There’s been a small amount of interest that I’ve seen in a few communities regarding building status as an “intellectual” in the colloquial sense, and I think it’s probably more correct to say that people would rather be perceived as smart than as dumb, which is completely fair.
This article could also be called “How to Look and Sound Like an Intellectual” although frankly that implies a scope that is much larger than anything I could discuss. So, we have a lighthearted article which purports to transform regular schlubs into smarty pants, if not genuinely smart people. If you already fashion yourself as a smarty pants, read on– I know you’re already into the idea of growing your capacities further. Hopefully my prescription won’t be too harsh for any given person to follow if they desire.
While it seems a bit backward to me to desire a socially assigned label rather than the concrete skills which cause people to give that label to others, building a curriculum for being a smarty pants seems like an interesting challenge to me, so I’ll give it a shot. I hope that this will be a practice guide on how to not only seem smarter, but actually to think smarter and maybe even behave smarter. The general idea I’m going to hammer out here is that becoming an intellectual is merely a constant habit of stashing knowledge and cognitive tools. The contents of the stash are subject to compound interest as bridges between concepts are built and strengthened over time.
In many ways, I think that being a smarty pants is related with being a well rounded person in general. The primary difference between being seen as an intellectual and seen as a well rounded person is one of expertise. The expertise of an intellectual is building “intellect”, which is an amorphously defined faculty which lends itself to making witty rejoinders and authoritative-sounding commentary. There’s more to being a smarty pants than puns and convincing rhetoric, though: smarty pants everywhere have been utilizing obscure namedropping since the dawn of society. Playtime is over now, though. How the heck does a person become a smarty pants instead of merely pretending to be like one?
Being a smarty pants is a habit of prioritizing acquisition of deep knowledge over superficial knowledge. Were you taught the theory of evolution in school? Recall the image that is most commonly associated with evolution. You probably picked the monkey gradually becoming a walking man, which is wrong. The superficial knowledge of the idea that humans and monkeys had a common ancestor is extremely common, but the deeper knowledge is that taxonomically, evolution behaves like a branched tree rather than a series of points along a line.
See how I just scored some smarty pants points by taking a superficial idea and clarifying it with detailed evidence which is more accurate? That’s a core smarty pants technique, and it’s only possible if you have deep knowledge in the first place. Another smarty pants technique is anticipating misconceptions before they occur, and clearing them up preemptively. How should you acquire deep knowledge, though?
Stop watching “the news”, TV, movies, cat videos, and “shows”. Harsh, I know– but this step is completely necessary until a person has rooted themselves in being a smarty pants. This media is intended to prime you for certain behaviors and thoughts, occupy your time outside of work, and provide a sensation of entertainment rather than enriching your mind. The more you consume these media, the less your mind is your own, and the more your mind is merely a collection of tropes placed there by someone else. Choosing to be a smarty pants is the same as choosing isolation from the noise of the irrelevant.
For the most part, these media are sources of superficial information and never deep information. You can’t be a smarty pants if you’re only loaded with Big Bang Theory quotes, because being a smarty pants means knowing things that other people don’t know and synthesizing concepts together in ways that other people wouldn’t or couldn’t. There is zero mental effort involved in consuming the vast majority of these media, even the purported “educational” shows and documentaries which are largely vapid. Seeing a documentary is only the barest introduction to a topic. Intellectuals read, then think, then repeat.
I guess I’ve said some pretty radical things here, but try going back and viewing some media in the light I’ve cast it in. There are exceptions to the rule here, of course: The Wire, The Deer Hunter, American Beauty, or an exceptionally crafted documentary. The idea is that these deeper works are mentally participatory rather than passively consumed; the depth and emotionality that the best audiovisual media convey can be considered fine art, and smarty pants love fine art. During your smarty pants training, I would still avoid all of the above, though. Speaking of your smart pants training…
Stop reading “the news”, gossip of any kind, Facebook, Twitter, clickbait articles, and magazines. These things are all motherlodes of superficial information. As Murakami said truthfully, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” This concept is absolutely critical because an intellectual is defined by depth of thought, quality of thought, and originality of thought relative to the normal expectation. Loading up on intellectual junk food is useless for this purpose, so get rid of it and you will instantly get smarter.
