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Underground eXperts United File 515
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Underground eXperts United
Presents...
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[ Are You A Closet Intellectual? ] [ By Gene-Michael Higney ]
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
Are You A Closet Intellectual?
(Take the quiz and see.)
by
Gene-Michael Higney
Along with having your own personal look, it's now cool to be considered
smart. Notice I said to be considered smart. It's convenient that one does
not need to actually BE smart to be CONSIDERED smart. We have proven this
during a decade in which the media celebrated numerous writers who could
not write, actors who could not act, and presidents who could not pres.
I remember when being intellectual was very OUT. In the sixties, thinking
people were considered by many as the cause of everything from political
unrest and campus demonstrations, to bad breath in dogs.
NOW at least, people with brains are acknowledged by our community as
having at LEAST as much to offer as, say, fibrous cereals, souvenirs of the
Berlin Wall, and novelty shower heads.
But the timing for us to realize this could not have been worse. Now that
intelligence is more respectable, it is eerie how many glitzy but barely
literate public figures, (whose entire philosophies of life can readily be
summed up on bumper stickers - which is frequently where they get them) are
hogging the spotlight on talk shows, spewing what pass for profundities,
while the REAL intellectuals have been embarrassed into veritable exile (to
Utah or even FARTHER). They are forced into hiding and becoming "closet
cases," afraid to reveal themselves.
In the past years, while these poor ignored smarties sat aching in
libraries all over the country, dying to check out the latest CONGRESSIONAL
REPORT or NEW YORKER, but forcing themselves to be content with PEOPLE
magazine and the Collins Sisters, the country sat back and was ruled by
individuals who by no stretch of the imagination could be accused of
intellect.
So the "effete snobs" as they were called by one who shall go deservedly
nameless here, retreated to the catacombs of our culture to lick their
wounds and ponder the meanings of words which had begun to pollute the
media waves; misbegotten aberrations such as: "misspoke",
"counterproductive", and "normalization". And though being smart is now in,
we still may not be so lucky as to coax our thinkers out of their closets
again. Why?
Because out from the ranks of politicians and their molls, and rock and
wrestling personalities, have crept, just like the pod-people in the movie,
ersatz "intellectuals".
We wisely gun shy intellectuals are slow to reveal ourselves (notice how I
cleverly slipped myself in there? Nothing you can do about it now, I'm
writing this), debating on whether we even WANT public approval if it lumps
us into the same brood as Ms Sally Mindpartch, for example, the newest game
show hostess whose provocative book (and accompanying video) "AEROBI-CIZE
FOR WORLD HUNGER" topped the B S charts (that's Best Seller charts, in case
I gave you a momentary scare).
A lot of mental lightweights are into being "heavy" these days. Merely
entertaining people is no longer as rewarding to them as is spouting forth
on the Okra Whinney Show eighty-three different private explanations for
crime, death, divorce, aging, and the heartbreak of Persian Dualism.
Worse, the founts of these opinions are often actresses (?) recently
endowed with television pilots, on the basis of which they are treated as
authorities on Freud, Jung and the socio-economic and psycho-political
infrastructure of the colonies of the Marabuntu Ant.
OR, if not actresses, then they will be housewives recently liberated by
becoming authors of books ABOUT housewives recently liberated and now
authors of books.
OR, they will be fashion models (turned actresses) whose hair-do's stay up
via bicycle pump and whose teeth have more caps than the graduating class
at Harvard. These will farkle on about the wonders of est and psychology
while still laboring under the impression that a Gestalt is a foreign car.
OR, there will be Mr Gore Vidal. Mr Vidal is a very bright man with a
penchant for appearing on certain "chat shows" and being among the few
guests to make sense. No one has been able to figure out exactly HOW he
gets away with making sense visit after visit unless it was simply that the
average viewer did not KNOW that it was sense.
So, how do we tell the difference between the real intellectuals and the
pseudo's?
I have devised a little quiz whereby you can rate yourself by testing your
knowledge and general consciousness. If you've just this second decided to
look for the answers you think are printed tiny and upside down at the end
of the quiz, forget it; I caught you fair and square, you may as well turn
on the TV, you're missing a Three's Company re-run.
HIGNEY'S INTELLIGENCE QUIZ for UNCOVERING
PSEUDO-INTELLECTUALS
(H.I.Q.U.P.)
1) I FAITHFULLY take any quiz in every magazine in my dentist's office and
adjust my life accordingly.
a. TRUE
b. ONLY THE ONES ABOUT SEX
c. I NEED MORE TIME TO THINK
2) Ontogeny truly DOES recapitulate phylogeny.
a. OH, ABSOLUTELY
b. MUCH LESS THAN ONE MIGHT IMAGINE
c. WHAT??
3) William F. Buckley is
a. SPIDERMAN'S SECRET IDENTITY
b. GORE VIDAL'S EX
c. GOD'S VALET
4) Gore Vidal is
a. AN ARTICULATE, URBANE AUTHOR/THINKER
b. A SMART-ASS PANSY WRITER
c. RESPONSIBLE FOR SASSOON'ING
5) George Bush is
a. ON PAROLE
b. A BEER MERCHANT
c. RONALD REAGAN'S GREATEST ROLE
6) YALE is
a. A SCHOOL
b. A LOCK
c. A SOUTHERNER TELLING YOU TO TALK LOUDER
7) Norman Mailer is
a. THE SMART MAN'S ERNEST HEMINGWAY
b. GORE VIDAL'S EX
c. THE REAL MAN'S TRUMAN CAPOTE
d. THE POSTMASTER GENERAL
8) A good representative of the Women's Movement Today is:
a. PAMELA LEE ANDERSON
b. IMELDA MARCOS
c. LIZZIE BORDEN
9) "A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE "
a. HOME
b. BEDROOM
c. MEN'S LOCKER ROOMS
10) HUMAN RIGHTS ARE
a. THE OPPOSITE OF HUMAN LEFTS
b. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW
If you refused to take the above test because it was silly, you passed,
with Honors.
If you took it and scored less than 100, you failed, but they will want you
for the talk show circuit anyway.
If you took the test and scored HIGHER than 100, you passed, but you
cheated.
If you are Gore Vidal, you passed, but you will not care.
If you or the person with whom you live smokes a Meerschaum pipe, you are
either a fictional character by Arthur Conan Doyle, or a closet
intellectual who has yet to come out.
If you are an intellectual who has not yet been on a talk show, thereby
never having come out... good.
Don't.
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uXu #515 Underground eXperts United 1999 uXu #515
ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/texts/uxu/
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