The Plight of Intelligence

It is not always easy for people to be intelligent. This is especially true in the world of the internet. We all see many posers who think they know things but are clearly unwise in many revealing ways. Such people are quite often ignorant of their own lack of knowledge and arrogant to boot. We see it so often, that we develop patterns around them and assume that no such person is ever what they seem to claim. Of course, if someone who is actually intelligent arrives, few would have any awareness and likely label such people the same as the posing fools. So how does one reveal they are intelligent enough to be given the time of day? Well, as far as I know, one simply does not in our current climate.

The only method I have seen for an intelligent person to be given any acknowledgement is via painstakingly integrating within a group. If such an intellect starts out "knowing" things too soon within such a group, they will likely be ostracized. They must first build rapport, and mostly in a friendly way by acknowledging and participating in what everyone else already holds to be true. Then slowly, over time, they can prove themselves knowledgeable and new ideas might be taken seriously. This is very similar to making a grown person crawl among babies for a few years before the babies will take any kind of advice about walking. It is excruciatingly painful and so backward to an intelligent person that it may take them a while to learn this rule while wondering why they are so very hated everywhere they try to help.

There is only one other way around the integration method of being acknowledged, and it really only applies on a professional level. This method, of course, is ultimately a resume. A document that claims what you have done in the past so that someone of authority will trust you. The problem with this, is that it acts as if intellect and capability are very role-specific. You did X extremely well, but what good are you at Y? And so, the intellectual gets stuck doing X for the rest of his life, when indeed he could have easily transitioned to Y. In short, a person of major capability is stuck in low positions or else stuck doing only one type of task for the rest of his or her life. Unless, of course, that person reaches top levels at a successful business and becomes extremely wealthy. Only then can they branch to new things if they so desire, but few make it that high.

There is a significant difference between intelligence and knowledge, though, and yet our current cultural disposition does not allow for that difference. Knowledgeable people will be put into positions of importance while intelligence plays no major role in it. There is no great way to indicate a person's ability to learn and adapt on a resume in such a way for the recruiter to trust it. A person can claim how superior they are to everyone around them, but this will be taken as mere trolling and arrogance and work against them. One can only appeal to previous works in a precise field and the number of years doing it becomes the most important part. If they wish to switch fields, they must start back at the bottom of the totem pole. While they may pick it up quicker than everyone else, they cannot speed up the number of years of experience that they can place on their resume.

And so, the intellectual finds they are stuck if they took a particular path they are no longer interested in. They are forced to continue what is not their passion or else suffer crawling among babies. It is extremely infuriating to watch people struggle over 2 + 2, knowing the answer is 4, being ostracized if you speak the answer, and instead watching and waiting for the answer to reveal itself to others while keeping quiet. This is especially frustrating when viewing positions of power or partaking in arguments of political ideas. Neither of the two sides of politics are doing what is best in all situations, but to speak up is to be ostracized by both. The only means by which one could have a say is to parrot back all the things they secretly disagree with, get themselves into power, and then gradually spoon-feed new flavors of baby food until people stop spitting it out of their mouths. Of course, if such an intellectual already has a successful career (which is likely since they are intelligent), it is highly unlikely that they would make such a sacrifice for the greater good and to be disliked by many in the process.

Our culture does not value intellect. It values meaningless papers with years of existing around a particular field in a professional capacity, and nothing more than self-appreciation outside the professional arena. And so, if an intellectual, being smart, wishes to remain happy and healthy, he reserves himself from the squabbles of life and allows the babies to rule while hoping nothing too terrible happens within his or her life. Only true ascetics and altruists would sacrifice themselves before the alter of the masses to be hated upon by all for their own good. That, or morons, which is once again difficult to tell apart since both will appear just as strange to the average person. And so, those who speak up are perhaps more often morons than anything else which furthers the plight of the intelligent. We simply can not tell the difference as an average person.

To compound matters even worse, an intelligent person is fairly knowledgeable about the many ways they lack understanding. And so, they know better than to make quick judgments about things they are not an integral part of. And since there is no easy transition to become an integral part without taking huge steps backward and walking about infants, intelligence rarely goes where it is most needed. For those individuals who wish to participate anyway, being intelligently self-aware, it is very difficult for them to determine if indeed they are one of the trolls given the backlash, or if indeed they are doing any amount of good by offering their unwanted opinions.

Moral of the story: intelligence is not always what it is cracked up to be if one desire to be happy, and a great deal of wisdom must accompany the intellect to keep such a person sane. Wisdom, unfortunately, is something else entirely and may not even come with intelligence, so there are a lot of insane and unhappy intelligent people in a world run by less capable children who refuse to acknowledge the wisdom and experience of their elders. It is not at all easy to be intelligent and may in fact be harder than being a moron.

Of course, this could entirely be the perspective of an ignorant moron who simply wishes the world would cater to him more and everything is truly fine the way it is. Never know what you don't know...