Reaction to an "intellectual".

Many years ago, when I was barely out of my teens, I was on a train to a place unremembered, reading a book, never forgotten. It was one of Samuel Beckett’s novels, from his trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable. As I read, quietly, in an end seat in the subdivided train compartment, I annotated the book, writing my thoughts in response to Beckett’s, my understandings of his understandings and ideas of my own that emerged as I read. I wrote in very small writing with a biro. I was very intent.

A voice interrupted me.

“You think you are so intelligent.”, sneered a middle aged woman across from me.

I looked up at her, somewhat surprised, but more puzzled at what she had said.

“I am just reading a book.”, I said, matter of factly, trying not to rise to her provocation.

“You think you are SO intelligent.”, she said again, with even more of a sneer.

Now, I thought this most odd, since I wasn’t thinking of myself at all, but of the book I was reading and the place it had taken me to.

“You know nothing about me.”, I began softly, but with an intensity that made it seem hard, “I have said nothing about my intelligence, to you. So, why are you attacking me for it? I am just reading a book on a train – what is wrong with that?”

Her mouth, if anything, looked even more sour than before.

“You are writing in your book.”, she said, as if that was proof of her view of my self-image.

“I am writing, because I am recording my thoughts in response to the book. That is all.”

Her sourness condensed further.

“You are just showing off.” Her sneer was well on the way to becoming a scar, by now.

“I am not showing anything. I am not writing for your consumption and entertainment, I am writing so that I am able to look at my thoughts again, later. It is not for you that I write.”

She didn’t know what to say, but there was a strange kind of hate cum envy in her eyes. She looked out of the train window. The conversation was at an end.

I returned to my reading and my writing. Aware that she was observing me from across the carriage, but not paying her any more attention. I had become accustomed to hostility from people less bright than myself, but I hadn’t expected to be attacked for reading on a train. I thought it odd that a middle aged lady should be so hateful of intellectual interest. It was odder still that she should assume to know what I thought about myself, from me quietly reading and saying nothing to anyone. Looking back, I do wonder if she were a little mad – and whether she projected her own evaluation of me – that I was “so intelligent” – onto me and ascribed it to me. This would be paranoid thinking and it seems quite possible now that that explains her behaviour.

Yet, there is another explanation that requires far less supposition: that she was hateful of any intellectual activity – that she was “giftist” as I call it. If so, then that attitude was alive and strong about a quarter of a century ago. Even now it is a toxic memory. At the time it was rather like being awoken to the sensation of sandpaper on one’s skin – a rasping reality that could not be ignored.

I have never forgotten her strange action – but was only reminded of it, today, after long years, on sighting the word “annotate”. Suddenly the event flooded into memory again.

It is a wonder that giftism is not more widely spoken of. I even had to create the word myself, some years ago, since at the time, there was not a single hit for it, on the Internet. Attitudes such as this unknown lady’s are truly corrosive, in society and make life difficult for more intellectually minded individuals. It seems likely that she behaved toxically towards any seeming intellectual she met. How many people would she bully in a lifetime? Hundreds, certainly...Imagine if she were a teacher, then there would be thousands of victims. These people are very harmful to society and to the health of a culture – yet she is not alone, there are many people who hate the “gifted”, the “smart”, the “intellectuals”...and even pride themselves on their hate. They think it “trendy” to attack the bookish, the thoughtful, the preoccupied. That woman wouldn’t even leave a young man to read in peace on a train, without trying to poison the experience.

I used to read a lot. I don’t read much these days. Life seems to take up too much time to leave enough time to read as much as I would like. Yet, I am now middle aged and I still see her words to me as foreign. I couldn’t possibly imagine saying them to a youngster reading on a train. I am more likely to feel glad they were reading and just to sneak a peek at the book title, to see how weighty it might be. I would be happiest if it were a complex and rich work. That is what I would like to see in the young today...intellectual preoccupations, thoughtfulness and a desire to learn. I certainly can’t imagine attacking anyone for it.

