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I don't have a problem with people being intelligent and educated but I do have a problem with the snobby and patronizing intellectual type. If you feel the need to make sure everyone knows all the time just how educated you are, most people probably aren't going to like that. Bragging is not becoming and anyone who needs to advertise how intelligent and educated they think they are, actually has no class at all.
Location: Everybody is going to hurt you, you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for-B Marley
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PA2UK
I don't have a problem with people being intelligent and educated but I do have a problem with the snobby and patronizing intellectual type. If you feel the need to make sure everyone knows all the time just how educated you are, most people probably aren't going to like that. Bragging is not becoming and anyone who needs to advertise how intelligent and educated they think they are, actually has no class at all.
Very well put. Basically what I was trying to get across but you did much better.
I agree. Sports statistics and sports talk are way more important in our culture than intellectualism.
There's a note in John Hodgman's faux-encyclopedia The Areas of My Expertise that's something like "You will find only two references to sports in this book. If you'd like to learn more about sports, might I direct you to every other aspect of our culture?" It never fails to crack me up.
I seriously don't think it's 'intellectualism' people have an aversion to, it's the superior attitude toward some who think they're intellectual. It's the so-called intellectual's need to show others how intellectual they are and how intellectual you aren't. I've seen some use ridiculous words people just don't use in conversational speech just to try to get others to tell them how smart they are or ask what it means. They're so transparent it's embarrassing. I have a large vocabulary but use very little of it. It mostly comes in handy for reading. No need to flaunt it. But intellectual, I am not.
BINGO!!!!!!!! I had a mentor 3 years ago who is a real estate agent, this guy was very brilliant (and rich lol) but at the same time he would come off condensing to the point where when you left him you felt like s***T.
I stuck around to extract knowledge so I was able to handle the attitude but I can totally see how an outsider would would distance themselves from a person like this.
Last edited by Morphous01; 08-27-2009 at 05:10 PM..
Define intellectual vs. intellect. There are many professors with good intellect, but few intellectuals. Our society is definitely, for the most part, anti-intellectual - look at our reading selections.
Yep, this is true Aylalou!
Compare any book written before the 1900s vs a book today like Tori Spellings book, "mommywood" or the book about all the sex encounters by Karrine Steffans that is read by your average person. I can't even call what they wright "books" let alone see them as "authors," that's such a slap in the face to people like Alfred Hitchcock or Ayn Rand.
In regards to this topic here is a book that relates to this subject and it's free for all of you to download.
I've got mixed feelings about the whole "intellectual" thing. I've always kind of hated the negative stereotype about how they can be perceived as snobby. Perfect example is the scene in the movie Good Will Hunting where Matt Damons character is in a bar and some guy is going on and on about some high brow subjects, Matt Damons character quickly checks him. Anyway, I digress. I had a conversation with a co-worker just a couple of days ago, and while feeling stressed I told him, hell, sometimes I just wish I had a simpler job, something with less stress, less thinking involved. He tells me that I'd get bored as I'm an "Intellectual".
So I took it as a compliment. But I've always got that snobby stereotype of someone sitting in a coffee shop discussing 14th century art, or the merits of Nietzsche vs Freud.
I'm seeing two conversations here. One about intellectuals and one about people that think they are intellectuals (whether or not this is true).
Nobody likes the people who think they are intellectuals. Even other intellectuals get irritated by them. No one likes anyone who is really smart/rich/pretty/talented and can't stop showing off. I'm about as interested in the guy who can talk about the intricacies of astrophysics for two hours as I am the girl at the mall that looks great in her tasteless micro-mini skirt and tube top. No one likes a braggart.
That said, I was focusing on how people who are naturally intelligent are treated like snobs because they accidentally use "big words" that they think are commonplace, or who overestimate the crowd they are in. I was once told by a classmate that I was making up the word "adverse." I thought everyone knew that word! It stunned me so much that its been ~7 years and I still remember the word she called me on because we were both English majors. Am I a snob because I didn't think that she would have a grossly limited vocabulary? I tend to assume that most adults have graduated high school and will have a high school-level vocabulary. Should I consistently dumb myself down in case those around me chose to forget everything they learned during those years or risk being ostracized?
