My friend told this to me today. He was implying the name of an author but me and my friends were totally stumped and didn't know who he was talking about. Then he says "Oh, I'll just have to talk with (name of another friend) since he's an intellectual and knows this author" and yadda yadda. He's also black.
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Anonymous2006-08-04 0:14
Intellectual is a dirty, meaningless word. I usually use it as an insult.
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Anonymous2006-08-04 1:20
>>1
Reading books is a common characteristic of intellectuals, but by no means are they directly related. It doesn't matter how many times you've read Harry Potter or Tom Clancy, it doesn't make you an intellectual.
As an intellectual, I take pride in the fact that I don't know all the bullshit authors pumping out bullshit every day.
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Anonymous2006-08-09 14:47
Reading books means you know how to read a book. Doesn't make you an intellectual any more than watching a little TV makes you a couch potato.
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Anonymous2006-08-09 18:16
If he thinks he's better than you for reading a book, he's an immature person.
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Anonymous2006-08-10 13:06
>>1
you and your other friends should get together and beat the shit out of him
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Anonymous2006-08-12 18:00
That's untrue, I enjoy reading books and am also retarded.
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Anonymous2006-08-12 21:22
Schopenhauer on Reading
When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid. For to occupy every spare moment in reading, and to do nothing but read, is even more paralyzing to the mind than constant manual labor, which at least allows those engaged in it to follow their own thoughts. A spring never free from the pressure of some foreign body at last loses its elasticity; and so does the mind if other people’s thoughts are constantly forced upon it. Just as you can ruin the stomach and impair the whole body by taking too much nourishment, so you can overfill and choke the mind by feeding it too much. The more you read, the fewer are the traces left by what you have read: the mind becomes like a tablet crossed over and over with writing. There is no time for ruminating, and in no other way can you assimilate what you have read. If you read on and on without setting your own thoughts to work, what you have read can not strike root, and is generally lost. It is, in fact, just the same with mental as with bodily food: hardly the fifth part of what one takes is assimilated. The rest passes off in evaporation, respiration and the like.
Anonymous on Schopenhauer: all philosophers are retarded. It therefore follows implicitly that Schopenhauer is a retard.
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Anonymous2006-08-14 2:11
A guy I know carried Ulysseus around for the sole purpose of looking smart. It actually did the opposite because I started talking about the book in class once and when he had nothing to say in response he looked like the dumbass he was.
>>19
Yes it is. Unfortunately for Schopenhauer, it's a bad point.
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Anonymous2006-08-16 14:05
I think the more you read, ther more your vocabulary expands. So the 'intelligent' you sound. But that only works if you read a lot.
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Anonymous2006-08-16 22:20
>>21
False. I read a lot of complicated words and books and I don't pick up any of the words from there. By what you're saying, using the internet makes you smarter. I visit a lot of forums and when I see someone use a word that I don't know the definition for, I look it up and add it to vocabularY. LOLZ
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Anonymous2006-08-17 1:31
Anytime I dont know a word, i look it up.
part of expanding your everyday vocab.
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Anonymous2006-08-17 10:56
>>23
It must be fun reading difficult books. What is this, 9th grade english class? Even writing it down subtracts from an experience, and in the end, unless a word is usable in a daily context it will be gone within a few months.
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Anonymous2006-08-17 13:17
I think thats only the case if you have a shitty memory.
Just reading Schopenhauer writing about how reading makes you passively follow the thoughts of another person. And while reading the extract, I was always THINKING “Is that what I experience when I read?”, and remembering all those times when, while reading, I stopped and started challenging a point from the book or article, and all those times when it made me think of something else, or when I just took on myself to develop and refine a point from my own experience and knowledge.
So here I was, challenging Schopenhauer's point that when you read, you don't really think.
Reading isn't just ONE process (And the question “what do we do when we're reading” has multiple answers. It depends on the reader, the material being read, the situation, etc.)
The fuck's an intellectual? Can he cast Magic Missile?
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Anonymous2006-08-30 16:35
I think I can answer the OP's query by restating his question:
Does reading Soul Survivors: The Official Autobiography of Destiny's Child by Beyoncé Knowles make you an intellectual?
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Anonymous2006-08-30 21:25
I used to have a great vocabulary, but I simplified my language simply because I don't have alot of intellectuals to talk to these days. It's just not practical to confuse people with words and make yourself look like a pompous ass... but sometimes I wish I was less lazy growing up, so I might've gone to a better university and become an intellectual. It must be great to just be an intellectual, in everyday life. Being intellectual and stuff.
>>37
Hey! I'll have you know we Americans read quite a bit! Why, just the other day I purchased the autobiographies of quite possibly the greatest Americans on Earth: Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton.
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Anonymous2006-09-03 6:19
Bush says he reads 60 books per year. I guess that makes him a bigger intellectual than any of yuo.
Certainly not. There are many, many stupid books written for even stupider people. Furthermore, how are you supposed to know every author, evar? I've read quite a bit, but that doesn't mean I know who the fuck Fran B. Shitqueef is.
