Amos referred this blog to me. Apparently it was featured on STOMP, and it's quite an entertaining read. I haven't read anything recently that amused me as much as it reviled me and gave me the creeps. The blog is here http://theintellectualsnob.blogspot.com/
The author of this blog is an "Intellectual Snob", which quickly becomes apparent when you read her profile. This is her profile on her blog, quoted ad verbatim.
"I read Political Science at Yale University and East Asian Studies at Harvard University after attending Raffles Girls' School and Hwa Chong Junior College. I love to observe the social behaviour of people I meet, and extrapolate their projected behaviour, verbalised thoughts, psyches in their deepest recesses of beings, muted mutterings, emboldened proclamations, naive starry-eyed notions and false bravado. I don't suffer fools gladly. While some say this is my biggest weakness, I believe it's concurrently my biggest strength. Because it's the cherished, icy ability to see things for what they are unclouded by misguided, socially enforced political correctness that gives me a crystal-clear vision of the world and the many fools that inhabit it. At the same time, it's tragic because it's the fools and jesters who know not who they are. Afterall, ignorance is bliss, they say."
She spends her entire blog slagging off the supposed inferiorities of locally educated students from her all knowing eye high up in the sky, beaming down upon us mere mortals in a mix of disgust and pity. Personally I would think being right at the top where she is must be a very lonely place, but she does not seem to want the company of mortals, because she is perfectly fine in her throne up in the sky throwing down divine bolts of judgment to strike the swine educated in local pig farms.
This is her take on local graduates.
"No critical thinking, no logical faculties, no linguistic flair, no presentation talent, no creativity and originality, no emotional sensibilities, no higher-order thinking skills, no intellectual foresight- these are just some of the more common symptoms in the poorly educated witnessed by the rest of society.
It is appalling, because these very same institutions relish making grandiose false claims about their standing, causing great embarrassment overseas among us when we are identified to be Singaporeans by our foreign friends.
There is no remedy, because the common people will always form the great unwashed.
My friends and I feel that this country's future does not bode well. It is possible that there are more stupid people in this generation than the last few. This is because of the multiplier effect. Even if the brilliant had the same number of offspring as the poorly educated, the poorly educated forming the bulk of the sample will spawn more below average minds, making their presence felt in more channels.
On a more microscopic level, it sucks because there are so many of them, one finds herself starved for deserving companionship and good conversation. I'm not even expecting them to be as intelligent as Nobel laureates in top universities we know. It's not often quantum physics or genome technology dominates casual conversations. All we ask from them is have brains of acceptably average IQ capable of processing simple information and even that is not possible with them."
It would be impossible to debate this person on the folly of her ways, because she apparently doesn't see anything wrong with it, but I'm reminded of a line from a Beatles classic, "Hey Jude".
"For well you know that its a fool who plays it cool. By making his world a little colder."
We may not be as clever, or as well educated as Miss Snoob. I would never profess to be, because I know where I stand, and growing up I've been immersed in a system where I've always had peers who were and will always be far more brilliant than I will ever be. All I know is, I'm happy where I am, and a person who spends so much time slagging off everybody else, she can't be very happy. I mean, how happy can you be if you thought you were stepping on dogshit every step you took.
The wisest man in ancient Greek civilisation, probably the first society of intellectuals, was Socrates, precisely because he made this statement.
"I know that I know nothing" (Ancient Greek: ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα hen oída hoti oudén oída)
The greatest fool isn't the person who knows nothing, or the "great unwashed". The greatest fool is the person who thinks she knows everything, because then, she knows nothing.
"At the same time, it's tragic because it's the fools and jesters who know not who they are."
Honestly, Miss Intellectual Snoob, I couldn't have said it better myself.