Leonid Fridman's 'America Needs Its Nerds'

“American Culture” VS Intellectuals

Geek- a performer that bites off a live chicken head for entertainment. Nowadays that is what the “American” culture refers its intellectuals as . Leonid Fridman the author of “America Needs Its Nerds” explains why our culture should stop casting out the academically great people in our society using different methods to demonstrating the effect of our influences have caused these intellectuals to struggle in more social situations. Fridman argues that they should be able to think freely and not worry about their image in society by using situations that people would not expect would happen. Fridman also establishes rare it is for a country to idolize anti-intellectualism as much as the “american” culture

and that their intellectuals are praised for their work.
Fridman first begins the passage by discussing about how today's society prefers to degrade by identifying them as “geeks”as mentioned earlier as a person that literally bites off a live chickens head as a method of entertainment. Fridman is showing how society does not acknowledge these intellectuals in a positive way for their intelligence and contribution in our society. Fridman gives the definition to commonly used term for the intellectuals to show just how much they are ostracized. The author also demonstrates how the intellectuals being ostracized could cause them to have troubles later on due to the fact that they begin to become outcasts at a early age which means they are left out in social situations meaning they missed out on how to interact with people around them.
Fridman then goes on to explain how anti-intellectualism is very common wherever people go due to “American” culture and its preference toward the entertainment type of activities than those of academic practice.

He shows his argument when he uses Harvard university a very well known academic institute that can be recognized by most people as one of the most prestigious university in the United States. He uses Harvard as an example because it is one of the most reputable universities in the U.S how even people at Harvard who are known for their academic greatness fear to be labeled as a “geek”. In the end these Harvard student lie about how much they study instead of embraces how hard they study instead of pretend that they do not really try. Fridman uses Harvard to show how severe anti-intellectualism is in such a school which makes people think if it students at Harvard behave in that manner at such a prestigious place how are the conditions of anti-intellectualism in normal schools at younger grades and how it influences other that are more likely to fall into the pressure of the social standards of our

society.
Fridman then reveals how rare it is to find a country that favors anti-intellectualism as much as America since it is so widely encouraged wherever people go.

Then he goes on to talk about how East Asian culture is completely different from “American” culture as it praises and exemplifies those who are academically successful to those who are expected to follow these leaders of academic greatness. The significance of Fridman mentioning East Asia and its encouragement of the intellectuals is significant because they are one of our economic rivals which means that they have become so successful due to its intellectuals and will keep successful due to their encouragement of academic greatness. While that is going on our “popular American” culture is not only looking down on the intelligent member in our society but also making them outcasts in our society when we should be praising them and encouraging their academic greatness for a better future in

America.
Fridman used many examples and explained how the “popular American” culture ostracized the intellectuals and how that will affect our society later on if they believe they do not fit in and if they discouraged by our encouragement to athletics and other entertainment based activities. He show the reader that without these intellectuals our society would not have gone as far as it has and will stop advancing for the better without these intellectuals because these people are the support of our country, they are the ones running the country and making sure that we keep on advancing towards a better future.