keeping up appearances

[flamingjune07]

This thing reminds me of this thing. It also makes me wonder if perhaps it isn't a little problematic to view the Harvard kid as an exceptional case, constitutionally a criminal whereas all the rest of us are perfectly normal, with all our ethical integrity intact. Certainly, it's probably not a bad idea to try to "seem smart" in addition to

Comments

[flamingjune07]

I guess what I meant to imply is that I imagine the Harvard student wouldn't have been able to get away with it for nearly so long if he didn't know how to give off an impression of all those things being plausible, and it's this ability to suggest smartness as plausible that seems key for what Schwitzgebel is talking about.

And, no, your ethical integrity is obviously not in jeopardy because of those things. The whole "seeming smart" thing seems like a much more complex, global kind of social-maneuvering than just having a few overeducated tics ;)

Really what the "seeming smart" discussion is meant to highlight, I think, isn't so much where the line is drawn for "legitimate" vs. "manipulative" usage of things like semicolons or Latin, but just to point out that there is such a thing as "seeming smart" that does not entail actually being smart (or being smart to quite the extent suggested by the "seeming"). Two important points can be made about this:
1) The realm of "seeming" is where people start being advantaged or disadvantaged by things like race, class, gender, etc (and also where con artists are free to manipulate), and
2) Having a positive view of somebody because of how they seem to us in person (or, say, through their writing style?) is something that we all should be very familiar with, it is just a normal part of human interaction. Given that, we would do well to be careful about the extent of conclusions we allow ourselves to reach about someone as a result of this, given what was just said in #1.

That isn't to say that people can't both seem smart and be smart -- surely there are plenty of people who do, and I personally would like to have both if I can. It's just worth noting that there is such a thing as seeming smart, and that very smart people can be "fooled" by it in such a way that is not only a problem in terms of an individual winning accolades they may not in fact deserve, but tied in with wider social issues as well...