Hidden Intellectualism- David Graff

HIdden Intellectualism By: David Graff

            Graff invites us to join his world of contrasting ideas, and challenges us with his theories on the dichotomy between different types of intellect. The dominant theme of the paper is a cry of frustration that these different types of intellect are not widely appreciated let alone recognized in the modern world.

            “What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.” – Cool Hand Luke

            While there are many complexities to the point that Graff makes, the keystone of his idea is very heartbreakingly simple. It is the mere lack of communication between human beings on the simplest level, the human level. Coming from a childhood that presented him with a first hand look at this lack of communication, he is more than qualified to make this cry. Since the beginning of time the marriage between coolness and intellectualism has been a rocky one. There are numerous times in history where intellectual aristocrats were the coolest people in town, and then there were times when the most brilliant minds of all time were considered to be crazy. Mankind eventually realizes that it was wrong, yet the idea still continues to perpetuate. In the recent cycle of this rocky marriage, intellect and being the cool has had its recent separation in the 50’s. Graff expresses frustration in the idea that this marriage has again wined and dined its way into the honeymoon phase, but we (the United States) as a culture are too stubborn to realize this. In our new age, you cannot only be cool and smart, but there are also new definitions of what smart is.  He doesn’t just accuse the (formally- from an academic point of view) uneducated for showing dislike in the academics, but also the academics themselves for not providing the means to break down this wall. He does not entirely discredit people in the last 60 years mentioning Elvis’s (Viewed as the coolest man of his time) view on the candidates in the 1956 election stating that, “I don’t dig the intellectual bit, but I’m telling you, man, he knows the most.” He wonders if the scars that wrote learning left on a generation will ever be healed, if academia will leave open doors for different types of intellect, and if those hidden intellects will ever knock on the closed doors of academia.

“Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!!” – Ronald Reagan

            If Mr. Graff was the Prime Minister of France during Nazi occupation in World War II, I would like to ever so gallantly self proclaim myself as the head of La Résistance. If I were writing an autobiography of myself, which I hope to one day be of enough importance to do so, this topic would certainly be a major chapter. I grew up in a somewhat aristocratic town and went to private school that bred kids for top-notch prep schools and went to a public high school that even bred kids for nothing short of Ivy League. In my private school days, I was the athlete that Mr. Graff describes. Instead of spending all my time with kids who went home to tutors and a maid preparing lunch for them, I went to play hockey with kids on the other side of the tracks. Kids that Graff describes as “thugs”. I would throw my button down in the hamper, and head off to hockey. In the locker room I was educated on swear words and got an update on how many hubcaps they had stolen from cars that day. I found myself in the middle of two contrasting worlds and yet I was never really part of either. I had to be two different people in two different worlds and in reality I only wanted to be a little bit of both. I thought my private school friends were a little too serious and my sports friends a little too thuggy. This is was my boot camp for La Résistance.

            In high school I found myself stuck in another facet of Graffs argument. All of a sudden I was playing sports with the public school kids. Those kids liked to have a good time, not playing chess, yet not stealing hubcaps. There was a problem though, which again is portrayed in Graff’s theories (truths). I was hanging out with all these cool kids and conversing with them on an intellectual level and acting on the same intellectual level, but not in school. All those kids were making honors every quarter and partying and playing sports. I was smart, I knew it, but the high school I was in did not have an open door for people like me. Because of my boot camp, I had intellect; it was not the kind of intellect that my friends had. I was frustrated, my high school had a cookie cutter feel and if you were a different shape, well that was just too bad. I would do really well in the very few classes that were made for minds like mine, better than my honor roll friends, only suffer so much in the cookie cutter classes that defaced my GPA to that of someone who is completely incapable of being intellectual. I’m not going to pump my own tires and list everything I think I am excellent at right now, but I was frustrated. Coming to college I thought things would be different, but tragically they are the same. I thought classes in college would be different, but my first semester rained on that parade. I had a meeting with a dean last semester who received reports from two professors with concerns that one of the most seemingly capable students in class discussion was doing surprisingly poorly in their classes and they didn’t want me to be frustrated. In my toughest class last semester, I did the best and in my what should have been easiest class, I did the worst. I was frustrated. I am still frustrated. This semester I ignored distribution requirements and signed up for classes that I know I would love and do well in.

            The truth is we live in exponential times, and the spectrum of different kinds of intellects has broadened exponentially. That is why it is so important that we break down the wall of cookie cutter academia and cater to students not just like me, but also at the opposite end of the spectrum. Capabilities of the millennial generation are being over looked and under stimulated. Capabilities of the future of America are being over looked and under stimulated. Maybe I am crazy for thinking this, but Pythagoras said the earth was round and they called him crazy. Maybe Graff is wrong, but I believe him. Some people thought La Résistance was wrong, but that was Hitler.