Is there a compromise between "intellectual" and "pretentious"?

[Kitsa]

I'm starting to wonder.

Today we went to a college town about an hour from here. I always find college towns really amusing because they're all the same and they think they're all really unique. I think half of those places stay in business selling the Freshman Enlightenment starter kits with the batik wall hanging, the Darwin fish, the smelly woven poncho and the damned patchouli.

I was going around the little indie record stores looking for a Boris the Sprinkler CD that never materialized and I lost count of how many badly-tended dreads I saw, how many clove cigs, how many baggy alpaca-wool sweaters and how much in-it-to-be-seen ostentatious environmentalism.

All of the shopkeepers were chatty and every. last. one. had to speak in this godawful, bizarre, utterly unnatural manner. I mean, one woman was telling me a story about her dog and she actually said, "I was seated, breakfasting on smoked salmon and cream cheese and a bit of artisan rye..." ...SHE ACTUALLY SAID THAT, WITH NOT A HINT OF HUMOR. She was breakfasting, she wasn't eating breakfast.

Who the hell talks like that? I spent many, many years being cranked through academia, in several disciplines, and I would never speak that way. It sounds stilted and ridiculous. You could write like that, sure, but when we're talking vernacular it just comes off as pompous. Aren't people conscious of that? Or is that just what they're going for, some sort of weird faux-laid-back persona where they speak as if they're at a signing, reading from their latest piece?

Ugh. :goth

[Grislygus]

Dunno. I've affected a slightly southern-ish accent and stopped using large words so that the people around here can understand me, some might argue it as being more pretentious than 'breakfasting'.

[Jeanette X]

I have already expressed my feelings on this subject in the Convention Pictures thread, but I think it wouldn't hurt to repeat them:

http://www.i-mockery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69700535

Protesting is great thing.
Its hippies can't stand, especially not the girls. I developed a very low tolerance to them in college. Fuck you and your self-rightous veganism, I'll eat all the hormone-injected meat I damn well want, and no, I don't believe you when you say you're bisexual. I don't want to smoke pot with you, it won't make you Phish albums sound any better, and stop meditating in public with that smug look on your face. Nor will I join your Womyn's Goddess Coven. Take down your Che Guevara poster too, commies aren't cool. Get out of my face before I set your dreads on fire, you fucking naive smug little Trustafarian slimecunt. Take your white guilt somewhere else, I don't want to fucking hear it. And bathe in something other than patchuli for a change!

Smug little shits like that are why nobody takes us liberals seriously.

The same also applies to the postcard punks. Fuck you all.

The study of social sciences makes you angry at injustice, but it also makes you just as angry at naive people who can't see the larger picture of society. Those little twits scratch some bark from the Tree of Global Evil and go off in an orgy of self congratulation, while I sit here alone and bleeding having torn off my nails trying to dig at the root structure with my bare hands in an obsessive effort to understand it. Stop smoking pot and help me dig, you little shits! Oh wait, you don't have the patience for or the brains for it. My mistake. Go fuck in the woods and enjoy yourselves.

[Evil Robot]

When I went to college in Cobelskill NY, there was a diesel engine major in the building across the street, an agricultural major with a 500 head cattle barn, a fish hatchery, an honest to god course on landscaping (not design, just maintenence!), and of course a computer science department in which I was able to maintain a near 5.0 average despite the fact that I was an alcoholic drug adict with only a passing fancy in these stupid white boxes with screen things.

I have never heared anybody talk like that EVER.

[pac-man]

What college town was this?

[Jeanette X]

When I went to college in Cobelskill NY, there was a diesel engine major in the building across the street, an agricultural major with a 500 head cattle barn, a fish hatchery, an honest to god course on landscaping (not design, just maintenence!), and of course a computer science department in which I was able to maintain a near 5.0 average despite the fact that I was an alcoholic drug adict with only a passing fancy in these stupid white boxes with screen things.

I have never heared anybody talk like that EVER.

Was it a liberal arts college?

[DeadKennedys]

College has turned me from a liberal into a moderate. From the hippies to the greeks (and the Italians) to the indie emo kids, I hate every last one of them. Them and their goddamn "raising awareness" (I know what's happening in Darfur, thanks 24 hour news!) and masturbatory peace rallies. The hippie "movement" is pure hedonism - getting high, and patting yourself on the back for doing absolutely nothing. "I feel really good about this..."

People in any subculture have douchey jargon. The difference is, these people were douches to begin with. That's douche squared.

I actually went into college thinking it would be mature adults looking for an education. Fuck I can't wait to be in Iraq. 3 more months! >:

[MetalMilitia]

Yeah there's a fine line between speaking in a way that accurately conveys your meaning and speaking in a way that makes you feel smart.

