Pseudo-intellectualism (corrected)

October 13, 2021 Terry Freedman

Note: I inserted an asterisk but forgot to insert the footnote it refers to. That has now been corrected.

Introduction

The following article was published in my university newspaper, Guild Gazette, in 1972. (I had a regular column called The Terry Freedman View.)

Archives, by Terry Freedman

My articles were satirical, and were intended to poke gentle fun at some of the academic guff we students were subjected to. Interestingly, I know that at least one of my lecturers read my column every week!

I was reminded of the column when I attended a walking tour around London on the subject of Charles Dickens. Apparently, many of the names in his articles and books were based on people he knew, as were the descriptions. (Amazingly, he was threatened with a libel suit only once.) I didn’t know this about Dickens when I wrote my columns, but I did include the names of friends in the “Further reading” section. Occasionally a friend would phone me after the article appeared or I’d sent it to them.

“Thanks for citing my book”, they would say. “I didn’t even know I’d written it!”

Anyway, the article below is around 50 years old. Unfortunately, it is still pretty relevant.

The article

In the last edition of Gazette, I expounded the art of not studying. This week, I should like to put forward some hypotheses on can the art of being an intellectual. This article is adapted from a keynote lecture I gave at the 1970 Conference of the National Cynics' Society, and is also published in pamphlet form by the N.C.S.

First, we should consider why it anyone should want to be intellectual. The answer to this question is of extremely complicated, involving as it does socio-economic-psycho-lo logical factors, all of which are inter-related so as to blur the Sun distinction between cause and effect.

So far, it can be seen that I am appearing to be intellectual. In particular, the above paragraph, while not saying anything of any significance suggests I have carried out much research on the subject (which I have, in the student bar for instance). Thus I have given a demonstration of intellectualism.

The importance and scope of i being an intellectual was first realised, perhaps, by the late Stephen Potter, author of the "one-upmanship" books. Study of his chairman and lecturer ploys, and the Canterbury Block, reveals this basic approach-of appearing to know something of which, in reality, one has not the slightest idea. This basic approach has been used in the "Bluff Your Way" books*. But there is a more basic approach to intellectualism or, more appropriately, pseudo-intellectualism. Whereas the two established approaches respectively involve giving the impression of knowing subject well either by: (a) asking an irrelevant question regarding on can answer, or (b) by acting very efficiently and, in the field of literature, making up “quotations”, this “new” approach involves questioning the very terms of reference of the subject. In fact, it is not a new approach (as indicated by the quotation marks) but why it is new in the sense that it has never been analysed. An example follows:

Jones: After 1870, the output of the coal industry declined.

Smith: What period are you referring to, i.e. to World War 1 or when? What do you mean by output? What type of coal? How have you measured the industry? Relative or absolute decline?

Now, these are all legitimate e questions in themselves, but Jones wants to establish the general fact that the coal industry declined so as to go on talking about the increase of research into more efficient oil refineries. It is obvious that he will never get to this stage with Smith carrying on like this. In fact, he will start to stammer and eventually have a nervous breakdown. This leads people to think (a) Jones is inarticulate, (b) Smith in an intellectual, (c) Smith is a bore. Thus, people avoid saying anything to Smith for fear of either being bored stiff or asked to qualify everything they say. (“What do you mean it’s warmer than yesterday? Celsius or Fahrenheit? Which part of the country? Which part of the world?”)

This type of pseudo-intellectualism also has a further advantage. Whereas an invented quotation can be spotted , or an air of efficiency seen for what it is, the Systematic Obstruction Method (SOM) cannot be detected, since it is the method used by real intellectuals, although they call it the Removal of Ambiguities and Fallacious Argument (RAFA).

However, there is one very good and proven method of distinguishing real and pseudo-intellectuals. Jones merely ways to Smith “You tell us more about it then.” or, perhaps more to the point, asks Smith where he acquired his knowledge.

There are, of course, variations in this technique, depending on the actual situation. The responses of the "Smiths" in question will reveal whether they are real intellectuals (hereafter referred to as RIs), or pseudo-intellectuals (referred to as PIs).

An even better approach, however, is the statistical one. Let X be the number of words in Jones' sentence. Y is the number of times Smith questions the use of a word. Thus the formula:

(Y=X) x 100

will yield the percentage of interruptions.

If this percentage is greater than 50 per cent, Smith is a P.I., assuming, of course, that Jones is not an idiot. If he is. Smith may be justified in interrupting so much, and could well be an R.I.

It is hoped that the Systematic Obstruction Method of pseudo-intellectualism will, in the future, receive more attention, and be the subject of more empirical studies, than it has in the past.