Comments | traceroo: Newsflash: Intelligence is not perceived by everyone to be a desirable trait.

traceroo

Newsflash: Intelligence is not perceived by everyone to be a desirable trait.

Oct 03, 2008 20:06

Today I realized just how much of a geek I am ( Read more... )

living deliberately, leeroy jenkins, would you just die already, authenticity

Comments 5

chinook_wind October 4 2008, 02:58:37 UTC

I think that yes, much of America is anti-intellectual. This makes me sad and scared. Vide the comment conversation Tim and I had. :)

LEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOY tashewolf October 4 2008, 03:37:52 UTC

Excellent post. Food for thought which scares me! And also makes me wonder... is part of how I "pass" (when and if I do) more because I display the brains as a stiletto of sly wit? Cos really, most people can get behind funny. (Some might be smarter than they admit if they get it, tho. I don't think I know many stupid funny people.)

Oh right sorry, started moving right down the buffet!

kajivar October 4 2008, 05:26:32 UTC

This is something that has baffled me this election. Intelligence has been derided by some parties as "elitism." Education is elitism. Being smart is elitism. Having 8 houses and 13 cars? Oh, that's not elitism.

I don't get it!

Here's the thing... traceroo October 4 2008, 14:23:26 UTC

There is a fine line between pride and elitism. Being a veteran and a POW is elitism!... but in a good way, a genuinely good way... well, not being a POW, but -- you get me ( ... )

aetatis October 4 2008, 14:45:38 UTC

I have found the anti-intellectual strain to be stronger in the south than anywhere else in the country, and I say that as someone who loves the south a whole bunch. If you live in the south and you're a girl and you're smart, you're "better" than other people even if you don't actually think you're better than other people.

But that same idea -- that we're all equally stubborn and independent -- I think is at the heart of the problem throughout the country. We Americans like to think ourselves as one big, free-thinking middle class society.

Intelligence creates a natural elite, a group of people who can understand things (like international economics or psychosocial development patterns) that violate our "common sense" and that most people don't have the tools to address or fight when it threatens their world view or things they value.

Money people can earn. Smarts, as you point out, people can't earn or make more of.