Many many years back, I had struck a friendship with this guy. We had some common interests that we loved discussing - signal processing, programming ( I was a passionate programming geek in another life ;) and science fiction. We would discuss what we had been up to, and all our latest findings. All this went well until one day, when he casually remarked 'Girls are only smart enough to understand Ayn Rand. That is the upper threshold of their understanding and intelligence'.
I could hardly believe my ears.
So I asked him to repeat what he had just said. And he repeated the same thing. His assertions annoyed me so much at so many levels that I immediately got out of the 'friendship' - and I don't regret it in the least.
There were many things which annoyed me about his assertion.- First and the biggest of course was the male chauvinism. The guy was obviously an ignorant jerk. It was disturbing for me to think that an otherwise pretty smart person actually held such views. In the years since, I have came across many such chauvinists, and I have never been able to digest their attitude and arrogance. I am sometimes tempted to carry around a hammer and a recorder with me just to study the acoustic properties of the melodious sound that would emerge from initiating a high impact contact between the hammer's head and theirs...
Secondly, intelligence is not everything. Simplicity, contentment, courage, and generosity easily surpass the glamour of intelligence over the long term, when it comes to their contribution to life satisfaction.
Thirdly, I think it is very difficult to gauge anyone's intelligence without knowing them really well. This is further complicated by the fact there are multiple forms of intelligence. I would be very wary of judging anyone's intelligence negatively. Take for example, my own sister. She is extremely smart, ( She also happens to be a surgeon) but she doesn't see the need to 'demonstrate' that. If you were to meet her, you would probably leave thinking she is warm and thoughtful, which she undoubtedly is. That is what she chooses to be intentional about. But dont let 'just' that warmth and thoughtfulness fool you. She is razor sharp.
In general, elitism of any kind annoys me. And I think chauvinism is just one form.
This is where I think our 'education' is often incomplete. How do we create a form of education that produces people who are well rounded in every sense? How about adding 'Emotional Intelligence' and 'Practicing Sound Judgement' to the curriculum ? I'm sure there must be numerous courses available on the former, but I am not so sure about the latter..
I could hardly believe my ears.
So I asked him to repeat what he had just said. And he repeated the same thing. His assertions annoyed me so much at so many levels that I immediately got out of the 'friendship' - and I don't regret it in the least.
There were many things which annoyed me about his assertion.- First and the biggest of course was the male chauvinism. The guy was obviously an ignorant jerk. It was disturbing for me to think that an otherwise pretty smart person actually held such views. In the years since, I have came across many such chauvinists, and I have never been able to digest their attitude and arrogance. I am sometimes tempted to carry around a hammer and a recorder with me just to study the acoustic properties of the melodious sound that would emerge from initiating a high impact contact between the hammer's head and theirs...
Secondly, intelligence is not everything. Simplicity, contentment, courage, and generosity easily surpass the glamour of intelligence over the long term, when it comes to their contribution to life satisfaction.
Thirdly, I think it is very difficult to gauge anyone's intelligence without knowing them really well. This is further complicated by the fact there are multiple forms of intelligence. I would be very wary of judging anyone's intelligence negatively. Take for example, my own sister. She is extremely smart, ( She also happens to be a surgeon) but she doesn't see the need to 'demonstrate' that. If you were to meet her, you would probably leave thinking she is warm and thoughtful, which she undoubtedly is. That is what she chooses to be intentional about. But dont let 'just' that warmth and thoughtfulness fool you. She is razor sharp.
In general, elitism of any kind annoys me. And I think chauvinism is just one form.
This is where I think our 'education' is often incomplete. How do we create a form of education that produces people who are well rounded in every sense? How about adding 'Emotional Intelligence' and 'Practicing Sound Judgement' to the curriculum ? I'm sure there must be numerous courses available on the former, but I am not so sure about the latter..
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