Pretentious People

[Gavin Luper]

So, today was my first day back at University after a two-month break. More specifically, since I took Addiction Studies as part of my Honours course last semester (which is part of the science faculty), this was my first day back in an "arts" classroom for the first time in close to two years.

I remembered today why doing an arts degree shits me sometimes: some people are really, really pretentious. As in, they will quite openly look down on people who haven't heard of a particular (obscure) text, or feel the need to ceaselessly interrupt the lecturer to add lofty remarks about a text that's being discussed, or sycophantically laugh at the lecturer's puns that are genuinely not that funny. Or worse, when a first-year student mistook T.S. Eliot for C.S. Lewis, there was this kind of mocking laughter that went around. It angers me when people who "know" something have to sneer at those who don't know - I mean, isn't everyone there to LEARN, anyway? What happened to some respect/common decency? I felt quite sorry for the first-year dude.

I'm posting this here for two reasons - mostly to vent, but also because, since many of us here are writers (and there are many pretentious writers, in my experience) and many more of us here are students of other things, I imagine you guys might have had similar experiences before? Discuss?

[mr_pikachu]

Oh, lord. How I could rant on this.

First things first: yes, there are pretentious people everywhere. Throughout my life, if I've been anywhere for a substantial period of time, I've been thoroughly infuriated by at least a few people who acted as though they knew everything and were better than everyone else. Egh.

With that said, I have to believe that there's a higher concentration of pretentious idiots in college/university life. I've talked with some of you about my time as a graduate student. Believe it or not, when you're studying to be a professor, you're specifically told to act like a know-it-all. It's not quite so obvious, mind you, but over the years countless colleagues and faculty members have given me the "fake it 'til you make it" line. In other words, you're supposed to act like you know everything until that point when you actually do (or, more commonly, until acting like a know-it-all becomes so natural that you're no longer conscious of it).

I understand the reasoning behind it, honestly. While most students are engaged in the material we teach and strive to improve their skills, there's no denying the presence of a few bad apples. Those in the latter group would prefer to goad instructors -- especially graduate instructors, who don't yet hold doctoral degrees -- into stupid arguments and pointless tangents than to learn from them. Worse yet, if left unchecked, a few skeptical and disrespectful students can quickly give the impression that you're unqualified and that the class is a waste of time. That's a frighteningly efficient way to turn an entire class hostile. (I've seen it happen too many times.) Because of that threat, being able to put on an air of superiority and shoot down the clowns among the bunch has its benefits.

The problem is that, over time, it becomes difficult to separate the act from the person, and the holier-than-thou attitude ultimately tends to be incorporated into the personality of whomever was putting on the act. After all, is there any better definition of who a person is than the actions he/she takes? I've seen a number of people who started as rather affable individuals get drawn into the "you're clueless compared to me" mentality and never re-emerge. It's sad to watch, especially when you see the transformation coming months or years in advance and know you can't do anything to stop it.

Certainly, not everyone is a pretentious imbecile, even in graduate school, but it does seem like there are more than there should be. Of course, even in the small slice of academia where I operate, some sub-divisions have a much higher rate of pretentiousness than others. In case any of my colleagues ever discover these comments, I'll refrain from too many specifics, but let's just say I've grown tired of being scorned for not having memorized the 400-year-old translated book that my peers were just assigned to read two weeks prior.

Oh, and don't get me started on the notion of "writing like a scholar." Most published journal articles make me want to vomit, because the researchers use a tremendous number of words to say virtually nothing. The only purpose for the lack of brevity (aside from their distinct lack of writing ability) is to obscure their points so that, presumably, a reader will assume the researchers know more and therefore find their work more impressive. It's twisted and pathetic, if you ask me. No wonder professors are so heavily stereotyped -- we're trained to fall right into that mold!

Anyway. I said that this could turn into a rant, and it kind of did... except that this was the heavily-abridged version. (It's also the 5 a.m. version, which I will use as an excuse for any incoherence. ) No need to drag you down any further with this.

