What is a geek? A geek is “a street performer who… bites off heads of live chickens.” In the passage “America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman, Fridman argues why “America needs its nerds.” He begins by illustrating how the “intellectually curious” and “academically serious” are ostracized. From there he displays in the open why “nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized.” Fridman develops his argument by displaying why “nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized” and comparing the U.S with other countries across the globe on an intellectual platform.
To start Fridman defines what is a geek. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, a geek is “a street performer who shocks by.. biting off live chicken heads.” Even to a well established knowledge resource like Webster, the “system of values in a society has only derogatory terms” for the “intellectually curious.” Later he elaborates on the education systems of all ages. Beginning with Harvard, one of the most “prestigious academic institutions,” he touches on why even at Harvard, “anti-intellectualism is rampant,” which correlates to nerds being “ostracized” while athletes being
With the ever growing endeavor of the technological industry becoming more prevalent, we need to step up our game and follow through by eliminating “anti-intellectualism” to create more qualified individuals for higher academic occupations like technicians instead of ostracizing the “intellectually
What would changing the definition of nerd do to anyone? First, the general definition of being a nerd has been engraved in everybody’s brains. This definition has the image is a white skinny boy with glasses and doesn't play sports. This boy usually hangs out by themselves or with other nerds. There are real people that are like this in the world and that definition directly affects their life. All the movies and TV shows out there that
Croal, N. (2008, August 18). You Don't Have to Be a Nerd. Newsweek, 152(7), p. 66.
Author and Harvard graduate, Leonid Fridman, in an excerpt of his article, America Needs Its Nerds, points out America’s anti-intellectualism. Fridman’s purpose is to inform the reader of the contempt held for the intellectually curious and call for a change in the country’s attitude. He adopts a condemning tone to make the reader aware of the issue and encourage them to change their mindset.
In reality, sports still contain completely of knowledge, arguments, debates, problems, complex statistics, and pictures that make it to be more attractive and intellectual than school. Graff insists that street smarts are more necessary than school smarts because it comes from real life, our real experiences, and for sure it can be used in real world. However, Graff also attests “ To say that students need to see their interests “ through academic eyes” is to say that street smarts are not enough. Making students’ nonacademic interests a subject of academic study is useful, then, for getting students’ attention and overcoming their boredom and alienation, but this tactic won’t in itself necessarily move them closer to an academically rigorous treatment of those interests” (Gerald Graff, 250). School smarts are superfluous because everything we have learned would become worthless if it is not practiced in live, therefore, street smarts and school smarts need to be combined together to work
The term hipster is a difficult, and contested term with dynamic and often ambiguous connotations. According to Ferrier (2014), what was once an umbrella term for a counter-culture of young creative types morphed into a pejorative term for people who looked, lived and acted a certain way. The Urban Dictionary
They also relatably talk of the way that they affect students in their higher education. In Gerald Graff’s essay about hidden intellectualism it is implied that we all have intellect within us. It just may be show in different ways among different people. He offers the example that a love for learning about anything can later be converted into a love for learning about academic subjects. Where in the second essay we talk more about people who have feelings of anti-intellectualism which we learn is a negative feeling towards intellect or learning itself. You could say that those who feel anti-intellectualism tend to have dwindling desires to continue in school and gaining this so called intellect, leading them to complacency in their education. Whereas those who have increased desire to further their intellects will tend to stay on a path of fulfillment and
“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in the people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them”. This quote perfectly conveys Karen Ho’s perceptive that is present, in her article “Biographies of Hegemony”. In her article, she provides another understanding of intelligence. She uses the case of Wall Street workers and their personal and educational backgrounds to make her case. “Implicit in this transformation from undergraduate to investment banker is Wall Street's notion that if students do not choose Wall street postgraduation, they are somehow “less smart”, as smartness is defined by continued aggressive striving to perpetuate elite status” (Ho 18). Ho’s conception of the educational system has been narrowed down to the social norms that society places. Smartness is merely associated with individuals who go to the best Ivy League Schools, medical schools, law schools, and etc. If a student is attending such institute they
Then, for the bulk of the passage, Fridman offers various examples of nerds being looked down upon to convey the issue’s pervasiveness. This is seen when Fridman refers to Harvard when he describes “anti-intellectualism is rampant”(paragraph 3). By citing an esteemed school that prides itself on academic achievement and rigor, Fridman shows how far reaching intellectual devaluation is. In other words, even places that claim to have academically driven
First, Fridman develops his argument over why nerds should be held to a higher position by shifting his tone throughout the passage. In paragraph 2, Fridman tells the reader how the Webster definition for geek is a “street performer who shocks the public by biting off heads of live chickens.” By using this
For a majority of children, their role model is their favorite celebrity. These celebrities tend to be athletes, or musicians. Several gifted children admire people who are not as famous, such as famous scientists, authors, or artists. While an intellectual child may be a fan of a celebrity, they may not look up to them in the same way other students would. “Certainly the image presented by modern celebrities suggests that intellectualism has no ties to success and social legitimacy,” which explains how celebrities are practically promoting anti-intellectualism (Penrod, 755). Other students will likely find intellectuals’ role models strange and will tease both the role models and the intellectual children, which decreases their reputation with the intellectuals. Nobody wants to be friends with someone who mocks their role model. When everybody is making fun of an intellectual’s role model, the chances of an intellectual socializing are slim for his ir her feelings are hurt. If the people setting examples were intellectuals, the anti-intellectual movement would probably be different, but as of now, the only way for gifted people to be popular is to change the world with whatever they do best. Changing the world sounds much harder when an intellectual student does not have
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
Intellectuality needs to be redefined; what does the word intellectual mean? Typically one would describe someone as either “street-smart” or “book-smart,” in other words someone who knows how to live in the real world versus someone who has knowledge about academics. But is one more “intellectual” than the other? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff addresses this issue and brings to the audience’s—the audience being experts about the subject along with himself—attention that schools are missing the opportunity to fuse together street-smarts and book-smarts to increase overall academic performance. Graff definitively presents his opinion on this topic by manipulating ethos, pathos, and logos. Through ethos his credibility
“Hidden Intellectualism” written by Gerald Graff, is a compelling essay that presents the contradicting sides of “book smarts” and “street smarts” and how these terms tied in to Graff’s life growing up. Graff felt like the school was at fault that the children with more “street smarts” were marked with the reputation of being inadequate in the classroom. Instead of promoting the knowledge of dating, cars, or social cues, the educational system deemed them unnecessary. Gerald Graff thought that “street smarts” could help people with academics. In his essay, Graff confessed that despite his success as an “intellect” now, he was the exact opposite until college. Where he grew up in Chicago, Illinois, intelligence was looked down upon around peers
Why street smart students are considered anti intellectual in academic area? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, he accounts the idea that street smart students are way more smarted than book smarts. He explains that street smart student will be able to solve an issue much faster than book smart because of his/her previous experience. According to author, the problems with considering street smarts as anti intellectual are they are actually much smarter that book smart students, they don’t equal opportunity , and schools along with colleges never challenge their mind get them to succeed in academic work.
Street smarts are intellectual resources that are ignored by schools. It is the most informal version of intellect, generally relating to hobbies that seem anti-intellectual. Gerald Graff’s journal article Hidden Intellectualism shows that everyone is an intellectual whether they are aware of it or not. Using mainly ethos, he describes how sports can be a form of intellectualism because of the use of logic. He says it beautifully here, “I see now that sports provided me with something comparable to the saturation of life by argument… that my preference for sports over schoolwork was not anti-intellectualism so much as intellectualism by other means.”