Some tea with your superiority complex?

So most of you reading this blog might not know me personally. The ones that do, chill for a sec, and let the rest of the class catch up before I launch into today’s awkward digression.

I think social skills are important. I think talking to people and making an effort to make friends are a compulsory part of happy human life. I think people that whine about how much they hate people are only saying so because they lack these skills that enable them to make friends. Slash they have some hopped-up superiority complex that make them think everyone is below them, causing them to either socialize with only other morsels that can meet their criteria or no-one at all.

...indeed

Ok. So considering the latter, you’ve guessed I’m talking about intellectual snobs. (I had another word in mind, but thought it a bit risqué…)  Yes. Seeing as most of my blogging audience hails from the same university as I, you know exactly what I mean. For all other fans, let me explain.

Our university has a bit of a stereotyped reputation as a bit snobby, because it’s not so easy to get in. So lots of people that do might, you know, play up on this a bit…i.e. ‘I’ll wear my oh so sharp INTELLECT as a medal on my chest because I’m clever and did you notice I’m carrying a leather-bound book by Foucault? Are YOU? Yeah… maybe you should go and watch the OC or something…’

For the record, I love the OC. And would reply to this with a defiant, ‘I would LOVE to. Which season? Because the third kind of dies in the arse…’ ( It really does. Johnny? … pun intended )

But alas, we have all encountered that person in the tutorial room who does not shut up. We have all been belittled by the person who asks a carefully placed question about politics you aren’t quite sure you feel safe answering. But why?

Why must these people so insist in reminding us of their intelligence? Why must the basic rules of social etiquette need to be ignored in order for them to reach this goal?

The answer I believe is impossible to pin down, because we can’t generalize for intellect-snobs in their entirety, despite the way they invite us to.  Perhaps it is a lack of social skills. Perhaps it’s a power thing. Either way, boy is it awkward when I encounter me one of these.

When meeting these people in social situations I struggle. Not only because they embody a trait I absolutely despite more than anything else, but because they just make the whole scenario incredibly awkward. Who wants to talk to someone that’s going to put everyone down?  And if it’s an event where everyone knows each other and they somehow scored an invite, how can you maintain social face/ social cohesion on both sides? A.k.a., how can you COVER the tracks of their awkwardness?

You can’t.

And that is the sad fable of the intellectual snob. They are invariably awkward. And, ironically, the fact they are so fixated on academic intelligence almost colours them un-intelligent, for ignoring all the other kinds of intelligence out there. You might be a prodigy at music but crap at history. You might be the friendliest person on Earth but algebra reads as Russian to you. Doesn’t give that snobby-mc-snob a right to pull out some dusty volume on you and make you feel small.

But the thing I really can’t get my head around is that specifically for me, anyone who is receiving a tertiary education ( let alone at Melbourne, because a lot of people including myself worked really hard to get in, ) has automatically proven they are of a certain intellectual calibre to get in in the first place. So at uni, of all places, intellectual snobbery theoretically should be obsolete. Alas, uni seems to be their hang of choice.  Awesome.