On Intellectual Chauvinism
In a new paradigm of the infinite communication between people all over the world via digital channels, the very intellectual capabilities of each internet user have to be unified somehow to avoid seemingly inevitable frictions on the grounds of the still existing cultural diversity. The traditional distinction between the “elite” and “plebs” rooted in various aspects of social inequality should be neutralized.
Moreover, education, wealth, origin, and some other individual qualifiers that were considered the main distinctive social features in the recent past have already started to lose importance in public discourse. This is the calling of our time to leave any sort of sense of superiority inherent in many intellectuals, elitists, and scholar scientists these days. Any kind of intellectual chauvinism must be thrown away in favor of the mental and contextual equality essential for achieving various consensuses to provide any further progress in people’s interactions.
It is legitimate to say that the ideas about a vertical hierarchy of mental strength are obsolete in the light of the current expansion of gadgets. Smartphones as an indicative phenomenon of the present digital era help debunk many outdated patterns when we decide who should be called truly “smart”. The situations when many honored academic thinkers appear helpless before even quite primitive gadgets are frequent enough to be a norm.
At the same time, young kids, uneducated folks, and even mentally retarded persons often show amazing skills in mastering quite sophisticated algorithms of interactions on the internet via various electronic devices. Hence, it is natural to ask what a certain scientific degree is worth if its possessor acts like an idiot when just an elementary sequence of actions on a social network is required.
It seems the time comes to change the very criterion of mental capacity. In terms of socially responsible behavior, namely flexibility and adaptability should be accepted as a significantly more important ability than any accumulation of knowledge is. The role of virtual networks in equalizing individual variations of intellectual development can hardly be overestimated.
The super-interactive networks of the future will show it more clearly, but even today’s Facebook can potentially educate young generations about the actual world around more effectively than any scholar entity with its textbooks does. Multi-billion capitalization of digital giants reflects to what extent the global user audience appreciates them. Among other things, people need social networks to feel the so-desired equality they lack in their offline routine. And intellectual equality is implied there by default.
Our mental inertia makes us follow famous scientists, novelists, and thinkers on social media even though they offer less interesting content than the other average users do. Sometimes, common sense tells us that it is better to leave the bogus discourse delivered by the highbrow intellectuals who we follow due to a mere mob mentality. New more severe ethical standards applied to the relevance of content can help get many arrogant elitists back.
They should give up their vision of the vertical intellectual staircase where they supposedly occupy the top. This is the world-as-a-network where no central entity controls the global discourse. All nodes of the network are tantamount to each other regardless of what each of them can think about oneself individually. This is a fair principle of a horizontal decentralized community to which all societies will have to come sooner or later. The very logic of the zeitgeist requires it.
Any intellectual superiority is based on a comparison which, in its turn, is based on certain benchmarks we usually choose arbitrarily. We choose features that we consider important in certain circumstances. And a final result of our comparison is highly conditional once in some other circumstances the other different features might appear more relevant. A good chess player is not necessarily a good politician, a brilliant public speaker can have the lowest rate in math. A conclusion as to who is really smart remains questionable if the issue is addressed from another angle.
Can we call an average holder of a Ph.D. degree a smart person? Yes, we can unless we take into account an average debt of about 200K USD the holder has to get into for being able to demonstrate a Ph.D. diploma. Is such a pure decoration as a Ph.D. degree worth the amount of money sufficient for establishing a fully-fledged business on the internet? No clear-cut answer is possible since we all appreciate different things.
One of the most indicative phenomena of how differently we value things nowadays is populism. Are all populists clever folks? Highly unlikely. Populism is nothing but an ability to feel which topic resonates with aspirations of a crowd perfectly here and now. In other words, it means taking a chance to be in the right place at the right time. Not the mental capacity of a populist, but circumstances of time and place determine the success of one or another populist theory. The same relates to the popularity of many celebrities.
A Hollywood superstar who plays the smartest characters in movies can appear a tongue-tied person who can hardly string two sentences together in real life. A multi-million follower audience of a vlogger on YouTube can have no idea about the personal intellectual capabilities of the vlogger since they all watch her vlog due to a nice butt she has. It seems we are dealing with a different culture where extensive socialization via networks matters more than any high intelligence.
Does this mean that the present humanity is getting dumber? Not at all. It means that humanity is changing the standards of what is to be called smart. It means that the worldwide audience starts emphasizing horizontal relationships. It is not just the traditional pluralism of opinions, it is a moment-intrinsic movement towards a certain intellectual equilibrium.
It is a more rational approach to mentality when the intellectual development scale depends on a specific discourse within which any comparison can be made only. The horizontal space of the contemporary virtual networks has nothing to do with both vertical hierarchies in general and graduation of mentalities in particular. Everything goes in parallel in this world, neither top nor bottom is available.
At the same time, such a mode does not mean sameness, regimentation, and leveling. You can be hyper-original with your unique content in the framework of a particular discourse, but people from a neighboring domain of the network can confidently ignore both you personally and everything your followers appreciate.
The mental capacity of teenagers from a fancy music channel on YouTube in no way should be compared with one of the postgraduate students from a trigonometry group in a Reddit chatroom. This is not because such a comparison might be intolerant. But because any comparison like this has no meaningful rationale in the highly networked environment where everything you do needs no legitimization from anybody else.
A certain degree of healthy nihilism is already available on social media. Unfortunately, it takes quite morbid forms of trolling and bullying, sometimes. That’s why such options as “dislike” and “unfollow” are the must-have features for every platform where more than two persons can gather. Intolerance in such a context is not less important than tolerance for interactive communications.
Any counterargument on whatever topic is relevant only if it comes from a person who understands the current discourse clearly without emphasizing any personal authority. However honorable investor is Warren Buffet, his criticism towards Bitcoin can impress nobody from a crypto community just because the entire experience of Mr. Buffet in financial speculations is irrelevant to a crypto discourse. Probably, he is confusing domains in the present horizontal paradigm of interactions being brought up in the expiring paradigm of vertical hierarchies.
Any desire to boast intellectually over the others is nothing but a sorrowful atavism destined to a gradual organic demise. The evolving relationships on virtual networks will inevitably equalize all users whatever personal qualities are concerned. Mental capacity is too abstract to be appreciated by default when vertical hierarchies do not matter. It is a great challenge for many highbrow elitists along with holders of various scientific degrees. It seems they will have to forget about any awe we ought to experience in front of their intellectual achievements. The younger generations prefer horizontal relationships where the true authority can be approved by something other than a Ph.D. diploma.
If your content is relevant to a particular discourse in a particular segment of a global network, your desire to feel smart can be naturally satisfied — your followers will appreciate what you deliver. If you support intellectual chauvinism supposing that “less educated” individuals are unworthy to argue your opinions, nothing but frustration will cover you in your arrogant loneliness at the end of the day.