Personally I think that if you're using language correctly then it's fine to use long/obscure words. Often they convey themes that would otherwise be difficult to express.

I do have a problem with people using words incorrectly though. Especially if they're obviously doing it just for the sake of sounding smart - case in point "Breakfasting".

[Kitsa]

I don't want to name the exact town, but I'll say that it's a small liberal-arts college.

I've gone to school (both Cornell and Ithaca) in Ithaca, and although they're slightly more granola and less retail than this place was, a similar mentality prevailed. As I checked out of the Green Star Co-Op once, the cashier asked me my favorite color. I wasn't in the mood to play, and I said "blue". Then she wanted to know what shade of blue, and I said, "I don't know... sky blue." Then she wanted to know what sky...just before dawn, a bright autumn sky, an overcast sky, a sunset. Longest checkout ever :(
I don't need a co-op cashier to bring me to awareness. I know that the sky can be different colors.

And the boyfriend is from Madison, we've been there many times, and it doesn't have the annoying pretentious garbage at all. Unless you hit the farmers market, then you get the LOOK AT ME I'M AT A FARMERS MARKET I AM WHOLESOME people. Everyone else doesn't wear a Farmers Market t-shirt and carry a Farmers Market bag to go to the Farmers Market :/

I don't know.

[Zomboid]

I got to an art school so there's a lot of hippie and emo types as well as a lot of bleeding hearts. I feel totally out of place sometimes because I'm an asshole :O

[liquidstatik]

..

[Grislygus]

Zomboid, was it you that was stuck near Coos Bay? If so, where the hell are you enrolled, there isn't any civilization for miles

[MetalMilitia]

Last I heard Zomboid was like a coal miner or something.

[Dimnos]

I actually went into college thinking it would be mature adults looking for an education.

:lol

[Jeanette X]

As I checked out of the Green Star Co-Op once, the cashier asked me my favorite color. I wasn't in the mood to play, and I said "blue". Then she wanted to know what shade of blue, and I said, "I don't know... sky blue." Then she wanted to know what sky...just before dawn, a bright autumn sky, an overcast sky, a sunset. Longest checkout ever :(
I don't need a co-op cashier to bring me to awareness. I know that the sky can be different colors.

Jesus Christ. I would've lost it and told her off.

[Tadao]

It's time you stopped caring about what people think, and high time you start thinking about what people owe you.

:(

[Zomboid]

Zomboid, was it you that was stuck near Coos Bay? If so, where the hell are you enrolled, there isn't any civilization for miles
I'm in Edmonton. There's plenty of civilization, it's just that most of it sucks.

MM- That was oil field work, and it's just a very well-paying summer job.

Liquid- It's not hard to be an asshole IRL when most of the people you're being an asshole to at school look like you. Meaning: Really weak and not intimidating in the least.

[Emu]

When I moved to the south I hated it because of all the hicks and shit, but I've come to appreciate it because people don't assume shit about you. Except that you enjoy football.

Also: Jeanette :love

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

She was breakfasting, she wasn't eating breakfast.

Who the hell talks like that?


I talk like that. I also got yelled at by my roommate for dipping my chicken fingers in ketchup and my fries in bleu cheese instead of the other way around.

I think I'm just off key.

[Jeanette X]

Also: Jeanette :love

I'm always delighted when my misanthropy amuses someone. :)

[Kitsa]

10,000v- I think there's a difference between being genuinely quirky and doing it with an eye peeled to see how many people notice. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you land on the right side of the fence on that one.

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

I've seen people think they're reinventing themselves at college. I wish I had enough SHAMWoW to wipe the smug looks off their faces sometimes. At the end of the day though, I just sit back and remind myself. All these pompous fucks with the free the whales, Dane Cook impersonations and Vegan bullshit....

I went to I.T.T. Tech, didn't learn a damn thing about computers, but at least I didn't change myself to appease the masses.

[Tadao]

I've lived in many cities and towns. I've lived in L.A. and S.F., Bourbon Indiana, Eureka California, Santa Cruz California... Well I guess that's it really. The point is, most of these places are different in there own right. All living organisms with a Borg mentality. When in Rome, do as the Romans. If you go to China, are you gonna get cranky about eating dog and killing baby girls? Then don't fucking go there. Don't go to a Dead show and complain about hippies and don't go to a college town and complain about hipsters. Don't go to Indiana and complain about republicans.

Observe and learn from it. This thread is pretentious.

[pac-man]

I've lived in many cities and towns. I've lived in L.A. and S.F., Bourbon Indiana, Eureka California, Santa Cruz California... Well I guess that's it really. The point is, most of these places are different in there own right. All living organisms with a Borg mentality. When in Rome, do as the Romans. If you go to China, are you gonna get cranky about eating dog and killing baby girls? Then don't fucking go there. Don't go to a Dead show and complain about hippies and don't go to a college town and complain about hipsters. Don't go to Indiana and complain about republicans.