I am curious to know, though, whether people tend to see more pretentiousness in school (especially at college/university), as I have, or whether it's just as prevalent elsewhere. What have you seen in your lives? Do people tend to act more pretentious when they're being graded or otherwise judged on how much knowledge they appear to have? I'd like to hear about your experiences!

[mattbcl]

I'm fairly certain it doesn't happen only in classes that have a focus on the arts, but as my studies were inclined towards a degree in creative writing, I can say that I did see a lot of the pretentiousness you both describe in Literature-based classes. Probably the most annoying example of it was this guy in my Film Appreciation class who would hijack class discussions for 10 - 15 minutes while bloviating about what he thought was REALLY going on with the movies we watched. I don't really remember anything of substance he actually said, but his favorite phrase - I heard it thousands of times - was, "In a sense..." My fingers developed this tic that caused them to twitch whenever he said this phrase... it's entirely possible they were aching to kill him.

Brian brings up a series of fair points. It makes complete sense to me that professors would be taught to adopt the superior air, if only to shoot down the idiots who want to mess with their heads and turn the class into a waste of time. Teachers can't afford to get their cages rattled, especially early on. It's only further into the year, when there's a rhythm established, that an educator is going to feel comfortable releasing a little bit of control to the students who actually WANT an education, versus the morons who're just there because their moms and dads are making them.

But while this all describes what happens within the halls of education, it's a sad thing to remark that one can find equal pretention in fields of other employment. Even in something as mundane as carpet cleaning, which is what my career currently entails, one can find a lot of pretention and a LOT of idiots. It's not just the customers I describe in this case, although we have plenty of morons who seem to think we can't tell when they're lying about particular spots or stains... it's the employers, too. I can't tell you how many times I've been condescended to because somehow I've failed their expectations with regards to adding on high-dollar unscheduled services. The region I live in is very conservative and it's a very difficult thing to get customers to let go of their money, and I make an honest effort every day toward that end... but honesty is also IN the effort I make, and that means not shystering the people who pay me into purchasing something they really don't need. I'm a salesman, but I'm not underhanded. My bosses seem to fail to understand any of this - they live in a much more urban area and are accustomed to easier customers than these, and to my knowledge they have never once tried to operate the kinds of routes they send me and my co-workers on. Until they do, they will never understand the difficulty we face here... even though the employees from that urban area who've visited our territory have consistently confirmed our protestations as to the difficulty. The bosses don't want to hear that. They just want their money.

It frightens me, actually. If that's going to be how it is in a simple carpet cleaning business, how is it in other venues of employment?

[Shadow Wolf]

Ugh, just reading that word makes my blood boil. See, I'm a fan of respect, and this particular topic is one of the main reason why respect is no considered something not worth doing.

With that being said, I can agree with Brian on saying that they are pretentious people everywhere.

An example of this is a girl friend of mine. She has trouble with English (up to the point of even forgetting basic words). But despite of this, she studies hard to get good grades.

But one day (one of those first days of university), she asked a classmate (whom she befriended quickly) about some words she didn't understand. Her "friend" took this arrogant and pretentious attitude towards her while giving her the "are you stupid?" look and didn't help her at all due to considering her "inferior", since she didn't know some basic words.

She cried in frustration while telling me this...

Another type of pretentious people whom tick me off really quick are the ones who love to say "I'm the best" and when they face a challenge, they have an encyclopedia of excuses to evade them. For this kind of people, I love to use the "prove it" argument, since most of them find themselves unable to do so.

Finally, the last type of pretentious person is the one who has the "I'm always right" argument". I can't even describe how they irritate me, but the best thing I can do is ignore them because, unlike mature people, they don't have the capacity to do some logical thinking.

Oh, and don't make me touch the "flirting-people-who-consider-themselves-the-last-coca-cola-in-a-desert" kind.

I don't like to make people feel bad, but when I face people who try to put me or others down -consider this evil- but I love to take a counter stance and blow them away.

