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Village Idiot
The village idiot in strict terms is a person locally known for ignorance or stupidity but is also a common term for a stereotypically silly or nonsensical person or stock character. Description The term "village idiot" is also used as a stereotype of the mentally disabled. It has also been applied as an epithet for an unrealistically optimistic or naive individual. The village idiot was long considered an acceptable social role, a unique individual who was dependent yet contributed to the social fabric of their community. As early as Byzantine times, the "village idiot" was treated as an acceptable form of disabled individual compatible with then-prevailing normative conceptions of social order. The concept of a "village savant" or "village genius" is closely related, often tied to the concept of pre-industrial anti-intellectualism, as both figures are subjects of both pity and derision.Dols, M.W., 1987: Insanity and its treatment in Islamic society. ''Medical History'' 31, 1 ...
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Frits Van Den Berghe - De Idioot Bij De Vijver
A frit is a ceramic composition that has been fused, Quenching, quenched, and granulated. Frits form an important part of the batches used in compounding vitreous enamel, enamels and ceramic glazes; the purpose of this pre-fusion is to render any soluble and/or toxic components insoluble by causing them to combine with silica and other added oxides.''Dictionary of Ceramics'' (3rd Edition) Edited by Dodd, A. Murfin, D. Institute of Materials. 1994. However, not all glass that is fused and quenched in water is frit, as this method of cooling down very hot glass is also widely used in glass manufacture. According to the ''OED'', the origin of the word "frit" dates back to 1662 and is "a calcinated mixture of sand and fluxes ready to be melted in a crucible to make glass". Nowadays, the unheated raw materials of glass making are more commonly called "glass batch". In antiquity, frit could be crushed to make pigments or shaped to create objects. It may also have served as an intermedi ...
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Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome a ...
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Social Classes
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. "Class" is a subject of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and social historians. The term has a wide range of sometimes conflicting meanings, and there is no broad consensus on a definition of "class". Some people argue that due to social mobility, class boundaries do not exist. In common parlance, the term "social class" is usually synonymous with "socio-economic class", defined as "people having the same social, economic, cultural, political or educational status", e.g., "the working class"; "an emerging professional class". However, academics distinguish social class from socioeconomic status, using the former to refer to one's relatively st ...
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Stereotypes
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information, but can sometimes be accurate. While such generalizations about groups of people may be useful when making quick decisions, they may be erroneous when applied to particular individuals and are among the reasons for prejudicial attitudes. Explicit stereotypes An explicit stereotype refers to stereotypes that one is aware that one holds, and is aware that one is using to judge people. If person ''A ''is making judgments about a ''particular'' person ''B'' from a group ''G'', and person ''A'' has an explicit stereotype for group ''G'', their decision bias can be partiall ...
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Stock Characters
A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of stock characters, covering men and women of various ages, social classes and demeanors. They are archetypal characters distinguished by their simplification and flatness. As a result, they tend to be easy targets for parody and to be criticized as clichés. The presence of a particular array of stock characters is a key component of many genres, and they often help to identify a genre or subgenre. For example, a story with a knight-errant and a witch is probably a fairy tale or fantasy. There are several purposes to using stock characters. Stock characters are a time- and effort-saving shortcut for story creators, as authors can populate their tale with existing well-known character types. Another benefit is that stock characters help to mo ...
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Developmental Disabilities
Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, especially in "language, mobility, learning, self-help, and independent living".Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013)Developmental disabilities.Retrieved October 18, 2013 Developmental disabilities can be detected early on and persist throughout an individual's lifespan. Developmental disability that affects all areas of a child's development is sometimes referred to as global developmental delay. The most common developmental disabilities are: * Motor disorders, and learning difficulties such as dyslexia, Tourette's syndrome, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, Irlen syndrome, and dyscalculia. * Autism and Asperger syndrome are a series of conditions called autistic spectrum disorders that causes difficulties in communications. Autistic ...
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Court Jester
A jester, court jester, fool or joker was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests during the medieval and Renaissance eras. Jesters were also itinerant performers who entertained common folk at fairs and town markets, and the discipline continues into the modern day, where jesters perform at historical-themed events. During the Middle Ages, jesters are often thought to have worn brightly colored clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern. Their modern counterparts usually mimic this costume. Jesters entertained with a wide variety of skills: principal among them were song, music, and storytelling, but many also employed acrobatics, juggling, telling jokes (such as puns, stereotypes, and imitation), and performing magic tricks. Much of the entertainment was performed in a comic style. Many jesters made contemporary jokes in word or song about people or events well known to their audiences. Etymology The modern use of the English ...
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Anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical, politically motivated, and even contemptible human pursuits.''A Handbook to Literature'' (1980), Fourth Edition, C. Hugh Holman, Ed. p. 27 Anti-intellectuals present themselves and are perceived as champions of common folk—populists against political and academic elitism—and tend to see educated people as a status class that dominates political discourse and higher education while being detached from the concerns of ordinary people. Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the following dictatorship (1939–1975) of General Francisco Franco, the reactionary repression of the White Terror (1936–1945) was notably anti-intellectual, with most of t ...
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Social Role
A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position. It is vital to both functionalist and interactionist understandings of society. Social role theory posits the following about social behavior: # The division of labour in society takes the form of the interaction among heterogeneous specialized positions, we call roles. # Social roles included appropriate and permitted forms of behavior and actions that recur in a group, guided by social norms, which are commonly known and hence determine the expectations for appropriate behavior in these roles, which further explains the place of a person in the society. # Roles are occupied by individuals, who are called actors. #When individuals approve of a social role (i.e., they consider the role legitimate ...
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Epithet
An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It can also be a descriptive title: for example, Pallas Athena, Phoebus Apollo, Alfred the Great, Suleiman the Magnificent, and Władysław I the Elbow-high. Many English monarchs have traditional epithets: some of the best known are Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Æthelred the Unready, John Lackland and Bloody Mary. The word ''epithet'' can also refer to an abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrase. This use as a euphemism is criticized by Martin Manser and other proponents of linguistic prescription. H. W. Fowler complained that "epithet is suffering a vulgarization that is giving it an abusive imputation." Linguistics Epithets are sometimes at ...
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Mentally Disabled
Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, especially in "language, mobility, learning, self-help, and independent living".Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013)Developmental disabilities.Retrieved October 18, 2013 Developmental disabilities can be detected early on and persist throughout an individual's lifespan. Developmental disability that affects all areas of a child's development is sometimes referred to as global developmental delay. The most common developmental disabilities are: * Motor disorders, and learning difficulties such as dyslexia, Tourette's syndrome, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, Irlen syndrome, and dyscalculia. * Autism and Asperger syndrome are a series of conditions called autistic spectrum disorders that causes difficulties in communications. Autistic sp ...
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