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John Hodgman On the Coming Geek Culture
An anonymous reader writes "Famous writer and minor television personality John Hodgman posits the end of the culture of Jockdom in favor of a cultural reverence for engineers, scientists and Slashdot readers: 'Jockdom is very noble. It's not deliberative. It's certainly the best way to win wars. It's the best way to motivate teams of people to fulfill a goal — not just war, but getting things done. The most important way to motivate a factory floor. But as you know, we're not as much of a manufacturing society as we were before. China and other big industrial nations are rewarding their nerds and technicians rather than creating a culture that makes fun of them — it would be wise for us to embrace the book-smart as much as our culture has traditionally embraced the street-smart, the jock-smart. I'm not saying nerds must have their revenge; I'm just saying the time for wedgies is at an end.'"
And since we live in the real world, people that combine intelligence with street smarts will always be the most valuable. Not just in war, but in any endeavor that requires getting a group of mad apes to come together.
That being said, I think the jock thing is a little overblown. Plenty of near-autistic nerds with no social skills are getting paid just fine, despite our supposed jockocracy and out societies baffling refusal to put us at the center of the universe.
Even at an implementation level, the jockdom approach to war was over decades ago. Oppenheimer et al, and many, many others over the years have obsoleted most of that approach.
The dichotomy between nerds and jocks is a false one, and it has been for some time. The stereotypes assert that "jocks" who are socially active, athletic, and attractive must not have any interest in technology, be smart, or value intellectual pursuits. Likewise, "nerds" who are smart and dedicated to learning must be slobs, socially awkward, and unattractive. This hasn't been the case at any time in the last decade or so that I've been paying attention. Some of the smartest and most academically successful people at my high school, who went on to attend highly prestigious universities, some to study science and engineering, were also athletic, social, attractive people. Many of the socially awkward nerds were not smart and did not value learning. In college, a significant percentage of my incredibly smart engineering colleagues had been high school football stars, loved to party, and were quite successful in relationships.
Now that I'm in law school, it's clear that my fellow students value intelligence (including technical knowledge) right along with social prowess and appearance. The entire spectrum of personal attributes is not only respected, but expected in these circles. I believe this has been the norm among high-performing, successful people for quite some time now - it's not even clear that the jock-nerd dichotomy every really existed the way it is portrayed. As far as I can tell, the real divide has everything to do with social skills and nothing to do with intelligence.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Women, despite outnumbering men, have been unable to achieve equality in macho culture despite at least 100 years of effort. No big reason to think that nerds will do any better.
Jocks won wars back when mankind was throwing spears at each other. Once we got guns that could out-range the strongest spear-thrower, the jocks were obsolete.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I'd love to be wrong. But I don't think I am.
you could preserve american labor, and someone else would use cheaper overseas labor. then american consumers would buy that cheaper product of which nothing, not even company headquarters, gets a cut of that profit. then the next step is protectionism, where you insist everyone buy more expensive american made goods. then people buy far less, or they buy black market goods, because patriotism does not magically put money into your bank account, and you still need to buy a refrigerator. meanwhile, the rest of the world enjoys better products at cheaper prices while the american economy stagnates and shrinks, cut off from the rest of the world because of protectionism
i'm sorry, but in the interest of what is best for the united states, fuck american labor. the industrial age is over, let china pollute itself rather than the usa. and unions seem less like their ancestors, out to protect american labor from predatory management, and more like the new predator: upper middle class incomes at the expense of everyone else, including the health of the company, and the country
goodbye GM, goodbye industrial dinosaurs, good fucking riddance. if that means we are a poorer country for it, fine, no problem. as if the industrial age defines what is best for us, or even the only model for wealth creation possible. no, your lament at the decline of american labor only means that you don't know any better, not that there isn't anything better than what you have unilaterally decided is the come-all be-all of existence. you think the industrial model is only thing that defines wealth creation, and for some reason is fixed in your mind as a golden age, and all that comes after is somehow magically inferior. maybe its superior, and you simply don't see that. superior not in terms of the economic imperialism of past ages, but superior in simple quality of life
japan is coping with ecnomic decline to a far greater extent than the usa, and for a lot longer (since their economy stagnated in 1990). and maybe it means the japanese aren't seen as ubereconomic imperial masters any more, but maybe it also means less salarymen are having heart attacks and that the japanese have a more mellow, easier and happier life. the europeans have months of vacation time and generous social safety nets. so what exactly should we be fighting to retain in your mind? are we at economic war with the world?
fuck your fetishization of the industrial age as all we should aspire to. welcome the poorer, more mellower american age. time to step off the world stage as its master, and fuck you to those of you who think we need to stay in that role for some reason
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From the article: 'My town is the best because the incredibly wealthy owners decided to keep the team for now.' Or, 'My political team is the best because it was my dad's and they best stoke my primitive fears,' as opposed to 'They have the best policies for me and my family.'
Required reading. In a couple of short sentences, he exposes and decodes the core cultural aberration of the false spectacle - the pseudo-life - in which people imagine themselves.
*Laugh* - Life is pseudo-life. About 99% of what I do is an escape from reality really. But what is reality, sit there and do nothing but stare at a wall and you're in reality?
:).
Presumably being a geek, you play video games right? Or have played D&D? Or like movies? Or dream?