[ChobiChibi]

Wow, this topic is like my whole degree in a nutshell.

Oh, and don't get me started on the notion of "writing like a scholar." Most published journal articles make me want to vomit, because the researchers use a tremendous number of words to say virtually nothing.

This. Oh god this. The thing is, aside from Music Theory, a lot of academic writing about Music is purely opinion anyway. Even composers writing about their own music, or others' compositions, is just mostly how they feel about it. And arguing with each other on how it should be done (read some pretty amusing stuff that Stravinsky and Schoenberg wrote about each other, for example). But of course, being an undergrad means you're not allowed to have your own opinion, unless it lines up roughly with an academic.

What have you seen in your lives? Do people tend to act more pretentious when they're being graded or otherwise judged on how much knowledge they appear to have?

All the time. I'm probably mildly guilty of this also. Music is a competitive subject anyway, because there are auditions to get into ensembles, public performances etc. that make you want to prove that you're better than everyone else.

I'm guilty of this when it comes to choral works, specifically, because I've been in a choir for 14 years (including a Cathedral choir where we'd learn a piece of music in 2 weeks and sing it in a performance in the third week) and I'm good at it. Sight reading, pitch, confidence... It's my specialism. I can back this up however (ask the lecturers lol), but it's the people that can't that really bug me.

For example, there's a girl in my year that claims she can play pretty much anything. Oboe, bassoon, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, double bass, saxophones of all varieties... Oh, sure, you may be able to play a couple of tunes, but can you actually play them? The lecturers in the end told her she needed to specialise, and she got really huffy about it, but they all knew that in reality, she was only good at maybe three of those instruments. My main instrument is clarinet (with a bit of bass on the side if I had one) and I play saxophone and flute, but I would not for a second put myself forward for a professional sax or flute gig, because I know that I'm not good enough. They're my projects on the side.

The thing with assessments, particularly performance ones, is that we all get to see each other's assessments, and judge for ourselves what mark we think they should get, compared to what they think they should have got, and what the lecturer actually gave them. I got marked 57 for my dissertation (a sung performance of classical works), and a lot of people who came to see it thought I should have done better compared to some of the others that got 2:1's. But that's their opinion, cos they like me, not cos of my ability.

Probably the most annoying example of it was this guy in my Film Appreciation class who would hijack class discussions for 10 - 15 minutes while bloviating about what he thought was REALLY going on with the movies we watched.

Aha, I heard of a Masters student who would do that every week in their seminars. He was a mature student (he was in his 70's at least) and would just spout off about anything and everything.

There were a few quite bad people at this in my year. There was one guy who would always put his hand up, which was really annoying, but most of the time what he had to say was relevant to the conversation. There was also this other mature student in my year that would literally argue with lecturers and other students over points for ages. It was so frustrating.

Another type of pretentious people whom tick me off really quick are the ones who love to say "I'm the best" and when they face a challenge, they have an encyclopedia of excuses to evade them. For this kind of people, I love to use the "prove it" argument, since most of them find themselves unable to do so.

Oh THIS. There was a girl who played clarinet too, but she'd only been playing for 4, maybe 5 years. We were in an arranging lecture, and someone wanted to know about the Eb clarinet (it's a tiny clarinet that plays really high), so I advised her. Apparently, after I'd said this, this clarinet girl turned to her friend and said "what does she know about the clarinet? It's not her first instrument". What she doesn't know is that I've been playing for the best part of 15 years and actually, yes it was my first instrument. So what if I wasn't in chamber orchestra? I didn't WANT to be in it for the pure reason that I couldn't commit to it.

This from the girl who would always make up excuses for not being able to be at chamber orchestra rehearsals. And wanted to spend a semester on clarinet, and the second semester on oboe. Pfft.

Anyway, here's my very ranty contribution to this topic that shows that it is indeed common within all arts to be pretentious. Also admitting to being guilty of it too, but at least I know my faults and have the evidence to back it up >_>

[Becky]

I haven't read anyone's responses yet, but I will after I write this. Gavin, this topic FIRES me up. I think the line between confidence and pretention is one that, in my experience in the academy, is easily confused.

