Intellectualism at the bottom

By Huy Dao, staff writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Shakespeare was wrong. Even if the world was a stage, not all of the people would be players. Sure, you might have the jock and the school coquette as the lead roles. The second-string benchwarmer and femme fatale might be their respective understudies. The school emo could even play Hamlet. And of the intellectuals? They\’re around somewhere – maybe on the balconies. But pay no heed to them; no one ever does. Everyone else worries over the drama of the high school theater.

A Time article noted our society\’s view of intelligence: “As a culture, we feel deeply ambiguous about genius. We venerate Einstein, but there is no more detested creature than the know-it-all. We like athletic prodigies like Tiger Woods…but the mercurial, aloof, annoying nerd has been a trope our culture…intellectual precocity fascinates but repels.” In a clique-based setting that bars idiosyncrasies, straying from the norm is a taboo. Far from the norm, intellectualism is hardly fostered. What bears even a remote resemblance is the intellectual labor force.

School is a place for learning, though learning of different types. Students learn through operant conditioning how to obediently take orders so they can grow up to be Willie Loman. Most of all, they learn how to stay ahead of the game – that is, deceive, cheat, envy. They look not inwards to find meaning but look around to see what everyone else is doing. They care an awful lot about others\’ actions. Sometimes, I suspect that they know my schedule better than I do. They are even friendly enough to calculate my prospective GPA for me. They learn to distinguish between Advanced Placement and College Prep. However, there really is no difference. Everyone must deal with the shtick. We like to joke about the dead-end cubicle job ten years from now, but the real joke is that the cubicle is already here. The only difference is that we have to share it with thirty other people.

AP classes have deviated far from their original intent. Originally emblems reserved for private school scholars, “AP” now just means you have a death wish of a commitment to homework. The advent of AP classes brought about frenzy for quantity of knowledge over quality. History is whittled down to fit in a phonebook-sized test prep book. The sciences must adhere to old models palpable only to the College Board. Mathematics is often an avalanche of problems; we hardly know which way is up and are lucky to find the correct equation. The teachers are confined by time and the curriculum to follow the routine. Gearing for the big test in May, they make students learn by means of memorization. Rote memorization follows rote work. The paradox is that for all the detail and minutiae, the AP test reduces to shallowness.

This is not to say that the systemic flaws affect a small population. No Child Left Behind seems to leave everyone behind. Essentially, the school gears for and harasses students with standardized tests to maintain accreditation. The purpose of school then is not to enlighten spiritually the benighted mediocrity but to further their own agenda. This agenda does not necessarily converge with the best interests of the students. A great deal of politicking makes school more than just a place of learning.

For those who care, here is a real-life application. Anti-intellectualism occurs in politics when soon-to-be presidential candidates want to fit in with everyone else. William Henry Harrison lied when he said he had been born in a log cabin; in truth, he had been a polished product of privilege. Ulysses S. Grant waved his “bloody shirt” – an emblem reserved for victorious war veterans.

While history does not necessarily repeat itself, it sure tends to rhyme. Clinton went to Yale. Romney was at the top of his Harvard Graduate Law class. Both Michael Dukakis and Barack Obama were Harvard scholars. However, never an utterance by any candidates about their highly educated backgrounds reached the American public. The former staged a game of catch with his campaigning team. This later glamorized stint was meant to toughen his public image, like an apt drinking buddy. Obama poked Clinton, saying, “I never inherited this…I never had some fancy congressional internship.” He is supposedly still paying off his college loans, like the majority of Americans. Intellectualism is simply not the image the voting populace wants to see.

As Joan Didion wrote, “They do not want managerial elite. They do not want political specialists who speak the political lingo, a language not specific the common man.” They do not want a candidate who can rattle off the accomplishments of his pedigree. They want, at most, an anti-intellectual. The frills of politics show that we leave high school just to enter an even bigger one.

Maybe Kurt Vonnegut was on to something when he wrote “Harrison Bergeron.” Bizarre egalitarian ideals dictate that everyone must receive the same education. Everyone must work at the same level. Anyone working above some subjective level of proficiency receives glares and snide remarks because they are not like everyone else. Even then, intellectuals are pushed aside to fend for themselves. The notion that they will always be fine is horrendously flawed.

Time noted that schools tended to care “most about kids at the bottom, stragglers of impoverished means or IQs. But surprisingly, gifted students drop out at the same rates as non-gifted kids – about 5% of both populations leave school early.” Intellectuals have to be challenged, not driven to tears with drivel. It takes a lot of practice to keep the mental faculties in shape, just like an athlete needs to work out everyday to keep at his best. Without a challenge to match their talents, both are stifled and their capabilities squandered. Society cannot progress by treating everyone the same. More needs to be done to lift those with the capabilities to their full potential rather than to drag all others to some level of mediocrity.

“What happen if the elites of the world withdraw?” was a central question in Ayn Rand\’s Atlas Shrugged? Or what happens if the majority obliviously obliterates the minority? Because I am not an intellectual, I cannot fathom such questions. I can only look up at them, high above the stage. I can only wonder what happens when their fingers slip and hit the “off” switch, when the world stage goes very dark.