The difference between smart, and smart-ass
By PATRICK VERT
Jan 18 2006
A common nugget of trivia is that the average I.Q. floats between 90 and 110. Anywhere upwards of 125 is exceptional. Contrary to popular belief, I.Q. tests do not measure intelligence per se, but rather your capacity to process information, both verbal and non-verbal. What is less celebrated than the average is this statistic: a full 25 percent of the general population have a very low I.Q. Half of the population could be classified as either low or mediocre at best. Sort of puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? Out of a population of 6 billion, 1.5 billion are, well . . . dull.
Of greater significance is what this implies. A strong majority of all humans cannot comprehend phenomena like satire, sarcasm and irony. If you are a person with a subtle-but-strong bite to their wit, chances are you have endured your fair share of accusations. You are a cynic. You have no tact. You have no faith in the essential kindness of others. Your bedtime stories frighten the nieces and nephews unreasonably. Your partner doesn’t want to take you to restaurants anymore because of the way you talk to the servers. That sort of thing.
For many of us—say, that other 25 percent well beyond the 110 quotient—such judgments are simply unavoidable. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that I.Q. tests are culturally biased and unreliable. Never mind that. I have important excuses to make for myself right now. No careful explanation will get me out of my many various daily verbal jams. An extreme example should help illustrate the point. Spike Lee begins his film Bamboozled with a dictionary definition of the word “satire.” Kevin Smith had a similar disclaimer for Dogma. They both knew the audience would hemorrhage into spasms of misunderstanding and outrage. As I recall, the warnings did not help one bit. In both cases I observed couples storming out of the theatre. The Oxford Standard Dictionary couldn’t save the filmmakers and it has never helped me all those times I attempted to assert a difference between the words “cynic” and “wise-ass.”
For many years I could not understand why my use of irony and sarcasm was being taken literally by so many people. I now see the problem as being one of mass incomprehension of just what exactly irony is (Alanis Morrissette comes to mind). Of course, there is a remote chance that I am simply a jerk. Naturally, instead of turning inward to my limitations I would rather choose to take refuge in the statistics. A strong majority of the population are not shooting across all their synapses.
Think back to the last time you got into a bad fight with a friend after a distasteful quip. You stormed out of that pub feeling partially incensed, partially guilty, and partially craving a pizza. You ordered that pizza, generously offered a slice to your roommates and solicited their advice. What you got in return was a lot of canned consolations about communication being The Key. You felt strangely unfulfilled. Maybe what you need is less communication. Perhaps it is high time you asked yourself, “is my friend stupid?” There is a 25 percent chance the answer is yes. Let me put this in terms of probability: one out of four of your friends are stupid. Those are good odds. Moreover, there’s a 50/50 shot your friend is just plain boring. Don’t pretend the thought hasn’t crossed your mind before.
The link between intelligence and an acute sense of humour is not entirely speculative. Research in cognitive development has long since identified the early emergence of an advanced sense of humour as a key characteristic of gifted children. According to one professor of education studies, Dr. Paul Jewell, understanding and creating humour requires the ability to relate complex levels of concepts, incongruities, as well as a highly developed sensitivity to other perspectives and beliefs.
Neurophysiologically, the comprehension of irony is directly related to higher brain functioning. For all intents and purposes, a joke starts in the language centre of the left hemisphere, moves to the frontal lobes and right hemisphere in order to process contradictions, literal meaning and social cues, and finally ends up in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in order to flush out the funny from the person’s entire world of social and emotional knowledge. Interestingly, sarcasm—widely regarded as the lowest form of humour—is likewise processed by these higher brain functions. We have all had the experience of telling a joke that goes over the listener’s head. If any of the above discoveries are correct, such failures are not necessarily rooted in the joke’s delivery.
For these reasons my partner has a worse time of it than I do. She is a certified genius. Her logic is hot on overdrive compared to the rest of us plebs. To make matters worse, her humour is painfully British. Altogether, no one has any idea what dialect of gibberish she’s speaking. As if that isn’t aggravating enough, she has to take into account pesky social norms that dictate she can’t go around throttling people by the neck. Remember, communication is the key.
Don’t worry. My partner abides by that rule of thumb and puts up with the stigma of being an eccentric. Her problem, however, is easy enough to generalize to the masses. We have all been inside that conversation about our goofball relative, “I think Uncle Bob might not be firing on all cylinders
. . .” Silently, everyone agrees. Uncle Bob is a freak and his friends are idiots. Given all the facts above, I implore you, don’t give up on Bob. Tell him to ditch his friends and get out less. Communication is often a very rusty key and being considered anti-social is a small price to pay for contentment.