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Anonymous2006-09-03 19:08
Not reading books doesn't make you american, it makes you a nigger! Or a nigger-lover.
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Anonymous2006-09-03 21:50
What is an intellectual?
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Anonymous2006-09-03 23:43
Bush says he reads 60 books per year.
Unless he's on a permanent vacation, that's total horseshit. What are they, 100-page-long pieces of fiction?
The man finished both Harvard and Yale and is the president of the world's superpower, why are you questioning his reading habbits?
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Anonymous2006-09-04 11:31
>>48
>>The man passed out of institutions where family background and money count more than academic credentials, why are you questioning his reading habits?
Fixed.
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Anonymous2006-09-04 12:39
>>48
Sixty books per year. In between all the exercise he does, in between sleeping and eating, in between presidential work. And still he somehow screws up his english in every speech.
COME. ON.
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Anonymous2006-09-04 12:39
Maybe he just screwed up his english AGAIN and meant to say sixteen?
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Anonymous2006-09-04 20:41
Or six-ey? Like six-ish books per year?
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Anonymous2006-09-04 20:42
Or maybe he started to say six, but changed it to sixty at the last moment to try and look intellectual.
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Anonymous2006-09-04 21:30
I wanted to write something, but no matter how hard I try, >>50 summarized what I think perfectly.
"COME. ON." indeed.
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Anonymous2006-09-05 4:02
Bush spends all or part of 54 days, including many weekends, roaming at his designated free range facility.
the real question is does being a intellectual even fucking matter? people are so concered about being one just to inflate their ego. fucking read is you want to read and no niggers cant read all the pages get stuck from bbq sauce
>>69
Well, it's not about ego, really. Intellectuals are the refinement of humans into functional, rational, knowledgable and creative creatures.
That's what the Renaissance was all about, the rise of intellectuality, reason and rationality once more.
As a rule, if you read non-fiction, you're obviously considerably more intelligent than those that read fiction -- but not always. Some non-fiction is formed in that of an anecdotal essay to convey an unfamiliar idea to more people who don't have a high yield for imagination. Nineteen Eighty-Four or dystopian fiction are decent examples of that particular phenomon.
Most people, when they read non-fiction such as instruction manuals and how-to books don't immediately grasp the possible applications of that knowledge, from these occurances we grasp that they do not have a decent imagination since they can't formulate these things in their minds. Those who do read non-fiction, on the other hand, posess this uncommon gift.
>"people are so concered about being one just to inflate their ego. fucking read is you want to read and no niggers cant read all the pages get stuck from bbq sauce"
While a pitiful attempt at formulating a thought, this is very humorous for an example of why being not just an intellectual -- but being intelligent matters. A person who holds this property is indefinitely at an advantage at somebody who doesn't.
People who can't think straight, people like #69, are what we refer to as 'idiots'. While we use this word in so many innappropriate contexts, the context that I use it in is appropriate. Communication is important to the establishment of a functioning society, societies that communicate better accomplish more things since they can operate in a fluid, harmonious matter. Canada, for example, is a society that operates like this.
Reading books obviously does not make you an intellectual but reading makes up a good fraction of what intellectuality is all about, being an intellectual means adopting a different lifestyle with clear focused goals in life, ethical values, reading regularly and thinking critically about that subject matter, working on various projects, and most of all -- universal understanding of humanity and current events, something that's hard to attain, but valuable once it's gained.
Wow, he explains it all. Of course being intelligent is a good thing, but when you start saying this sort of stuff in front of idiots there could be some dire consequences.
For example, you wouldn't tell Black people that AIDs is a cure for the sins they've commited? Or even tell Christians or Muslims to go fuck their God in an intellectual debate. Their primitive minds won't allow such reasoning, and fear of the unknown will drive them to acts of irrational violence.
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Anonymous2006-10-11 21:24
>>72
I don't believe that 4channers are really primitive, I think it's really just a front they all put on for giggles.
Anyways, most of the stuff people discuss here is bestsellers. I found a book in my basement today called the "Handyman's Handbook", you won't find the same book on Google or Amazon -- I've tried. It's got over 800 neat little tidbits for handy little fix ups around the house.
Like a recipe book, almost. This of course, pre-dates the age of "For Dummies" books, the "Chicken Soup for Jackass's soul" era. As well as all that other modern rubbish literature, like "Atkins Diet" and other shit. Seriously, if you wanna know how to eat well, study the organs and biological insides of your body. You'll stop eating that McDonalds shit in an instant when you realize how much sodium one of their hamburgers has -- and actually know what Sodium does to the body.
5 grams a day is all you need, anything more on a regular basis and you're risking heart disease.
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Anonymous2006-10-14 8:49
intellectuals enjoy reading books, not the other way around
you can usually tell which is which when the faggot pseudointellectual starts flaunting the stuff he's read
that's like saying if smart people listened to bach, listening to bach would make you smarter
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Anonymous2006-10-14 10:12
intellectuals enjoy reading books, not the other way around
Books enjoy reading intellectuals?