Show Pony Words and Howard Dean Rallies

Today's compliment is inspired by an invitation to a political event: I really appreciate the Boyfriend is thoughtful and intelligent when it comes to government and politics. While he, too feels that President Bush is a waste of presidential flesh, he doesn't play that whole "bush sux!!!11one" game. He studies policies and looks for real solutions.


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So, a while ago, I made public a list of 33 personal "truths." That is, things I believe to be true. I recently received and email that took issue with one maxim in particular, #18:


"Pretentiousness is counterproductive to academia, and ultimately the progression of a society"

He noted that pretentious behavior was simply a way for educated people to set themselves apart from the "stupid masses." And that we should "dumb down" to help out the "retards."


I take issue with this idea; that the idea that the privileged few should enjoy being educated, and everyone else should simply be the mental slaves to this select few. I really think that a lot of our problems with our culture and government could be solved if people were properly educated. Moreover, I think that if people didn't have the impression that educating themselves was something terribly difficult and only to be attempted by the elite, there would be more people who could properly think for themselves.

Is it really a good idea to discourage people from debate and intelligent thought? Let's put away the big words and tone down the sense of entitlement, people. There is a time and a place for the big words, but from what I can tell, 99.9% of the time these excruciatingly obscure words are used, it's for show.

So why don't we write textbooks in plain sentences and put our show pony vocabulary to use in a productive manner? I'm not saying that we take out every 3+ syllable word out of our language. I mean that we shouldn't use difficult grammar and very uncommon words when we write essays that are meant to educate- such as text books. I'm a fairly bright person, but I had to read a paragraph in a political sociology textbook at least 4 times before I got it. I even went to one of those richwhitepeopleonly schools.

Example: I'm choosing a fairly simple quote out of my book that was quite straightforward to me, but held Male Roommate in a headlock for a while.

"The state is a unique institution that can 'territorially centralise' its power, thereby making it a relatively strong and coherent 'power container' in comparison to the fragmented nature of civil society." (Mann, 1988)

Why say that when you can say "The state is a unique institution because it can pull together people based on where they live, not just their culture. Because it can unify many different kinds of people, it can have a lot more power than societies that are divided by cultures."


Male Roommate understood the second example, but the first was way over his head. I think there is a reason beyond sloth why Male Roommate doesn't inform himself, and it's that his books insult him, and he just doesn't want to be insulted anymore. Yes, he wants to learn, but no, he doesn't want to feel like an idiot for asking.