The UK has gone into a cultural and intellectual decline in recent decades. No doubt that lady, who would now be a pensioner, would be quite happy with the way things are going. I, however, are not. Here’s to a future world in which every youngster reads on trains and thinks in public. How much better a world that would be.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Why: "Perhaps too many gifts."?

It has been pointed out to me that my own self-description in the left hand bar, might be read as giftist. Why is this?

Well, I say of my own childhood that I had "perhaps too many gifts". This is not meant to attack the idea of having many gifts, it is meant to highlight the problems that arise when one does. Below I post a copy of my comment in regards to the poster who raised this issue:

"I describe myself as having "perhaps too many gifts" because the more gifts you have the more tendency there is to dilute effort across them all, which can, in fact, hamper the gifted child. I was not rueing my gifts: each one was and is precious to me and in some way helps define who I was and am - but I am also aware that fewer gifts may have led to quicker results through greater focus. That was my point."

So, I hope you can see that is not being giftist - this is just being realistic about the effects on one's allocation of time and energy that having many gifts has. Those of fewer gifts have a natural advantage when it comes to making effective use of them because more time can be focussed on each one. That is all.

Why: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much"?

It seems from some of the comments I have received, over the months, that the meaning behind my blog title is not as universally understood as I would like. To clarify a little I am going to post a copy of a comment in response to one puzzled commenter:

"The title of my blog is meant to capture the sense one gets on talking to Ainan that no-one could possibly know so much. It is not meant to propose the idea that he should know less. Naming a blog can be tricky since words may be misinterpreted, or read in ways other than intended. Ainan "knows too much" only in the sense that he creates in a listener the sense that what he does is somehow bordering the impossible...for how can one so young know so much? That is what I wanted to relate.

My title is not giftist - it is a title written from wonder - though I see how it could be misread."

So, my blog title is meant to evoke the wonder that comes from speaking to Ainan, when he chooses to speak his mind. It was never intended to suggest that he be diminished in any way. Thus, it cannot be said to be "Giftist" (a word of my invention, recently).

I hope that answers anyone who has taken exception to the title.

Are you giftist?

I think that "giftist" is a new word I have coined. Why do I coin it and what does it mean?

Well, I have noticed two kinds of reactions to Ainan's achievement. There have been some very positive ones. Ainan has been cheered by his school; greeted in the street with smiles and cries of "Ainan!"; congratulated by almost everyone he has known...and then there is the other type.

There is the neighbour who used to speak to me, whenever he saw me, who now finds his eyes unable to meet mine - and who doesn't reply if spoken to.

There are a few anonymous people - they are always anonymous, aren't they - who write envy filled words, trying to diminish Ainan's achievement and disparage him for it.

It is these latter two types that I call "giftist". There is something in them that loathes those of gift. The strange thing is - and the really sad, sad thing - is that many of these "giftist" people are themselves gifted. The problem is, that they have something in them that doesn't wish to be challenged. No-one is allowed to be as "great" as they are. No-one is also allowed to be gifted. There is a "gifted community board" that is filled with this kind of nonsense. It is an American board and most of the commenters are from that nation - but the hate and envy that sometimes comes off them is shocking to see. They simply will not tolerate anyone of greater gift than themselves. They seek to bring down anyone who is truly gifted.

It is this kind of giftist individual who is most poisonous. They should know better. Their own experiences of intolerance towards them, by some of lesser gift, should have taught them to be more tolerant of those of greater gift - but it hasn't. Somehow, somewhere, they have learned hate and envy. These feelings have become their core - and they vent it at every opportunity.

Giftism should not be allowed. It diminishes the world and makes the path of gifted people a much more difficult one to tread. Yet, the oddest thing is that many of these giftist people are the gifted themselves...or those who appear to be gifted because they are on a gifted board.

I find that fact the most puzzling of all.