As I grew older (and after spending a torturous summer with a girlfriend who was so breathtakingly stupid that I thought she honestly might have been a little retarded), I developed an affinity for those women who could hold up their end of a conversation. My hit rate went down, but that was ok by me; for me it had started to become less about how many, and more about how good. And how good became a direct function of how smart.
That's how I picked my girlfriends; it's how I picked my wife; it's how I pick my friends. Yes, I'm an intellectual snob. My friends cut across the political spectrum, the financial spectrum, the ideological spectrum. But they're all smart. If they're not smart, eventually they stop being my friend. Sorry if that makes me a bad person, but that's just how it is.
That's why one of my favorite television personalities is Tina Fey. She's pretty, if not gorgeous, but what she is, is smart. Smart like a whip - a very smart whip. I just finished her book, Bossypants, a more or less autobiography, that cemented my impression of her that if she's not the single most intelligent woman in show business, she's god damned close. I love her. Oh, the things I'd do to her. And afterwards, I might just leave her recognizable.Note 1
Sometimes I wish that I could gravitate towards the lesser lights of the world; I could be the oft-invoked one-eyed king of the blind. But I just can't help being turned completely off by a lack of intelligence.
What kind of man does that make me? I've already confessed to intellectual snobbery, but that's a facile definition anyway. I'm asking perhaps a more subtle question, or maybe the question is actually much more simple: am I a "bad" person for not wishing to associate with people of less-than-average intelligence?
My Dad used to tell us, over and over again, that we were peasants; we came from peasant stock, and peasants we would always be, any current circumstances notwithstanding. But does the fact that I don't really respect lower intelligence make me an elitist shitbag, the kind of person that my Dad warned us all against becoming?
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Note 1: Hey, Tina Fey's lawyers: Calm down. That was a joke. Unless Tina becomes a zombie, because...well, that subject has been addressed already.
What kind of man does that make me? I've already confessed to intellectual snobbery, but that's a facile definition anyway. I'm asking perhaps a more subtle question, or maybe the question is actually much more simple: am I a "bad" person for not wishing to associate with people of less-than-average intelligence?
My Dad used to tell us, over and over again, that we were peasants; we came from peasant stock, and peasants we would always be, any current circumstances notwithstanding. But does the fact that I don't really respect lower intelligence make me an elitist shitbag, the kind of person that my Dad warned us all against becoming?
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Note 1: Hey, Tina Fey's lawyers: Calm down. That was a joke. Unless Tina becomes a zombie, because...well, that subject has been addressed already.
I'm sooo sad that 30 Rock has been cancelled.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I never got into it. I thought it was too much like cringe humor, which I just fucking hate. But - it made her fabulously wealthy, so there's that. And in her book she confesses to a real ambivalence about spending so much time away from her kid. Maybe she takes a year or so off, and gets all that malarkey out of her system...
ReplyDeleteI loved 30 Rock at first, but it hasn't been the same for about a season and a half. You can only beat the joke about Tracy being crazy and irresponsible and Jenna being crazy and narcissistic so far into the ground before it ceases to be funny. Every once in a while they still get a gag in there that makes me laugh out loud, but it's a rarity.
ReplyDeleteIf only they would show more of Katrina Bowden I could probably forgive more of the bad comedy.