Lefty, I don’t really follow. The necessary factor there is that everyone knows Eustace is an A+ student. Why would anyone know? If it’s because Eustace’s grades were trumpeted by his teacher, then a little self-deprecating humor (usually included in the Ronco “Average Social Skills” package) would take the edge off. If Eustace was the one broadcasting, then maybe he deserves a little crap thrown his way (fecal-monkey image intended).
I still don’t see why anyone would pick on the “smart guy”, all things being equal. If the guy has some ability to talk to others, it shoudn’t be the case. It’s tough to view “intelligence” in a vacuum.
Often they’ll know because the A+ student is the one who is active in class, who asks questions, whose class presentations are very high-quality, who never answers incorrectly when the teacher calls on her, who’s enrolled in honors classes, and so forth. Do you remember being in public school, and do you remember knowing which kids were the academically intelligent ones?
That could easily be explained by such things as your having athletic skills, or your having high social skills. Or maybe they were just terrified of the ringwraiths.
On preview, Lute and Left hand nailed it, but, um… I’m still gonna post. So there.
My point about difference and ‘stratospheric’ geniuses is that they have to stand outside the group by basis of their gifts.
Okay, but your disagreement doesn’t erase all the people who got picked on for their intelligence. Yes, of course there are exceptions, but as a good rule of thumb, the more unlike your classmates you are, the more shit you get. “Hey, what do you do, read the dictionary for fun?” etc…
Look above at Ghengis Bob’s post. “Egregious use of polysyllabic words” and other actions offend stupid people, because it makes them feel like they’re not as intelligent as the person speaking. Never mind the fact that they’re not as intelligent as the person speaking. Some people are of the impression that using your vocabulary is ‘showing off’.
You said you were above average. But above average is still somewhat within the pack. I’m talking people you meet who are far and away more intelligent than most of the people you’ve ever known. One guy in my highschool springs to mind, took every science and math course the school offered by freshman year, was studying relativity and advanced physics at a local university his sophmore year, could do math in his head faster than a calculator could, etc…
People can also be geniuses without being human calculators. I suppose that the only way you’d know if you were a stratospheric genius for your highschool is if you were the smartest or one of the smartest kids there, by a good measure. So I guess, you tell me. Were you a student who was a bit smarter than the rest, or did everybody know that you were blazingly brilliant and beyond their intellectual reach?
Becuase it’s saying that intelligence is a barrier, but that its effects can be reduced or eliminated. The other view says intelligence is not a barrier.
To put it another way, if two students had equal social skills, but one was so blazingly brilliant as to be strange to his classmates, he’d most likely get treated worse. He’d also have to develop stronger social skills in order to cope with the increased pressure. But his intelligece is still being used against him, and he has to overcome it. That’s a far cry from saying that intelligence causes no problems, and as long as you’re friendly everything is cool.
My apologies if I misread your post, but you were taking up an argument I had with treis and suggesting that by my own logic I was a liar or an idiot. You were wrong on that count. In any case, my apologies if I misread your intention.
As another data-point, I remember my own attempts in this direction as a teenager: for awhile I developed a stuttering problem, because I was trying to translate my thoughts from the language I was accustomed to (book words, big schmancy words like tenacious and languid and imperceivable) into the language that wouldn’t get me mocked (talking works, words like “totally obsessed with” and “stretched out all lazy” and “can hardly see it”). After awhile I got good at it, but it definitely took me awhile, and I did it solely so that I wouldn’t get mocked for fancytalk.
My fancytalk wasn’t an effort to lord my knowledge over other people: it’s just how my brain formed sentences. Speaking without those words was a real effort for me, was a challenge.
Yup, I remember public HS (I hope you’re an American, or I may have twisted that around), and honors classes, and AP stuff.
The piggyback part is that I have to doubt that my blue-collar upbringing was the model of a nerdy Utopia. A poor town in Illinois’ rust belt…not likely.
Were there smart kids who were picked on? Yes, but I don’t think it was due to intelligence. There were also tons of kids who were picked on that weren’t necessarily smart (by any indicators that I’m aware of).
I just don’t buy the Martyr trip for intelligent kids.
Jesus. Cemetery, is it your understanding that I’m claiming only smart kids were picked on? If so, would you mind explaining my references to acne, social skills, height, weight, secondary sexual characteristics, and so forth in previous posts? If not, woudl you mind explaining the relevance of your second sentence above?
There’s no martyr trip going on. There’s just some of us stating something that Captain Obvious himself would be embarrassed to state, and other people objecting to it for reasons obscure to myself.
It makes me think of what happens later in life to kids that may be intelligent, but socially awkward. I think that they get unfairly shunted into jobs/positions/relationships that are for and about poor social skills. The other side of the very simple coin I’m using is the Sales world.
I know a good amount of pretty intelligent salesfolks/consultants/account managers in the insurance world, and almost all of them have very honed social skills, and are in positions that require intelligence.
Now that I preview this, it seems like a hijack, but I’m not going to stay on-track in a rant-thread where I’m the subject!
I bet that was it! I had one of the Ringwraiths behead Tommy Parker in fifth grade when he pushed me down. I had completely forgotten about that.
I wasn’t terribly athletic, except for volleyball. And we didn’t have a school volleyball team.
