I’ve got questions about the concept of “smart.” First, is it an objective or subjective term, the word, smart? What makes a person smart? Is it always comparative to it’s perceived opposite, dumb, dense, or dull?
Who determines if you’re smart or not smart? How do we perceive smart? Are we jealous and do we think derogatorily of those we perceive of as smart or do we envy them?
A lot of the idioms associated with the word smart are really, very sarcastic or ironic. So, it makes me wonder if the word smart is not all that flattering. Or perhaps it’s a set-up, or stitch-up as the British say.
For example, Maxwell Smart, the title character on the 1960s television show, Get Smart, was a bumbling, oblivious spy. His name was chosen by show creators to ironically highlight his obvious lack of intelligence.
Then again, wise, now there’s a word. That’s a word you’d like to be associated with, unless someone labels you a “wise-guy.”
What makes it so flattering to be thought of as wise? I wonder if the contrast between smart and wise, is that we covet being smart but we aspire to be wise.
Some of those sarcastic colloquialisms about being smart are really put-downs for someone who’s a know-it-all. For example, the title idiom, “smarty pants,” and another one, “smart aleck,” refers to someone who wants to appear intelligent or clever but can’t pull it off naturally.
The origins of the “smart aleck” moniker was a police nickname for a 1840s New York criminal, pimp, and con-artist, Aleck Hoag. He was labeled “too smart for his own good,” or one might say “too smart for his britches.” He was conceited in his folly.
Hoag acted like a “wise-guy,” conceited and irritatingly self-assertive, clever but cocky and outwitting the police at every turn. One could almost describe a smart aleck or wise-guy as someone smart or even wise but in all the wrong ways, using one’s intellect for hurtful, arrogant or narcissistic uses rather than for good, or to uplift others.
That smart and sharp are synonymous, is evident in the phrases: sharp as a tack, not the sharpest tool in the shed, he’s a sharp dresser.
A “smart cookie” is an idiom popularized in the 1940s when food metaphors for individuals were used ubiquitously, like “sweetie,” “sweetheart,” and “tough cookie.”
So the word, smart, is used primarily to describe sharpness, quickness, intelligence, wit, stinging commentary or physical pain, cutting-edge technology, elegance or stylish appearance. If you’re described in any way as smart, you are on it, with it, up to speed, and all about the new and now; and someone noticed.
I wonder, is it desirous to be the smartest person in the room? Do kids want to be the smartest one in class?
Is “dumb-luck” and average intelligence perhaps better to live with than the Mensa, high-IQ kind of smart? What do you do with all that “smartest person in the room,” stuff? I don’t mean to be a smart aleck or a wise-guy, but I’m good with being the unnoticed listener in the room.
I’m happy observing the smart folk. The Dalai Lama said, “When you talk you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”