Noticed how I namedropped Murakami there? That’s worth smarty pants points because it’s conceptual tie in that is directly relevant to the point I’m trying to make, and expresses the idea more elegantly than I could on my own. Don’t just namedrop obscure people wildly, as you’ll look more like a jackass than a smarty pants, though the line is blurry at times. Being a fresh-faced smarty pants frequently involves making the people around you feel inadequate, but it shouldn’t when practiced properly!
The purpose of self-enrichment is for self-benefit, and should not be used for putting down others. Frequently, knowledge may be controversial or unwelcome, so begin to be sensitive to that when conversing with others. Life isn’t a contest for who can show off the most factual knowledge– but if it were, a good smarty pants would be in the running for the winner, and that’s your new goal.
Pick an area that will be your expertise. Pick something you will find interesting and can learn about without laboring against your attention capacity. This should be distinct from a hobby. Which topic you address is up to you, but I’d highly suggest approaching whatever topic you choose in a multi-disciplinary manner. If you’re interested in psychology, be sure to devour some sociology. If you’re interested in biology, grab some chemistry and physics. If you’re a philosopher, try literature or history. Your expertise in your chosen field will mature over time, and eventually you should branch out to gain expertise in a new field.
The idea here is that the process of picking an area of expertise is useful to the smarty pants. By evaluating different areas, the smarty pants will get a feel for what they’re interested in, what’s current, and what’s boring. The most intellectually fruitful areas of expertise have a lot of cross-applicability to other areas and concepts, an established corpus of literature, and a lot of superficial everyday-life correlates. Suitable examples of areas of expertise are “the history of science” or “modern political thought”. An unsuitable example of an area of expertise would be “dogs” or “engine design”. Unsuitable areas of expertise aren’t applicable to outside concepts and don’t confer new paradigms of thought.
Start reading books, in-depth articles, and scholarly summaries on topics which you want to develop your expertise in. A smarty pants has a hungry mind and needs a constant supply of brain food, which is synonymous with deep knowledge. Reading books and developing deep knowledge is never finished for the aspiring smarty pants. Plow through book after book; ensure that the most referenced scholarly works or industrial texts are well-understood. Understand who the major thinkers and groups are within the area of expertise, and be able to explain their thoughts and relationships. Quality is the priority over quantity of information, however.
Merely stopping the flow of bad information in and starting a flow of good information isn’t enough to be a real smarty pants, though it’s a good start. In order to really change ourselves into smarty pants, we must change our way of engagement with the world. As referenced before regarding media consumption, a smarty pants must interrogate the world with an active mind rather than a passive mind. What do I mean here?
A passive mind watches the world and receives its thoughts as passed from on high. Passive minds do not chew on incoming information before internalizing it– we recognize this the most pungently when a relative makes regrettable political statements culled directly from Fox News. An active mind is constantly questioning validity, making comparisons to previous concepts, and rejecting faulty logic. An active mind references the current topic with its corpus of knowledge, finding inconsistencies.
Creating an active mind is an extremely large task that I’ll probably break into in another full article, but suffice it to say that the smarty pants must get into the habit of chewing on incoming information and assessing its value before swallowing. Learning how to think/write systematically and disagree intelligently are probably both skills that a smarty pants can make use of.
Speaking of relatives, a smarty pants needs to have good company in order to grow. Ditch your dumb old friends and get some folks who are definitely smarter than you– they exist, no matter what you may think of yourself. You don’t really need to ditch your old friends, but you really do need to get the brain juices flowing by social contact with other smarty pants. There are many groups on the internet which purport to be the home of smart people, but my personal choice is HackerNews.
It’ll hurt to feel dumb all the time, but remember that feeling dumb means that you are being exposed to difficult new concepts or information. Feeling dumb is the ideal situation f0r an aspiring smarty pants because feeling dumb means that you are feeling pressure that will promote growing to meet the demands of your environment. Every time you feel dumb, catch the feeling, resolve the feeling to an explicit insecurity, then gather and process information until that insecurity is squashed by understanding. Like I said before, this step is unpleasant, but nobody said being a smarty pants was easy.
This concludes my primer on how to be a smarty pants. I’ll be writing more on this topic, though a bit more seriously and more specifically. I’d really like to publish a general “how to think critically” article in the near future, and of course critical thinking is a core smarty pants skill. I have a reading list for the most general and abstract “smarty pants education” that I’ll be publishing relatively soon as well. Until then, try practicing the bold points here.
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