Naivety
Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A naïve may be called a naïf.
Etymology
In its early use, the word naïve meant "natural or innocent", and did not connote ineptitude. As a French adjective, it is spelled naïve, for feminine nouns, and naïf, for masculine nouns. As a French noun, it is spelled naïveté.
It is sometimes spelled "naïve" with a diaeresis, but as an unitalicized English word, "naive" is now the more usual spelling.[1] "naïf" often represents the French masculine, but has a secondary meaning as an artistic style. “Naïve” is pronounced as two syllables, in the French manner, and with the stress on the second one.
Culture
The naïf appears as a cultural type in two main forms. On the one hand, there is 'the satirical naïf, such as
On the other hand, there is the artistic "naïf - all responsiveness and seeming availability".[5] Here 'the naïf offers himself as being in process of formation, in search of values and models...always about to adopt some traditional "mature" temperament'[6] - in a perpetual adolescent moratorium. Such instances of "the naïf as a cultural image... offered themselves as essentially responsive to others and open to every invitation... established their identity in indeterminacy".[6]
See also
- Beginner's mind
- Credulity
- Drug-naïve
- Gullibility
- Naive and Sentimental Music
- Naïve art
- Novice
- Schiller
- The Idiot
Notes and references
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, "naïve" and "naïf" and quotes.
- OCLC 34721531.
- ISBN 978-1-4008-6690-8.
- ISBN 978-1-58435-028-6.
- OCLC 1255741054.
- ^ a b Green 2008, p. 35.