There are many pretentious people in academia. There are people who will take advantage of graduate students. It goes beyond making the student wait for an appointment that was supposed to occur two hours ago and thus making the student have to miss his or her other obligations. Basic rights, swearing, yelling, behavior that in a corporation (I should hope) would result in firing that individual. Why? Because there are faculty who think that, in the ivory tower, nobody can hurt them. They can get away with saying what they want. Lots of narcissists.

I'd be more than happy to talk about this, but I'd do so via IRC. Forgive my crappy writing at the moment. I'm not that good at articulating my feelings on this, mainly because I have too many stories to share- both personal and stories that I hear from others.

[Oslo]

I absolutely agree with Becky's points about why academia can lend itself to ridiculous egos. Tenure is a wonderful institution because it continues to allow scholars to research areas that might raise eyebrows; without it, fields such as queer theory might never have been pioneered. However, it also has a potential into foster such complete and total douchebags who believe they've got it "made" for life. Fortunately, I've had the benefit of working primarily with faculty who don't tend toward pretentious douchebaggery, so that's all well and good. (My old Comparative Literature prof used to say every foreign word in some affected, one-size-fits-all accent that was always the same whether he was speaking Greek or German, but that was more amusing than anything.)

I also agree with the OP about pretentious behaviour among students. My Canadian Drama class was brutal for this: there was a particular cluster of girls who would erupt with snide mocking every time a group performance wasn't quite up to snuff in terms of their theory. ("You mean you didn't cast all the males as females and females as male? Pfft, okay then!") And, yes, there's the sycophantic laughter... whether or not the prof's joke was funny... or made sense... or even if the joke wasn't a joke at all...

Oddly enough, I also witnessed a peculiar reversal to this pattern in my Creative Non-Fiction creative writing class. For whatever reason, our workshop discussions throughout the semester built toward a witch hunt against pretentious writing. Of course, it lent itself to some interesting discussion. Namely, what constitutes pretentious creative writing? Is it when a writer simply uses big words? Or when the big words specifically work against audience understanding rather than for it? Can someone using common, run-of-the-mill diction still sound pretentious? Moreover, what if the writer simply knows no other way to write... is it still pretentious if their innate style just happens to sound pretentious?

Also, one massive "ugh" at dense, opaque journal articles. If only the peer-review process included a "Does this person manage to avoid sounding like a smug, incoherent jackass?" requirement. I can only imagine how rarely articles would get published.

[Becky]

(insert agreement and vigorous nodding to Oslo)

Inaccessible journal articles keep the ivory tower intact, but also makes scholarship itself inaccessible, except to those who know the language. Whether or not this is a good thing, I'm not sure. I believe scholarship should be meaningful and in some way better humanity, and to that end, it needs to be clear (what the research did, found) and at the same time, sound in methods. I can understand how that may require detailed description of methods and theory.

For instance, I'm working on some slideshows (one per theory) that explain certain theories to undergraduates. I've found that it's hard to explain theory without overkilling jargon. So, I'm not sure...

Sorry if this is getting to be off topic!

[Gavin Luper]

I have to say I have noticed the same thing as the rest of you about journal articles! It's seriously like people don't WANT anyone to understand what they're saying, because what they're actually saying is weak/pointless/wanky. Other times I think people are just trying to show off all the words they've learned and point out how allegedly "intelligent" they are. It's so unnecessary.

Interesting to see that people have noticed this kind of stuff outside of academia. I guess that's to be expected - it's normal human behaviour in a way, even if it's repugnant. I haven't noticed TOO much of it in banking, but people tend to be a bit more matter-of-fact in that kind of field, there's less pomposity I find, though there are some pockets of it. Still, it completely pales in comparison to doing a Literature unit in an Arts course. Ecch.

Oh, and bloviate is now my new favourite word. Had never even heard of it before. Cheers, Matt!