I did have (and still do have) fairly good social skills, though (my exceptional introversion notwithstanding). But, again, if I’m reading FinnAgain correctly, that shouldn’t matter.
Again, I think you’re dead wrong. A “stratospheric” genius may be beyond a group of people intellectually, but can still be socially accepted.
Well, I think so. I mean, at an all-school assembly (roughly 800 kids), the principal singled out the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior with the highest GPAs for the year. I was a sophomore at the time, and I had the highest GPA. While I was walking to the stage to accept the award, the principal also told the school that I had found three errors on the standardized tests we had all just taken two weeks ago.
Finn, I think you’re projecting quite a bit into Genghis Bob’s post. I read his comment as referring to people who deliberately use their vocubulary to try to make themselves look smart, not people who naturally have an extensive vocabulary. There is a big difference between being unwilling to hide one’s natural abilities and being pretentious. Pretentious people exist, and they are irritating. Not because it induces jealousy in those with a smaller vocabulary, but because self-congratulation and self-promotion are fundamentally unappealing qualities.
Moreover, you seem to feel that adapting one’s vocabulary based on one’s audience is equivalent to being ashamed of one’s gifts and/or compromising one’s integrity. I strongly disagree with this. In physics, the most brilliant physicists I’ve known can explain the details of their research clearly to virtually anyone. Some of the worst are the ones who cling to jargon and wrap themselves in the technical details of their speciality. They sound smart to the layperson, but they’re fairly ineffective, in large part because they can’t communicate and share ideas and thus their abilities don’t develop. Non-pretentious people will usually surpass them, because they’re more concerned with learning than looking smart.
Note that I’m not in any way trying to imply that you’re pretentious. I just wanted to clarify a part of the arguments of people like Bob are making that I think you’re misinterpreting.
They can be, but they have to work against the stigma of their intellect. A kid who is quiet and keeps to himself is unlikely to be noticed much. But a kid who is quiet and keeps to himself but gets straight A’s and the teachers always call on when they want the correct answer… he’ll get noticed more, generally in a bad way. So it ends up taking more social skills than would normally be required in order to lessen the effect of his intellect.
Again, all things being equal, someone who’s smart and thus strange is at more of a disadvantage than someone who fits in better.
Perhaps, but I don’t think that interpreation is in keeping with the rest of his post.
Especially statements like
“They don’t dumb themselves down, but they also try not to make other kids feel dumb by using words the other kids won’t know.”
This implies, directly, that by using an extensive vocabulary, (ie words others might know) that you’re making others feel dumb. Do you have a different reading?
I agree, but one of Ghengis’s points was that simply by using words that others don’t know, the children were commiting some offense.
I’m not saying that. I’m well used to the fact that writers/speakers need to modify their tone in order to convey information to an audience. That isn’t at issue. What is at issue is that students answering the teacher shouldn’t have to watch their vocabulary for worry of using a word some trog doesn’t understand, and then getting picked on for it. Also, there are different standards for technical writing and just bullshittting with friends. While one’s audience might get upset if you write a dense tome, shouldn’t your friends be those people who accept you for who you are, including how you generally speak?
The instance you described isn’t learning ,it’s teaching. A group of English scholars, for example, have no reason to avoid jargon. They can talk about metonomy until their heads fall off. Vocabulary generally doesn’t frustrate learning, but it can frustrate the transmission of ideas. If a physicist had no desire to communicate his findings outside of his community, I see no reason to attatch a pejorative label. Not all people are science writers.
Perahaps, but then why would using words that people don’t know be a problem?
If a tenth grader knows enough about postmodernism to have a discussion with her teacher, should she have to be ashamed? This is my point, that in an academic enviorment people are expected to ‘dumb down’ their vocabulary so as not to make any trogs jealous.
Maybe we’re getting to the crux of the matter here. Who creates “the stigma of their intellect”? Is the intelligent person focusing on this perceived stigma and thus projecting it outward? Or is it hard-wired into the human animal (particularly as a teenager) to see intellect as something that must be stigmatized?
I do. I think Bob is saying that a socially adept person is willing to modify his/her behavior in order to communicate more effectively and/or make other people more comfortable. If he is in fact saying this, I agree with him 100%. If he’s not, then I’m saying it.
Here’s where I think you’re reading things that aren’t there. I see Bob (and others) saying (essentially) “smart people who want other people to like them will modify their behavior so as not to give the wrong impression” and you saying (essentially) “smart people shouldn’t have to change anything – fuck stupid people!”
While you may be technically right, the point I think you’re missing is that because pretentious people exist and are irritating, people who display similar behaviors will be misidentified right off the bat. When it comes to social interactions, justice is pretty much irrelevant. Pragmatism is far more useful.
Actually, I was thinking of physicists talking to other physicists or grad students, i.e. people within the same field, but different specializations, either via formal scientific presentations or informal discussions. The point is, I do attach a pejorative label to people like this because they are irritating. Plain and simple. It’s their right to talk however they want, and it’s my right to not want to talk to them anymore if they make no effort to be comprehensible.
Henceforth, **Giraffe ** will do all my talking for me. Not only have you interpreted my posts 100% dead-nuts the way I meant them, you’ve managed to make me sound much more erudite than I really am.