The first 2 examples you gave have nothing to do with "pseudo-life", they just have to do with someone making presumably poor decisions based on emotion rather than logic. But if their decision brings them a sense of happiness (which is all success or happiness really is, whatever it's defined as for you, maybe it's more important to them that their local team wins than them having good school systems), was it really the illogical decision? In your set of logic, yes, in their scope maybe not?
Ahh, we could spin on this for hours. There's no right or wrong answer in politics and societal norms, which is what this is really about.
That said, being a geek, I hope we get more respect, paid more and are considered more attractive (although I seem to get a lot of respect from people now, that has never been a huge issue really?) and I think the author has some good points.
I just disagree with your sentiment about "pseudo-life"
is still practiced by the usa. protectionism is practiced by every single country. protectionism will always be practiced, and used as a threat, regardless of any trade treaty signed by anyone
but SIGNIFICANT protectionism, which most people mean when they talk about the issue, of the kind that would actually make a dent in the flow of jobs overseas, would cripple the american economy, in all sorts of ways, not all of which having to do with job protectionism or consumer behavior. ti woudl cripple the american economy to a greater degree than anything you could possibly gain by retaining american jobs in the industrial sector
you do understand that right?
and please enough with the slave labor propaganda. no american company is selling products made with slave labor. and if they are, they are exposed, shamed, and switch manufacturers. there are watchgroups where all they do is look for these kinds of abuses. the indonesian sweat shops making nike sneakers made for good antiglobalism propaganda in 1998. but its 2009, and nike and anyone else in business is making damn sure they don't run into that kind of business-killing bad PR ever again
now if you want to talk about a genuine issue, talk about environmental degradation. thats real. basically, cheap chinese made products are giving chinese people cancer due to china's complete lack of giving a shit about their abuse of their own environment
but do you really think protectionism is the way to address that?
"So what is more important? That we have consumer goods as cheaply as possible, or that we live our values as a nation?"
that we have consumers goods as cheaply as possible. duh
you yourself probably went to buy something at walmart after writing that highminded but empty appeal. plenty of people will agree with you, pay you lip service, it sounds grand: principles over cheap plastic crap. but absolutely no one will put that into practice. when you are standing in the store, and you have to buy that microwave, the $150 dollar one is not going to be bought. the $50 dollar one is. that $100 is worth a hell of a lot more to you than empty highmindedness
unless you are upper middle class or rich and actually have the disposable income to put your words into action. for everyone else scraping by, the vast majority of us: get real
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As far as I've heard and experienced, the whole "nerd" stigma is an entirely American concept. There aren't really any such thing as "nerds" in Russian or Asian schools; some kids get better grades than others, but they all play football ("soccer") together or climb mountains or whatever. Would anyone in the international community care to elaborate?
I spent about 4 years growing up in Thailand during my childhood and went to an international school. So my personal sampling is skewed. I suppose we did make fun of kids with "teh ghey", but that eventually wore off once we realized how popular they were with the girls.
On returning to the US in 8th grade, the thing that got me the most was that no one played... back East we'd chomp down our lunches in 5 minutes and run out to spend the rest of our break time playing "balloon" or "rabbit" or "tee" or some other form form of zombie / team tag. The only form of physical activity was excruciatingly over-organized team sports with lots of rules and very brief bursts of activity followed by protracted yelling and arguments... more of a game for the enjoyment of politicians and lawyers if you ask me.
Anyway, other countries do have a lot more respect for education and teachers as a profession. Here they're treated more like some form of social worker, maybe marginally higher than street sweepers or bus drivers. Although the same thing appears to be happening to medical doctors now (back when I was growing up in Asia, a doctor was about the best thing a kid could grow up to be... so I was actually kinda surprised to find a lot of my childhood friends growing up to be computer programmers :P ).
I highly doubt any of this nonsense is even close to reality. Here in "Real Life" we have gone from Shakespeare, Plato, Bach, Dorvak, Doyle, Poe, Shelly, and other great literary and cultural wonders to Tila Tequila and reality TV.
Here in "Real Life" the rewarding of the lazy, unproductive, immoral, self destructive, and intolerant has only accelerated in the last 30 years.
Our 'assaletes' are substance abusing, spouse abusing, liars. Our politicians are corrupt. Our Scientists are too busy pandering and tailoring research to meet grant requirments and political agendas, and our businesses are too busy keeping the contemporary corporate ponzi scheme alfoat to generate any real wealth.
Between being moral bankrupt, greedy, dihonsest, and hypocritical this Geek veneration smells like more B as in B, S as in S.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I hate to say it, but there is no coming shift to geek culture. There simply are not enough geeks compared to "normal people." Geeks don't have the spending power or sheer numbers to really matter. While geeks might have been on the cutting edge at one point, things like the internet, instant messaging, e-mail, social media didn't really start to matter until they started to appeal to more people besides a small niche population.
While geeks may be some of the driving forces behind some of these advancements, only a few of them actually reap the rewards. Case in point, Twitter has gone mainstream. But who has the largest following? Ashton Kutcher.
I just spent some time trying to track a gift down for my wife. In the search results, I came across a forum for handbags/purses. I've seen all sorts of forums in the past: Computers, DVDs, Anime, Cars, Sports, etc, but this was the first time I came across a forum like that. The ladies on that forum are not shifting to geek culture, they're just using new tools to communicate with others of similar interests in new ways.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
I am with you. Seems like he has fallen victim to the American victim culture. No matter how good you have it, you are being persecuted. Bullying is a problem in school. I haven't had an issue with it as an adult.
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