Our era needs new words to describe new conditions

Douglas Coupland

It occurs to me that our new era requires new words to describe new conditions, so herewith follows a quick useful lexicon for 2013.

The first modern condition that springs to mind is one described by the word: smupidity (n.) smart + stupidity

Smupidity defines the mental state wherein we acknowledge that we've never been smarter as individuals and yet somehow we've never felt stupider. We now collectively inhabit a state of smupidity. Example: "Yes, I know I was able to obtain a list of all Oscar winners from 1952 in three tenths of a second, yet it makes me feel smupid that I didn't waste two hours visiting the local library to obtain that list." In our newly smupid world, the average IQ is now 103 but it feels like it's 97.

One possible explanation for smupidity is that people are generally far more aware than they ever were of all the information they don't know. The weight of this fact overshadows huge advances made in knowledge-accumulation and pattern-recognition skills honed by online searching.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 18, 2013 12:30 AM
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