We were listening to the news this morning and I made the remark that the the whole world is becoming stupid — and that they should all wear dunce caps. As I sat there, mulling over the news, I got to thinking that maybe intelligence has just become an oppressive force on all these stupid people for a long time. I think they believe their stupidity and idiotic tendencies are not something to be mocked — they should be celebrated. Unfortunately, admitting stupidity is still taboo in our society, so it’s necessary for these people to pretend to have knowledge to survive. Some of our friends often simulate knowledge of, especially, politics and history and readily accept compliments from friends and family on their intelligence, who seem unaware of its fictitious nature.
But, again, I’ve gotten a little off the subject. I intended to discuss dunce caps… after I had used the term, it occurred to me that you don’t hear it much anymore and probably most of the younger generation don’t know what one is.
When I was young, “dunce cap” was a fairly common term and was always a symbol of idiocy or punishment. But that wasn’t always the case.
For the younger readers, the caps were usually made from rolling paper into a cone and writing a “D” or the word “Dunce” on the paper to indicate that the person wearing the cap had done something very stupid. They were called a dunce cap or dunce’s cap or a dunce hat or dunce’s hat.
The name comes from a Scottish philosopher-theologian named John Duns Scotus. I’m not sure if it’s of any significance or an omen or something, but his last name (Scotus) happens to be the abbreviation for the Supreme Court of the United States. His middle name, Duns, comes from the village where he was born and came to be pronounced “dunce.”
John Duns Scotus was a Franciscan who was ordained in 1291 to wear “the habit of the Friars Minor at Dumbries.”
The dude was a real thinker — his life’s work was all about the study of this world and the next. He became a master philosopher, linguist, theologian and metaphysical thinker.
So how did his name become a synonym for stupidity? For some reason, Scotus was also a proponent for the use of pointy hats. One story is that he was inspired by the use of such hats by wizards — another says that it was Scouts’ love of the headgear that inspired the popular image of wizards wearing conical hats. Either way, the hats were meant to indicate wise men. Scouts believed the conical shape would act like some metaphysical funnel of knowledge and wisdom. The hats were a symbol of knowledge until after he died (in 1308.) But during the 1500s, the popular thought among church scholars began to turn against the “Dunsmen,” and soon the “Dunsmen” or “Duns” were thought to be woefully out-of-date in their thinking, and thus stupid.
Today John Duns Scotus is thought to be one of the great thinkers of the Middle Ages. He was beatified in 1993 by Pope John Paul II, in recognition for his contributions to religious theory.
So even though you don’t hear much about them anymore, dunce caps may not represent a proud tradition, but they certainly are part of a long-standing one.
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