Observe and learn from it. This thread is pretentious.

You're prententious. :posh

[Tadao]

Yes I am :hat

[kahljorn]

personally i think that stupid hippies sounds like a better environment than hicks and gorillas maybe

[Sam]

TRY LIVING WITH BOTH. :(

[Kitsa]

Eh. It's one of those things. Having an opinion is pretentious, not having an opinion is pretentious, having a problem with something is pretentious, not having a problem with something is pretentious.

It turns into a whole big SAYS YOU where you're the victor if you can successfully persuade everyone else that the other guy's view is pompous-stupid-whatever.

Which is pretty much any social situation boiled down.

I'm just going to go ahead and say whatever the hell I want and let the clumps of shit fall where they may, k?

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

[quote=Kitsa;590158

I'm just going to go ahead and say whatever the hell I want and let the clumps of shit fall where they may, k?[/quote] Itsa deal.

[Tadao]

Not acceptable.

[Colonel Flagg]

Going into this with the right frame of mind, such pretension can actually be a very effective form of entertainment. :)

[Kitsa]

And that's why it wound up here.

[Colonel Flagg]

Touché

[Jeanette X]

This sums my feelings up nicely:

http://www.thepaincomics.com/Liberals%20vs.%20The%20Empire.jpg

(No, not hotlinking and sucking up his bandwidth)

[Tadao]

I will though :p

http://www.thepaincomics.com/Liberals%20vs.%20The%20Empire.jpg

[Big McLargehuge]

i find this thread pretentious

[Kitsa]

Yes, we've gone there.

[Sethomas]

Making an accusation of pretension is pretentious. If you know what "pretentious" means, you're pretentious.

Actually, the general subject of this thread is something that interests me a lot because of different biomes where I've found myself. My annoyance is that very often the term "pretentious" will get thrown out to claim a moral victory over someone who is simply smarter or merely more articulate than the plaintiff. If someone's level of conversation is below yours, they're either a moron or philistine. If it's above yours, they're obviously pretentious. It's exactly like the George Carlin line, "Ever notice that everyone who drives slower than you is a moron and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?"

[Big McLargehuge]

hey seth, hows the crazy goin?

[Sethomas]

Toward litigation! But I'm the plaintiff!

But I probably shouldn't talk about that online!

[Big McLargehuge]

oh no, btw i think i still have that incredibly entertaining, incredibly insane autobiographical story you sent me on my computer somewhere :0 should i destroy that?

[DeadKennedys]

If someone's level of conversation is below yours, they're either a moron or philistine. If it's above yours, they're obviously pretentious. It's exactly like the George Carlin line, "Ever notice that everyone who drives slower than you is a moron and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?"

Very good point. But generally, people don't feel the need to degrade the English language with newspeak like "breakfasting". I wouldn't say their level of conversation is higher - they just really want to be noticed. "God please think I'm indy I'm trying so hard"

I can listen to scientists and other experts talking and not get annoyed, even if their conversation level is higher than mine. But when they purposely use their stupid jargon to act superior, I lose interest.

[Jeanette X]

Making an accusation of pretension is pretentious. If you know what "pretentious" means, you're pretentious.

Actually, the general subject of this thread is something that interests me a lot because of different biomes where I've found myself. My annoyance is that very often the term "pretentious" will get thrown out to claim a moral victory over someone who is simply smarter or merely more articulate than the plaintiff. If someone's level of conversation is below yours, they're either a moron or philistine. If it's above yours, they're obviously pretentious. It's exactly like the George Carlin line, "Ever notice that everyone who drives slower than you is a moron and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?"

Methinks you doth protest too much. ;)

[Grislygus]

That emoticon makes you pretentious!

[kahljorn]

the thing i like most about hippies is that if you slap them in the face and call them names their facade either drops or they cry :posh

hick types just generally punch you in the face. I do appreciate the honesty
those peope suck at driving though they always run red lights what a crazy world

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

I definitely think there's a difference between people who try and increase their vocabulary and people just trying to sound "Indy" or intelligent. I just get bored with the words I use. Ridiculous and horrible become obsolete after the 5th time in a conversation.

[Big McLargehuge]

the thing i like most about hippies is that if you slap them in the face and call them names their facade either drops or they cry :posh

hick types just generally punch you in the face. I do appreciate the honesty
those peope suck at driving though they always run red lights what a crazy world

i live in an area almost solely populated by hicks, i would trade them for hippies any day.

