Smart – understanding your own limitations

Often definitions of smart end up essentially saying it’s the same thing as being intelligent, but that’s not how people typically use the word. A phrase like “smart kid” has a noticeably different meaning than “intelligent kid.” Intelligence seems more like a universal standard that anyone can be measured against, while being smart is more dependent on each individual’s situation and background.

Also, we often talk about being smart in different situations, for example book smarts or street smarts. But it isn’t just general knowledge about a certain area too, I would say that to be called “smart” you probably need to demonstrate some kind of problem solving or solution.

Defining smart reminds me of defining Utopia, in that case the best definition was one that didn’t focus on adding more good things to get a good result, but taking away negative things. Often these two ideas are easy to get confused, in either case we end up better off, but reason why turns out to be very different. With smart I think it’s the same thing, it’s not the presence of a lot of knowledge or intelligence, it’s avoiding or mitigating obstacles or limitations by understanding them first.

We can see how this works with “street smarts”, when someone uses that term they don’t mean the person knows the names or all the streets or has a lot of basic knowledge. Instead it means that they understand what the dangers are, where there might be opportunities and what’s actually a scam instead. And it also implies that they know what they can get away with, potentially even knowledge about corruption and crime if those are big factors.

Actually we can follow this thread a little further, we can imagine someone involved in organized crime would be “street smart.” But we probably wouldn’t describe the head of the mob as being “street smart”? Why is that, they have at least as much experience and knowledge about what’s happening as someone working for them. I think it’s because the head of a gang or mob or other similar organization is the one creating problems, they’re using crime and violence as tools, so they’re not limited by these things. If they need to be smart about anything it’s the things that are potentially dangerous to them, what’s going on with competing criminal organizations or with the police for example. Instead of street smart we might describe a mob boss as politically smart or something like that.

Looking at “smarts” this way opens up avenues for defining lots of related words, let’s look at a few:

Dumb – not understanding your limitations.

What seems more dumb to you, a kid not being able to solve a math question and admitting that they didn’t read that chapter yet. Or a kid that doesn’t know how to solve the problem but keeps trying over and over again with attempts that obviously don’t work. Both of them are equally lacking in knowledge, and while they might both have positive qualities (honesty and determination) I think most people would describe pointless attempts as being dumber than giving up when something’s impossible. Like being smart it’s not the absolute level of knowledge that’s important, it’s understanding what’s a limitation and what isn’t.

Clever – Quickly learning about the limitations in a situation

Clever usually implies speed, or potentially out thinking someone else, which is also dependent on quick thinking. But it’s not just learning information quickly in general that makes someone clever, it’s figuring out a way to solve a problem or get out of a tricky situation.

And if someone isn’t clever, but just learns about the limitations of life at a normal pace, we might say that they just have “common sense”.

Common Sense – a general understanding of the widely accepted limitations people face

And that’s actually really important knowledge, I don’t think it’s diminishing the idea of common sense or being smart or clever by defining them this way. Many of the limitations we face are because of fundamental facts of life, either physical facts or the ways society is structured.