unskilled', 'ignorant' from ἴδιος, idios 'private', 'one's own'.[2] In Latin, idiota was borrowed in the meaning 'uneducated', 'ignorant', 'common',[3] and in Late Latin came to mean 'crude, illiterate, ignorant'.[4] In French, it kept the meaning of 'illiterate', 'ignorant', and added the meaning 'stupid' in the 13th century.[5] In English, it added the meaning 'mentally deficient' in the 14th century.[1]

Many political commentators have interpreted the word "idiot" as reflecting the Ancient Greeks' attitudes to civic participation and private life, combining the ancient meaning of 'private citizen' with the modern meaning 'fool' to conclude that the Greeks used the word to say that it is selfish and foolish not to participate in public life.[6][7][8][9] In fact, this is incorrect: though the Greeks did value civic participation and criticize non-participation, they did not use "idiot" to describe non-participants, or in a derogatory sense; its most common use was simply a private citizen or amateur as opposed to a government official, professional, or expert. The derogatory sense came centuries later, and was unrelated to the political meaning.[10][2][1]

Disability and early classification and nomenclature

In 19th- and early 20th-century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a person with a very profound intellectual disability. In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for intellectual disability based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to seven years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.[11] The term "idiot" was used to refer to people having an IQ below 30[12][13] IQ, or intelligence quotient, was originally determined by dividing a person's mental age, as determined by standardized tests, by their actual age. The concept of mental age has fallen into disfavor, though, and IQ is now determined on the basis of statistical distributions.[14]

In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "profound mental retardation" or "profound mental subnormality" with IQ under 20.[15] This term is not in use in the United Kingdom.

Regional law

United States

Until 2007, the California Penal Code Section 26 stated that "Idiots" were one of six types of people who are not capable of committing crimes. In 2007 the code was amended to read "persons who are mentally incapacitated."[16] In 2008, Iowa voters passed a measure replacing "idiot, or insane person" in the State's constitution with "person adjudged mentally incompetent."[17]

In several U.S. states, "idiots" do not have the right to vote:

  • Kentucky Section 145[18]
  • Mississippi Article 12, Section 241[19]
  • New Mexico Article VII, section 1[20]
  • Ohio Article V, Section 6[21]

The constitution of the state of Arkansas was amended in the general election of 2008 to, among other things, repeal a provision (Article 3, Section 5) which had until its repeal prohibited "idiots or insane persons" from voting.[22]

In literature

A few authors have used "idiot" characters in novels, plays and poetry. Often these characters are used to highlight or indicate something else (allegory). Examples of such usage are William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and William Wordsworth's The Idiot Boy. Idiot characters in literature are often confused with or subsumed within mad or lunatic characters. The most common intersection between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare's King Lear.

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot the title refers to the central character Prince Myshkin, a man whose innocence, kindness and humility, combined with his occasional epileptic symptoms, cause many in the corrupt, egoistic culture around him to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence. In The Antichrist, Nietzsche applies the word 'idiot' to Jesus in a comparable fashion, almost certainly in an allusion to Dostoevsky's use of the word[23]: "One has to regret that no Dostoevsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most interesting décadent; I mean someone who could feel the thrilling fascination of such a combination of the sublime, the sick and the childish."[24][25]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.
  2. 1 2 Liddell-Scott-Jones A Greek–English Lexicon, s.v. ἰδιώτης and ἴδιος.
  3. ↑ A Latin Dictionary, s.v.
  4. ↑ du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, s.v.
  5. ↑ Trésor de la langue française informatisé, s.v.
  6. ↑ R.L. Gibson (Louisiana), "Notes of European Travel--France", De Bow's Review 21 (3rd series):1:375-405 (1856), p. 389
  7. ↑ John Robertson Macarthur, Ancient Greece in Modern America, 1943, p. 195
  8. ↑ Anthamatten, Eric (2017-06-12). "Trump and the True Meaning of 'Idiot'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-06-26.
  9. ↑ Walter C. Parker, "Teaching Against Idiocy" Phi Delta Kappan 86:5:344 (January 1, 2005) doi:10.1177/003172170508600504 full text PDF
  10. ↑ A.W. Sparkes, "Idiots, Ancient and Modern", Australian Journal of Political Science 23:1:101-102 (1988) doi:10.1080/00323268808402051
  11. ↑ Zaretsky, Herbert H.; Richter, Edwin F.; Eisenberg, Myron G. (2005), Medical aspects of disability: a handbook for the rehabilitation professional (third edition, illustrated ed.), Springer Publishing Company, p. 346, ISBN 978-0-8261-7973-9 .
  12. ↑ Rapley, Mark (2004), The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability, Cambridge University Press, p. 32, ISBN 978-0-521-00529-6 .
  13. ↑ Cruz, Isagani A.; Quaison, Camilo D., Correct Choice of Words' : English Grammar Series for Filipino Lawyers (2003 ed.), Rex Bookstore, Inc., pp. 444–445, ISBN 978-971-23-3686-7 .
  14. ↑ Vibeke Grover Aukrust (2011). Learning and Cognition. Elsevier. pp. 95–96. ISBN 978-0-12-381438-8.
  15. ↑ World Health Organisation (1977). Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries, and Causes of Death (PDF). Vol. 1. Jeneva. p. 213.
  16. ↑ "Penal Code section 25-29". State of California. Archived from the original on 2009-06-27. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  17. ↑ Sharples, Tiffany (5 November 2008). "Ballot Initiatives: No to Gay Marriage, Anti-Abortion Measures". time.com. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
  18. ↑ Kentucky Section 145
  19. ↑ Mississippi Constitution of the State of Mississippi See Article 12, Section 241
  20. ↑ New Mexico Constitution, Article VII, section 1(subscription required)
  21. ↑ Ohio Constitution, Article V, Section 6
  22. ↑ Arkansas Ballot Measures : An Amendment Concerning Voting, Qualifications of Voters and Election Officers, and the Time of Holding General Elections (Amendment 1) : For the November 4, 2008 General Election, votesmart.org.
  23. ↑ Michael Tanner and R.J. Hollingdale (1990). Glossary of Names in Nietzsche's The Antichrist. Penguin Books. p 200
  24. ↑ Nietzsche, Friedrich (1990). The Antichrist. Penguin Books. p. 153 (§ 31).
  25. ↑ Nietzsche, Friedrich (1895). The Antichrist. To make a hero of Jesus! And even more, what a misunderstanding is the word 'genius'! Our whole concept, our cultural concept, of 'spirit' has no meaning whatever in the world in which Jesus lives. Spoken with the precision of a physiologist, even an entirely different word would be yet more fitting here—the word idiot.
    (§ 29, partially quoted here, contains three words that were suppressed by Nietzsche's sister when she published The Antichrist in 1895. The words are: 'das Wort Idiot,' translated here as 'the word idiot'. They were not made public until 1931, by Josef Hofmiller. H.L. Mencken's 1920 translation does not contain these words.)
  • Wikisource Tuke, J. B.; Macpherson, J.; Bruce, L. C.; et al. (1911). "Insanity". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 597–618.
  •  Pilcz, Alexander (1911). "Mental Pathology". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  • Dictionary.Reference.Com "Middle English, ignorant person, from Old French idiote (modern French idiot), from Latin idiota, from Greek idiotès, private person, layman, from idios, own, private."
  • "idiot" at the Online Etymology Dictionary
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