By PATRICK VERT
Jan 18 2006
A common nugget of trivia is that the average I.Q. floats between 90 and 110. Anywhere upwards of 125 is exceptional. Contrary to popular belief, I.Q. tests do not measure intelligence per se, but rather your capacity to process information, both verbal and non-verbal. What is less celebrated than the average is this statistic: a full 25 percent of the general population have a very low I.Q. Half of the population could be classified as either low or mediocre at best. Sort of puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? Out of a population of 6 billion, 1.5 billion are, well . . . dull.
Of greater significance is what this implies. A strong majority of all humans cannot comprehend phenomena like satire, sarcasm and irony. If you are a person with a subtle-but-strong bite to their wit, chances are you have endured your fair share of accusations. You are a cynic. You have no tact. You have no faith in the essential kindness of others. Your bedtime stories frighten the nieces and nephews unreasonably. Your partner doesn’t want to take you to restaurants anymore because of the way you talk to the servers. That sort of thing.
For many of us—say, that other 25 percent well beyond the 110 quotient—such judgments are simply unavoidable. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that I.Q. tests are culturally biased and unreliable. Never mind that. I have important excuses to make for myself right now. No careful explanation will get me out of my many various daily verbal jams. An extreme example should help illustrate the point. Spike Lee begins his film Bamboozled with a dictionary definition of the word “satire.” Kevin Smith had a similar disclaimer for Dogma. They both knew the audience would hemorrhage into spasms of misunderstanding and outrage. As I recall, the warnings did not help one bit. In both cases I observed couples storming out of the theatre. The Oxford Standard Dictionary couldn’t save the filmmakers and it has never helped me all those times I attempted to assert a difference between the words “cynic” and “wise-ass.”
For many years I could not understand why my use of irony and sarcasm was being taken literally by so many people. I now see the problem as being one of mass incomprehension of just what exactly irony is (Alanis Morrissette comes to mind). Of course, there is a remote chance that I am simply a jerk. Naturally, instead of turning inward to my limitations I would rather choose to take refuge in the statistics. A strong majority of the population are not shooting across all their synapses.
Think back to the last time you got into a bad fight with a friend after a distasteful quip. You stormed out of that pub feeling partially incensed, partially guilty, and partially craving a pizza. You ordered that pizza, generously offered a slice to your roommates and solicited their advice. What you got in return was a lot of canned consolations about communication being The Key. You felt strangely unfulfilled. Maybe what you need is less communication. Perhaps it is high time you asked yourself, “is my friend stupid?” There is a 25 percent chance the answer is yes. Let me put this in terms of probability: one out of four of your friends are stupid. Those are good odds. Moreover, there’s a 50/50 shot your friend is just plain boring. Don’t pretend the thought hasn’t crossed your mind before.
The link between intelligence and an acute sense of humour is not entirely speculative. Research in cognitive development has long since identified the early emergence of an advanced sense of humour as a key characteristic of gifted children. According to one professor of education studies, Dr. Paul Jewell, understanding and creating humour requires the ability to relate complex levels of concepts, incongruities, as well as a highly developed sensitivity to other perspectives and beliefs.
Neurophysiologically, the comprehension of irony is directly related to higher brain functioning. For all intents and purposes, a joke starts in the language centre of the left hemisphere, moves to the frontal lobes and right hemisphere in order to process contradictions, literal meaning and social cues, and finally ends up in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in order to flush out the funny from the person’s entire world of social and emotional knowledge. Interestingly, sarcasm—widely regarded as the lowest form of humour—is likewise processed by these higher brain functions. We have all had the experience of telling a joke that goes over the listener’s head. If any of the above discoveries are correct, such failures are not necessarily rooted in the joke’s delivery.
For these reasons my partner has a worse time of it than I do. She is a certified genius. Her logic is hot on overdrive compared to the rest of us plebs. To make matters worse, her humour is painfully British. Altogether, no one has any idea what dialect of gibberish she’s speaking. As if that isn’t aggravating enough, she has to take into account pesky social norms that dictate she can’t go around throttling people by the neck. Remember, communication is the key.
Don’t worry. My partner abides by that rule of thumb and puts up with the stigma of being an eccentric. Her problem, however, is easy enough to generalize to the masses. We have all been inside that conversation about our goofball relative, “I think Uncle Bob might not be firing on all cylinders
. . .” Silently, everyone agrees. Uncle Bob is a freak and his friends are idiots. Given all the facts above, I implore you, don’t give up on Bob. Tell him to ditch his friends and get out less. Communication is often a very rusty key and being considered anti-social is a small price to pay for contentment.
