Let’s workshop this

Dr. Professor Naomi Wolf, Author of Eight NYT Bestsellers supposedly:

(Didn’t realize Poetry was a credential)

OK I’m thinking about writing something on stupidity (I’m aware of Robert Musil’s essay with that title).

Here’s a very preliminary typology. I welcome your hatred comments:

Natural stupidity. This just means low cognitive ability in the most straightforward least mysterious way. What people usually mean by stupidity in other words.

Social stupidity. This is the sort of stupidity produced in non-naturally stupid, or not particularly stupid, individuals, by social effects of various kinds, aka the stupidity of crowds/conformity to the group. Being in a cult is an extreme example.

Intellectual stupidity/smart stupidity. Naomi Wolf is or at least was a much more intelligent than average person, plus she’s very invested in being a public intellectual, i.e. someone whose profession it is to be smart about things. She’s now incredibly stupid, but in a way that’s very clearly different than natural stupidity, and closely related to but perhaps still critically different from standard social stupidity?

Is the way that intellectuals like Wolf can be or become stupid just a subcategory of social stupidity, or is it it’s own distinct form of stupidity, along with the natural and the social varieties? Obviously we have a vast trove of similar cases to consider, hence the almost reflexive use of the modifier “so-called” intellectual. But Wolf et al clearly are intellectuals, though bad ones.

Interested in smart takes on this thx.