View source for Naivety

{{Short description|Lack of experience}}
{{redirect|Naive}}
'''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 [[Deontology|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 [[French grammar#Nouns|feminine]] nouns, and ''naïf'', for [[French grammar#Nouns|masculine]] nouns. As a French noun, it is spelled ''naïveté''.
It is sometimes spelled "naïve" with a [[Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis]], but as an unitalicized English word, "naive" is now the more usual spelling.<ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', "naïve" and "naïf" and quotes.</ref> "naïf" often represents the French masculine, but has a secondary meaning as [[Naïve art|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 [[Candide]]'.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mark |first=Perrino|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/34721531|title=The poetics of mockery : Wyndham Lewis's The apes of God and the popularization of modernism|date=1995|page=54|publisher=W.S. Maney for the Modern Humanities Research Association|isbn=0-901286-52-4|oclc=34721531}}</ref> [[Northrop Frye]] suggested we might call it "the ''ingénu'' form, after [[Voltaire]]'s dialogue of that name. "Here an outsider ... grants none of the premises which make the absurdities of society look logical to those accustomed to them",<ref>{{Cite book|last=Frye|first=Northrop|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781400866908|title=Anatomy of Criticism|date=1957-12-31|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-6690-8|location=Princeton|doi=10.1515/9781400866908|page=232}}</ref> and serves essentially as a prism to carry the satirical message. [[Baudrillard]] indeed, drawing on his [[Situationist International|Situationist]] roots, sought to position himself as ingénu in everyday life: "I play the role of the Danube peasant: someone who knows nothing but suspects something is wrong ... I like being in the position of the primitive ... ''playing naïve''".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Baudrillard|first=Jean|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hG8xAQAAIAAJ&q=The+Conspiracy+of+Art|title=The Conspiracy of Art: Manifestos, Interviews, Essays|date=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-1-58435-028-6|language=en|pages=66–67}}</ref>
On the other hand, there is the artistic "naïf - all responsiveness and seeming availability".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Green |first=Martin|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1255741054|title=Children of the sun : a narrative of "decadence" in England after 1918|page=238|date=2008|publisher=Axios Press|oclc=1255741054}}</ref> 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'{{sfn|Green|2008|p=35}} - in a perpetual adolescent [[James Marcia#Moratorium|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".{{sfn|Green|2008|p=35}}
==See also==
{{wiktionary|naive|naïveté}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{Columns-list|colwidth=22em|
* [[Shoshin]]
* [[Credulity]]
* [[Drug naïvety]]
* [[Gullibility]]
* ''[[Naive and Sentimental Music]]''
* [[Naïve art]]
* [[Novice]]
* [[Friedrich Schiller]]
* [[The Idiot]]
}}
==Notes and references==
{{Reflist}}
{{Portal|Language}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naive}}
[[Category:Perception]]
[[Category:Belief]]