THE SMART PERSON'S DISEASE...AND THE CURE
One of my sergeants in the military gave me terminology to explain something I'd observed all my life.
In describing a fairly bright guy who couldn't listen and didn't play well with others, he said "Smith cain't he'p it. He got da smaht person's disease". I looked at the Sergeant, clueless. "Saaaahn, you don't know what dat is, doo ya?" I shook my head side to side.
"Dat's when you don't think anybody else is...."
It's easy to understand, a guy like that spends most of his life truly being smarter than others around him. That becomes the operating assumption, which begets an expectation, which begets a false and dangerous "truth". This prevents the whole from being greater than the sum of its parts. As he moves on and succeeds, he runs into a new ocean with intellectually bigger fish. Suddenly, he's not at the top of the cognitive food chain. Nothing is more dangerous than being down the food chain and thinking you're on top. Little fishies know how to hide. puff ink, be poisonous, swim really fast or actually jump out of the water. The little fishy who doesn't know he's a little fishy becomes........take your choice.....bait or lunch.
If that's the disease, then the cure is probably right out of Aretha Franklin, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T"
How much of that have we been seeing in the blogosphere lately? Maybe it's time we take the cure.
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING:
Remember: You suffer from the Smart Person's Disease when you don't think anybody else is....smart, that is.
posted by UMRBlog @ 16:12
14 comments
14 Comments:
I see a lot of it on this blog.
One suspects it breaks three ways: You see what you want to see; There is some of it here to see; You just thought it was cute to say.
We're at least working on the respect thing and aware of it.
Not pointing fingers . . . but we seem to have a lot of extremely smart people in positions of power in this area that are much too book smart to use common sense. Or at least they think so!
UMRB, what do you think of Tookie's chances in court,you know, with his OV case, and all that?
1346,
Appellations to "common sense" remind me of appellations to "victory" in Iraq. They share one common trait, no metric.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just that "CS" is just a very subjective, nebulous term to throw around as if it has a commonly understood meaning.
TYFCB
1404,
I appreciate your interest in the administration of justice but I can't talk about it. I'm sure Tookie can explain. If not, Google "Chinese Wall".
TYFCB
Then maybe we can set up some sort of uniform testing for common sense. Would that give it the merit you would like to see? ACT turns into CST.
Your acting as though that finger was pointed in your direction. Wouldn't do that to you!
Maybe I would have been better served saying something to the affect of "Can't see the forest for all the trees"
Maybe the term "street smarts" wouldn't have thrown you in the wrong direction.
;)
p.s. good morning!
almost forgot!
WELCOME HOME NICK!!!!
;)
0354,
First, A big Hoo-Ah! to Nicky, God Bless Him. You got that one right.
Second, no offense taken on a personal level.
Third, we all have to remember that that "common sense" once held that canvass and a Briggs and Stratton could never be made to fly and "common sense" was that the world is flat. When "common sense" becomes "Everybody I know thinks...." it is dangerous and self limiting.
You're probably right, "Street Smart" or "Streetwise" would have been easier for me to interpret. Clearly, there are people who, irrespective of IQ have an intuitive component to them that complements their acquired learning. Local Examples, Red Altmix; Charles Howard Scholz; George Spear; Bob Mays. You can't graph it, but you know it's there. I agree with your premise. It's just that "CS" is tough term to throw around and use meaningfully.
TYFCB
Surely there's someone out there you believe you are smarter than? Bush?
Rumsfield? Cheney? Or everyone is equally smart or dumb?
misinformation that's one key in staying in the game. never tip your hand
0618,
Hah?
TYFCB
0542,
One fears you missed the point. Someone suffer from SPD assumes all persons he meets are of inferior intellect. They may have useful information ("where's the stapler?") but nonetheless inferior.
One of reasonable intelligence who does not suffer from SPD, believes he may be more intellectually able than some folks he encounters but suspects/presumes he can learn from anybody with skill or specialized knowledge.
I have a friend, for example, who would be the first person to tell you had he has a room temperature IQ. But he is a world authority in how to make truck fleets profitable. I can and have learned from him. I have another friend who has two doctoral degrees and innumerable patents for bonding adhesives, particularly ones with medical applications. He has no idea who any of the following people are: Ernie Banks, Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, Malcolm Little or Carl Sandburg. He is clearly smarter than me, yet he could learn from me. If neither of my friends have SPD and I don't either, we can learn from one another.
One more example. A High School classmate of mine just made it out of HS. Somehow, he got into Michigan State. He passed no core courses and went to Community Coll. for a while. He eventually moved to Norway and developed some patents on conveyor devices. He got some internantional awards. He was invited to speak at, of all Places, Michigan State. One thing led to another and he finished three degrees there. He retired on his patents with a PH.d. at the age of about 41.
When they couldn't get the luggage conveyor at the new denver airport to work, they called him. He told them how to make it work. He then retired again.
I think he and I would have agreed in HS that I was about twice as smart as he. But, then as now, we could probably learn from one another because neither one of us has advanced SPD.
It's not a matter of placing yourself on the continuum of intellect. It's the assumption that no one can teach you anything, especially no one in the ordinary course of a day.
TYFCB
wow, yes, do not underestimate the dumb people...
for they are truly dumb, and in a weird strange way they seem to revel in it, the dumbness, that is,
thanks
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