Smarter than the average bear?
July 21st, 2006 by GoldenAppleCorp
I enjoy learning new things and consider myself to be a fairly well-rounded individual, intellectually speaking.
Perhaps that’s why it surprises me so much when people are violently ignorant. Take, for example, the short exchange about the Trail of Tears in my class the other day:
Lady #1:Â “What’s that?”
Me:Â (employing broad strokes only, as to not shatter her puny mind)Â “It’s when Native American tribes were rounded up and marched across the country.”
Lady #2:Â “GAC, how do you know so much?!”
Me:Â “I went to middle school.”
Yesterday a classmate exclaimed “Deja vu!” and another woman pondered aloud the causation. Having read an article about deja vu a few months ago, I chimed in with one likely theory (information is passed back and forth from short term to long term memory very fast, and sometimes the same message repeats itself, giving the person a sense of again-ness). Everyone looked at me as if I had a second head growing. This was followed by various people saying things like “If you know so much, tell me… “
I wasn’t aware that having common knowledge (Trail of Tears) or reading the occassional scientific article is considered genius territory.
And before you start talking about how the education system is producing idiot kids these day, the two women ignorant of the Trail of Tears were both older than myself.
July 21st, 2006 at 9:13 am
Tell em about the time we were at our landlords house, and he figured he’d start trumping you with this book of trivia that he bought, but you knew every single one of the answers.
GACs a freak.
July 21st, 2006 at 9:16 am
GAC, this is very familiar territory for me. It is not new, as you point out. The ridicule of knowledge was common among my peers in Oak Ridge when I was growing up there, and was one reason I was happy to get the hell out of there ASAP. Now, admittedly, I’ve spent my entire life in academia, but my parents raised me to respect knowledge, to be a life-long learner, and to challenge assumptions and authority with facts, not just opinion. I find myself avoiding people who sneer at these values; they are a waste of my time.
July 21st, 2006 at 10:06 am
Thats being pretty thin skinned, man. I’ve always seen people who ridicule knowledge as people are are content in their inferiority, but thats just me, and I’m a dick. True, they are a waste of time, and as you mentioned below they probably don’t run in the same circles that you do.
July 21st, 2006 at 10:37 am
“I’ve always seen people who ridicule knowledge as people are are content in their inferiority . . .”
Quite the opposite. I think such people are insecure and threatened. I’ve met people who are comfortable in their own skin. To the extent that they accept themselves, they are able to accept others.
“Thats being pretty thin skinned, man.”
Heh. Well, I’ve been called worse. The great thing about having reached my particular station in life is that I’m surrounded mostly with people who are as smart or smarter than me and I have the luxury of being able to avoid those who cope with their insecurity by using ridicule.
July 21st, 2006 at 10:49 am
Wow. What a bunch of pompous SOB’s you are all are! I say that out of love, of course. I think that a person’t field of experience has a lot to do with them growing up to be the kinds of adults they are. True, people make decisions to make them the people they are, but sometimes they just might not realize what else is available out there because they’ve never been exposed to anything.
Spoken like a true un-intellectual type person. So do I get voted off the website now?
July 21st, 2006 at 10:59 am
“What a bunch of pompous SOB’s you are all are!”
Hmm. Well, I won’t return the favor.
“I think that a person’t field of experience has a lot to do with them growing up to be the kinds of adults they are.”
No doubt. I don’t see how this challenges anything I wrote.
“True, people make decisions to make them the people they are, but sometimes they just might not realize what else is available out there because they’ve never been exposed to anything.”
So your point is that ignorant people behave ignorantly because they’re ignorant? I could go with that.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:29 am
I’m completely behind that. And Joel is a pompous SOB, I’m behind that too.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:31 am
My point, jdub, although well hidden, is that people think I’m a total brainiac because I know the things I know. But I don’t think that the things I know are reserved only for the brainiac types. These women said they had never even heard of the Trail of Tears, but they could tell you anything you ever wanted to know about Britany Spears.
You mentioned exposure to information as an excuse but I don’t buy that. If they attended middle or high school, or had ever taken a course in American history, they should at least know as much as I do about the Trail of Tears.
I have always believed that it is better to know a little bit about everything than a lot about one thing.
July 21st, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I don’t know if I agree that its better to know a little bit about everything than a lot about one thing, and without tooting your horn, you are probably more equipped than some to know more things, you nerd.
My beef is the people who look down on knowledge (but not hypocrites, evidently).
July 21st, 2006 at 6:11 pm
“And Joel is a pompous SOB . . .”
And damned proud of it, too. It took me a long time to get from being a mere SOB to a pompous SOB.
“If they attended middle or high school, or had ever taken a course in American history, they should at least know as much as I do about the Trail of Tears.”
I had to laugh reading this exchange:
ady #2: “GAC, how do you know so much?!â€
Me: “I went to middle school.â€
Great answer.
July 21st, 2006 at 7:10 pm
That’s honest-to-god how it came out, too. I have a bad way of saying what’s on my mind.
One of the Trail-less people had the name of a teacher wrong, and she said she must have been stupid temporarily. I assumed she had said she had mixed the names up, and I automatically answered “Yeah, you did.”
I don’t think she liked that much, but the rest of the class laughed.