Also, redisca, I agree that speaking alone does not make a person intelligent. However, people judge a person based on how they talk. Those who are well-spoken are assumed to be smart. Those who mumble, stutter, lisp, or feel the need to use the f-word as a noun, verb, and adjective in the same sentence are commonly assumed to be of lesser intelligence. Those with limited but adequate vocabularies are assumed to be of average intelligence. How a person speaks is important because it is the main way humans communicate and in the past, those that spoke the best were often those who were also the most intelligent. That judgment is dropping with the rise of the internet, but many people still see intelligence and being well-spoken to be synonymous. Even with the internet, no one really listens to those who "TYP LIEK TH15!!!!1!1!!!! LOL!!!"
Compare any book written before the 1900s vs a book today like Tori Spellings book, "mommywood" or the book about all the sex encounters by Karrine Steffans that is read by your average person. I can't even call what they wright "books" let alone see them as "authors," that's such a slap in the face to people like Alfred Hitchcock or Ayn Rand.
I think that's a very misleading standard. (By the way, I disagree with you about Rand. I don't think she epitomizes intellectualism any more than Lysenko epitomizes excellence in scientific thought, but that's besides the point; to each his own.) Anyway, what if you were to compare literacy rates, instead? Would you come to the same conclusion? And -- any book written before the 1900's, really? Are you sure? Lots of stupid trash was being printed in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was the time when the dime novel genre originated and thrived. In fact, great writers of those eras make references to dime novels in their works all the time. (Just check out Madame Bovary, for example.) Just because all these fly-by-night books didn't make it into the Library of Congress doesn't mean they didn't exist at one time. In fact, they still exist. Check out vintage books sales sometime, you'll be surprised. The Days of Yore were not all Shakespeare and Byron, you know.
Perhaps more trashy books are being printed today, but it's not necessarily because society today is "dumber" than before the 1900's. There are other factors to consider. For one, the literacy rate is greater today, so there is a greater demand for printed material, including pulp fiction. So the million-dollar question you have to ask yourself is this: Which kind of society is more intellectual -- the one where 30% of the population is illiterate and doesn't read anything at all, and another 20% reads trash on a regular basis, or the one where almost everyone can read, and 50% of the population reads trash? Other factors affecting the proliferation of trashy books: expanding population and lower printing costs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maude Kipz
Also, redisca, I agree that speaking alone does not make a person intelligent. However, people judge a person based on how they talk. Those who are well-spoken are assumed to be smart. Those who mumble, stutter, lisp, or feel the need to use the f-word as a noun, verb, and adjective in the same sentence are commonly assumed to be of lesser intelligence. Those with limited but adequate vocabularies are assumed to be of average intelligence. How a person speaks is important because it is the main way humans communicate and in the past, those that spoke the best were often those who were also the most intelligent. That judgment is dropping with the rise of the internet, but many people still see intelligence and being well-spoken to be synonymous. Even with the internet, no one really listens to those who "TYP LIEK TH15!!!!1!1!!!! LOL!!!"
Yes, but I think there is a difference between using big words and true intellectualism, or even eloquence. I was thinking of one specific CD regular who constantly throws around 50-cent SAT words, obviously without any clue as to what they mean. (He once referred to those who speak positively of Cicero as his "hagiographers".)
I have a related question. Not sure really how to put this--but are there times when it is better NOT to correct someone you know to be wrong?
Sometimes I want to correct people, and to be able to PROVE them wrong, but know that it will cause more trouble than it will cure. Case in point: my room mate, the "cook" insists that if you add one cup of rice to two cups of water, and cook it, you end up with THREE cups of rice. I know this is wrong. I could correct her--and I'd just get argument. I could even prove that it's no more than TWO--but upon proving it, it would do nothing but cause ill will, so I just stay silent when this comes up.
How "anti-intellectual" is that? Or is it wiser to keep silent, and not cause any sort of drama, even when I know the stated facts are wrong?
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