For The Record…
A week ago, I posted a series of NGL (Not Gonna Lie) links on my WhatsApp status. Blame boredom. So why not prompt my friends, acquaintances and contacts to anonymously rizz me up, share cancellable opinions, or simply confess to me things that they would never say to my face? And the responses? Golden. From the flirty, the profound, the witty and the scandalous to the downright sacrilegious. They did not disappoint…until:
“Amos, I often feel like deep down you look down on us, the kind that’s not as privileged intellectually. Nonetheless, I could be wrong, you have been good to us all four years. Thank you for sharing your notes, knowledge with us (sic). I know the big man up there keeps rewarding you [heart emoji].”
I froze. This was the second message in a day, which connoted a prejudice premised on my (apparent) intellectual ability against supposedly less equal compatriots on my part. The first one?
“Not to be a hater, but I think you putting up these links to get people’s opinions about you is the epitome of narcissism.”
Pause.
This piece is not a defense of my pious character, or an exercise in self-righteousness. Everyone is welcome to draw their conclusions. I wouldn’t deny the narcissist part entirely, but I will definitely protest the epitome bit of this accusation. For present purposes, please humor my attempt at answering a few questions that this little misadventure left hanging. What does it mean to be “intellectually privileged”? Who decides so? What becomes of people who do not seem to make the mark? And ultimately, when does kindness become interpreted as closeted snobbery?
On Privilege
The word “privilege” is at the front of public discourse. White privilege. Male privilege. Financial privilege. And (in my case) intellectual privilege. Name it. Opening this conversation in a community that is deeply divided, both in terms of perspective and material resources is a risky endeavor. The ‘P’ word implies possessing certain advantages which are not available to the general populace. Note, further, that the privileged is regarded as blind to, and removed from the pressures and pains of the disadvantaged ‘underlings’. The result? To divide and dichotomize people into ‘us’ and ‘them’ — and then draw sweeping inferences. Deep Down You Look Down On Us.
I assume that ‘intellectual privilege’ in this case correlates with academic performance. In some settings it may be related to articulateness. Others may attribute the same to impressive written communication. The people we perceive to be smart tend have a reservoir of some kind of knowledge or skill, which they consume, master and reproduce with an ease and effectiveness that can be impressive, if not bewildering.
Charlie Munger proposes a finer distinction between real knowledge and chauffeur knowledge. The first type of knowledge is seen among people who have committed a large amount of time and effort to understand a topic. The second? Knowledge from people who have learned to put on a show — as though they are reading a script. They may present the same perfectly, but it is not their own. The smartest people I know have a more difficult time taking credit for their hard work, after months of chasing the best grades and performances available. Frauds assemble. Applying this little anecdote to our beleaguered educational system, it appears to me that the latter thrive more than the former. Put differently, the chauffeurs are more likely to win. Public consciousness is rife with disdain about the way students are taught to regurgitate knowledge, only to suffer adapting in the real world. The point I wish to make? Good grades do not always correlate to intellectual privilege. There is more nuance to it.
Knowledge, like an outfit, must be tailored to the environment in which it is to be applied. One of the tragedies of our education is the drudgery and coercion with which it is imparted in our formative years. Countless times I have heard a prepubescent pupil express the desire to “finish” school so they can stop “reading books.” Tragic. Rutger Bregman (one of my favorite writers) critiques this system in his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History:
“Education has become something to be endured,” he writes, “A new generation is coming up that is internalizing the rules of our achievement-based society. It’s a generation that’s learning to run a rat race where the main metrics of your success are your resume and your pay cheque…”
It is an indictment of our learning culture that the students who show an eagerness for their classes tend to rub their peers the wrong way. Nerds often have it rough. Trust me, I know. Couple that with closeness to teachers and you have the perfect student to pick on. More than a few people will agree. School smartness may serve one well in a classroom or even an interview, but it is no guarantee of priority in the pyramid of intellectual ability. We do not all possess the same adeptness in all spheres of life. I would be lost in a dancing class.
The more I learn, the more I have a deep reverence for all I do not know — and the more grace I extend to myself for not knowing so much after all. I hope my anonymous friend reads this. Ignorance (harsh word) is repeatedly touted as an insult, a demeaning term for poor sods blindly stumbling around in a (supposedly enlightened) world. If you happen to have attended a good school and can reel off a few fancy words about progressive realization, decolonization and mandamus, you might thrive higher up on this intellectual ladder. It helps to know some Latin maxims. Our “blind underlings” will catch up if they can read and make sense of our sophisticated and well-reasoned twitter threads. Or is it now X threads?
I protest. Well used ignorance can drive more progress than our intellectual echo chambers. One of the greatest joys of learning, is making it possible for ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Show me a competent person that can distill their knowledge for a child to understand and I will show you the smartest of us all. In a setting where knowledge is not hoarded but shared, ignorance ceases to become a badge of shame, but an opportunity for progress. So, no. Having the benefit of knowledge and experience is not a license for condescension and prejudice against one’s “inferiors”. One should not imagine it so.
When we perceive people that we assume know more than we do as threats, snobs or whatever the term might be next time, it is not only an expression of a lack of confidence in our current knowledge, but also a manifestation of doubt in our ability to learn.
The human mind is capable of incredible convictions in the absence of correct information. To this, many of us owe our reputations, crushes, spouses, insecurities and even entire legacies.
And nothing is more human than exaggerating perceived threats and minimizing information to the contrary. So how do we solve this? Seek it out. Have that conversation. Get to know that person. Heck, buy them coffee if you must. Many needless resentments and anxieties might be avoided by dealing with the truths we do not know, instead of living in the safety of our flawed imaginations.
Everyone ought to be good at something. Scott Galloway in The Algebra of Happiness writes it best:
“Your job is to find something you’re good at, and after ten thousand hours of practice, get great at it. The emotional and economic rewards that accompany being great at that something will make you passionate about whatever that something is. Nobody starts their career passionate about tax law. But great tax lawyers are passionate about colleagues who admire them, creating economic security for their families, and marrying someone more impressive than they are.”