[Big Papa Goat]

Ya, I think 'breakfasting' is something that basically doesn't have to be said. I mean, just because there's a word, doesn't mean you have to use it. Also, I notice that there's a lot of pretentious people who really don't know what they're talking about and just obscure their lack of understanding with jargon and claims that they're talking about things that are too complicated to talk about in terms that anyone might possibly understand. That's the kind of pretentiousness that really bugs me.

[Kitsa]

I hold that it's a gut decision and you can get a feel for a person's intentions. Given the circumstances in which this whole scenario took place, I'm calling her pretentious.

Also, I don't look at adjusting speech "upward" or "downward", but rather toward the widest audience possible. I'm not going to flatter myself into assuming that she reckoned me of the "breakfasting" sort.

[Sethomas]

eh, I guess I forgot to add that true pretension is something I see a lot. I live in a college town! Basically, I judge someone as being pretentious when their speaking tendencies, e.g. diction, annunciation, &c., are done with an obvious indication that the person is more concerned with how the delivery of information will be taken than she is interested in the spoken matter itself.

In my college town, one that houses a Big 10 University, what I find is that people here are far, far more interested in pursuing academia as a reflection of themselves over a reflection of their interests. As a result, a cheap simulacrum of intellectual discourse is actually preferred over the real thing. People here are bent on saying stupid shit to sound smart. This is striking to me because I've also attended a different university where the academic standards were much, much higher. People there knew that they'd already proved themselves as being among the world intellectual élite, so they didn't find it necessary to talk about it all the time or slip it in as they recount the quality of their hollandaise while breakfasting. Real, forced pretension is an insecurity thing, and yes, I do know how ubiquitous it is.

Also: having borne from a redneck heritage, I am very regularly thrown into a Sophie's Choice of sounding pretentious by talking in my normal voice, or talking like those around me to make it more comfortable until I am justly attacked for condescending. Eh!

[Jeanette X]

Also: having borne from a redneck heritage, I am very regularly thrown into a Sophie's Choice of sounding pretentious by talking in my normal voice, or talking like those around me to make it more comfortable until I am justly attacked for condescending. Eh!

Did it occur to you that maybe you are just plain insufferable either way?

[Brandon]

It's kind of an insidious word -- especially in relation to the arts, where overreaching oneself is often necessary toward making truly interesting work. I've stopped using it altogether, because it's pretty much impossible to find a reliable standard on which to use it. For example: over the last couple of years I've gotten to know some New York City-based writers, and most of them had come from backgrounds unlike my own (wealthy, "intellectual class," etc). I got irked by some of the ways they acted and communicated, and my first thought was "pretentious," but, then, if they grew up in environments where that sort of thing was commonplace, then they're not really pretentious at all. The word basically means that there's a disparity between what you actually are and what you present yourself to be. And, really, who's in the position to judge that sort of thing? Sometimes you "know" that someone is being pretentious, but most of the time you just think you know, and then you look like a dismissive asshole.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2007/dec/05/whatswrongwithbeingpretent

[Kitsa]

I don't mind looking like a dismissive asshole.

Basically, I have a pretty good radar for insincerity (on an instinctive level), and the woman reeked of it. I despise insincerity.

[Jeanette X]

There's a difference between thinking that someone is sort of pretentious and having an inner klaxon alarm go off whenever they open their mouths. Brandon may have a point in that we can be a bit quick to judge someone as pretentious, like I was when I wrote my rant about the hippies at the convention. (For the record I had PMS and I was being somewhat facetious anyway.) However, the fact still remains that a lot of people in this world need to be told off, like the fucking stoner hippies that I knew my first year of college who thought they were "deeper" than everyone else because they dropped a lot of acid and looked down on me because I didn't. >:

[Brandon]

For the record, I was just trying to make a general point about the term. Wasn't stepping in to defend the honor of "breakfasting" or pushy undergraduate hippies.

I mean ... "breakfasting"? I guess it's technically in the dictionary, but that kind of usage is positively extraterrestrial.

[kahljorn]

i think your usage of the word extraterrestrial was pretentious >:

and kind of racist/presumptious

[Tadao]

xenophobic

[kahljorn]

i guess that would be a more appropriate word but i was just thinking of those poor extraterrestrials who in his mind glorify breakfasting.

it's a n interstellar tradition!

[Brandon]

Go back to Mars >:

[Tadao]

I'm no longer an illegal alien, I know my rights. You can't make me go.

[kahljorn]

get your ass to mars :(

[glowbelly]

i'm vegan. :(

[Tadao]

That's ok, I only want you to suck on my meat stick, not eat it.

[glowbelly]

i, um, ew.

[Kitsa]

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn199/kitsa_for_imockery/tadaorvjpg.jpg

[kahljorn]

looking at tadao ensures that i will never be a homosexual.

Tadao is probably like a lesbian factory too.

[Crimson Ghost]

Rock