It's an insult, sure, but one which can be more or less true. Calling someone ugly is also an insult, but that person might get binned right at the bottom of a

It's an insult, sure, but one which can be more or less true. Calling someone ugly is also an insult, but that person might get binned right at the bottom of a Hot or Not style survey. I'm not in love with the author's framing of what it really is, but I agree that 'stupidity' is something which intelligent people exhibit on a regular basis. But the word itself is ambiguous, such that trying to pin down a definition has to wrestle with the fact that we would also call someone who is rather low intelligence "stupid" if we don't mind insulting that person in the process.