To all who have input

[Cygnus]

When faced with an academic or intellectual task, why is it so common to shrug off the prospect as "pretentious?" Don't you enjoy working with knowledge, information, and speculation?



Do you believe there might be certain types that are more likely to dismiss a topic as "pretentious" than others? I've seen this mindset from mostly Se-Ti types, especially ESTPs; Ti-types I've noted to be most critical of experimental ideas where the immediate purpose is not practical or apparent, while Se-types have tended to dislike hypothesis and speculation in the place of decisive, productive action.

Oddly, I've known ESFPs to be relatively open to experimental or novel exploits that sometimes overlap with the "Academic" realm, possibly as a result of Fi putting faith in any prospect that claims to take itself seriously, and dispite the apparent lack of a desire for "mental masturbation" usually associated with Ne.

ISTPs I haven't known to be as guilty of this as the ESTPs; I've seen ISTPs involved in hobbies involving high-level thinking, and I have seen them dabble in much more obscure areas, bringing great amounts of background knowledge and technical expertise to the table.


It doesn't have to be type-related for the purpose of this thread, and I'm not in any way claiming to be some sort of "intellectual" here, but I'm curious as to what you think.

 

[Cellmold]

It's funny I was just thinking about something similar myself.

Now I'm not very intellectual at all; I tend to find there is a sort of informing going on where I give more time to subjects of interest because I've had experiences that make them relevant. But with that comes laziness when a subject isn't part of my relevant experiences.

This could be said of a lot of people, maybe. But I do think there are those with a greater inclination to go deeper into a topic when others are satisfied. Have you ever been that person in a group setting? It's an odd situation where you can feel the general interest petering off, but yours is greater than ever and you want to share those thoughts partly to validate them and partly to bounce off others and see more avenues to be explored in that topic.

Yet I've more often been the one whose interest is petering. As I get older direct application becomes far more desirable than discussed potentials.

 

[Cygnus]

Now I'm not very intellectual at all; I tend to find there is a sort of informing going on where I give more time to subjects of interest because I've had experiences that make them relevant. But with that comes laziness when a subject isn't part of my relevant experiences.

I'm interested. What might some of these subjects be?

This could be said of a lot of people, maybe. But I do think there are those with a greater inclination to go deeper into a topic when others are satisfied. Have you ever been that person in a group setting? It's an odd situation where you can feel the general interest petering off, but yours is greater than ever and you want to share those thoughts partly to validate them and partly to bounce off others and see more avenues to be explored in that topic.

Often. It seems a matter of Intrinsic Motivation to me. When I'm in an "academic" environment I'll be much more motivated to put effort and creativity into projects, often bordering on perfectionism. An attitude I see from some others is that they're willing to do the job according to set guidelines, but they don't like to "immerse" themselves into the creative flow of the task. I guess I get way too perfectionistic in these matters.

There's an element of hypocrisy in this because I don't always "go out of my way" to learn whatever I can about the matter in my own time, though I will periodically engage in my own "obsessions" in the same way anyone else would. I guess the main point is that I can't understand why I person would reject the notion of accumulating whatever knowledge you can just for learning's sake.




The real question I have is why people take such a "backstabbing" approach to academics. The lack of intrinsic interest in knowledge is what gets me, I guess. The way people will complain about how writing a thesis on how the Ancients had no word for the color "blue" is a "pretentious" topic. That's certainly a difficult topic to write about, but pretentious? You gotta admit that's interesting.


But "pretentious??" What stone-age mentality would make a person think that? Do they have no appreciation for knowledge for its own sake? Moreover, what's with the assumption that everything is socially unacceptable and should be cringed at? How can people carry themselves with airs of professionalism and maturity if their core values haven't evolved past a Middle School lunch table?




^Blecchh, sorry to give you the Holden Caulfield talk again.

 

[Cellmold]

I'm interested. What might some of these subjects be?

Off the top of my head this is hard to pinpoint. But often when people here link various studies I start to read it and then I glaze over and forget half of what I've read, or the point behind it. Now that might be an ingrained habit and laziness on my part but happens on such an automatic scale that I find it difficult to identify how I might remedy that other than it clearly isn't hitting the right spots to allow for an absorptive process.

Another example is when in a thread (the 3rd wave feminism is a good example of this to me) people are arguing using a ton of terminologies and analogies I've never heard of. So I then have to look them up in order to piece together what they're actually trying to say. This lessens my willingness to involve myself, which is no one's fault but mine, however I have a limited amount of time and spreading it too thin across too many subjects is actually detrimental and far from encouraging a search for knowledge it actually puts off the willingness to delve.

I guess this would be unsatisfying an answer to many, but I think it brings me onto the other part of your quote:

Often. It seems a matter of Intrinsic Motivation to me. When I'm in an "academic" environment I'll be much more motivated to put effort and creativity into projects, often bordering on perfectionism. An attitude I see from some others is that they're willing to do the job according to set guidelines, but they don't like to "immerse" themselves into the creative flow of the task. I guess I get way too perfectionistic in these matters.

There's an element of hypocrisy in this because I don't always "go out of my way" to learn whatever I can about the matter in my own time, though I will periodically engage in my own "obsessions" in the same way anyone else would. I guess the main point is that I can't understand why I person would reject the notion of accumulating whatever knowledge you can just for learning's sake.


The real question I have is why people take such a "backstabbing" approach to academics. The lack of intrinsic interest in knowledge is what gets me, I guess. The way people will complain about how writing a thesis on how the Ancients had no word for the color "blue" is a "pretentious" topic. That's certainly a difficult topic to write about, but pretentious? You gotta admit that's interesting.

But "pretentious??" What stone-age mentality would make a person think that? Do they have no appreciation for knowledge for its own sake? Moreover, what's with the assumption that everything is socially unacceptable and should be cringed at? How can people carry themselves with airs of professionalism and maturity if their core values haven't evolved past a Middle School lunch table?

A lot of this is why ideas like typology come about I think. "Why are these people not like me? Why don't they enjoy or strive for the things I strive for which seem so intrinsically important?" I think there is an anti-academic slant in many people, largely because it's not directly applicable because they separate the mental and the physical....although I think they both go into each others realm's and inform what we do.

Some of it might be to do with the idea of genetics and intelligence. But I think a lot of it is also about human ego. People don't like to be made to feel stupid and they are scared of an enormous amount of things (speaking as an E6 and perhaps projecting a little not to mention taking part in the very terminology process I just mentioned....how hypocritical) and ideas beyond the immediate sphere of the planet, or rather their reference, are often threatening to them. Lets face it, there are some ideas that...once they are understood do permanently change a perspective. I think it would be hard to remain unchanged upon becoming aware of significance and size with relation to the universe....or something....maybe multiverse.

So defensively it's easier to look at it as pretentious and also as something that isn't 'practical' because it cannot be directly applied except in the mind.

ps: I'm kind of late for a meeting at a cafe, so this is a bit more rushed than I would like but I'll maybe come back later and go into better detail.