Do you think it is bad form to for a person to use their intelligence humiliate someone else?

[brookboxed]

Do you think it is bad form to for a person to use their intelligence and education to humiliate someone else in a conversation when that person is obviously not as bright or as educated?

I think it is and that there are more diplomatic ways of resolving these things and getting your point across with out resorting to humiliation. I think in my life there have been multiple times when I could have done this to someone, even been tempted to but to me its so unkind and counterproductive when you are trying have a productive conversation.

I just ask as I witnessed this kind of thing at work yesterday from a very bright colleague who seemed to relish humiliating a more junior member of staff in this way. I previously had a lot of respect for them but have been very disappointed to see them act in this way.

Awful to humiliate someone, in whatever way. I think I’ve been lucky in my work environments because I can’t even imagine scenarios like this. Anyone able to give an example?

The people I know who do this are never as clever as they think they are, and are always intellectually insecure.

A truly intelligent and compassionate person will recognise they need to adapt their communication style to accommodate others in a non derogatory manner.

You see it a lot in people who think they're clever but are actually the opposite. I know someone who has swallowed the Qanon pill and before they did that they knew they weren't smart but managed in other ways. Since going down this rabbit hole they have only got the ability to parrot back ideology. They can't substantiate any arguments and they will talk down to anyone they feel is a threat or who doesn't align with their way of thinking.

An intelligent person will listen, absorb, question, interrogate and problem solve. They also won't participate in ad hominem attacks or see questioning a belief as an ad hominem attack.

I am a firm believer in the adage that we are all born knowing nothing, so let's help each other out along the way.

But I think if it's a person in power you're talking to who is talking absolute shite, and putting you down, or a man doing their usual mansplaining, then yes use your intellect and put them in their box.
You don't need to be rude to someone, but if someone is being pig-headed towards you then a
Scathing educated reply is the best.
I don't suffer fools gladly!

Only absolute cunts do this.

And they usually only want to feel superior to make themselves feel better. It’s one of the reasons I hate people.

I’ve seen it a lot, sadly and I always call it out.

It’s horrible, and makes the ‘superior’ person look a complete arse.
Worst I ever saw was on a private niche forum, where one member took it upon herself to tell another - on the open forum, when she could have sent a PM - that she’d used a Latin phrase incorrectly.
I really did cringe. But that woman was always rather smugly superior, so it was no massive surprise.

An example is the head and some of the teachers at my dds school.

The school is in an extremely deprived area, many of the parents did not have the privilege of taking advantage of education themselves, many have mental health and substance abuse issues.

I help out in the school quite a bit, and I am quite posh and not from here (very obviously as I don’t have the regional accent). So I stand out like a sore thumb to the staff.

Some of the teachers, and especially the head, will talk to other parents terribly, in such a derogatory way. then they will look over at me a roll their eyes or something to try and involve me. However, I am not a wanker so I will help the parent out if I can be of use to them, and I always say something afterwards about how I don’t think they should treat people that way.

oh and the joke is, I might be posh but for many a awful reasons, I couldn’t make the most of education myself as a child. So while the teachers see me as “better” than some of the other parents and want to include me in belittling them, they don’t know that I am not educated myself. Boils my piss.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

This is also why I dislike most proudly-proclaimed pedants. Far too often they’re just mocking people whose literacy is poor because they weren’t fortunate enough to receive a good education or because they have learning difficulties. Which is not pedantry, it’s just unnecessarily unkind and intended to humiliate or belittle, and it’s hardly a mark of pride.

Pedantry should be played on a level playing field: like the stand-off I (Company Secretary, qualified solicitor) have going on with the Chair of our Board (also a qualified solicitor) where she determinedly “corrects” my placement of semi colons, use of Oxford commas, sentence structure and so on, and I steadfastly continue to either ignore or recorrect her edits and write in my preferred way regardless. Each of us is following grammatical principles which are often agreed to be equally correct, or for which usage can be legitimately argued; each of us is equally educated; neither of us is willing to back down. We are pedants of equal standing, so it’s a fair exchange.

This thread reminds me of this scene from The Big Bang Theory:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VK-b1CtIATw&pp=ygUXU2hlbGRvbiBodW1pbGlhdGluZyB6YWs%3D

This is also why I dislike most proudly-proclaimed pedants. Far too often they’re just mocking people whose literacy is poor because they weren’t fortunate enough to receive a good education or because they have learning difficulties.

Or because they don’t give a shit if they make mistakes while posting mainly pointless shit online to pass the time. I’ve seen some absolute tossers on here over the years, who the hell do they think they are correcting people or outwardly taking the piss on some meaningless parenting forum?

I always imagine them so happy and smug that that have made someone feel like shit for spelling something wrong or using an incorrect term or grammar on a bloody forum that doesn’t matter.

How sad have you got to be to do that? Or to correct people in general, why do they care so much?

The ones who wind me up most are the “*you’re” dickheads. oh, excuse me, Shakespeare, I’ve made a typo. Yes, I saw that too, but I’ve got a life so I couldn’t be arsed to edit. I’m glad you have enough time on your hands to point it out though, fucking bravo, have an honorary doctorate.

I’m a feminist academic who thinks my field, which is female-dominated, uses specialist terms among peers, like all fields where peers are talking to peers who share specialised knowledge.

There’s nothing any more elitist about it than if two plumbers are talking together about a job and using the jargon of their field of specialism. No one is ‘talking down’ to anyone, precisely because everyone involved speaks the specialist idiom of the field of training.

They would obviously use a different, less specialised register if talking to non-plumbers/ incoming first year students who haven’t begun to acquire the necessary skill set yet, or, say, doing a TV programme where you’re disseminating research to the general public. The top students have acquired by the end of their degree.

It certainly doesn’t involve misogyny. It’s the language of a feminist research field. And you’re saying more about your own psychological makeup than that of the people you’re describing when you start speculating wildly about their emotional deficiency or sadism.

Clearly, it’s a pity if you’ve been in a situation in which you don’t understand the language register being used, but surely it makes sense to recognise that you’re just a poor match for the situation, rather than decide it’s everyone else’s fault for being elitist or misogynist.

Threads like this make me realise there’s a strong strand of anti-intellectualism in British culture. Even the words ‘clever’ or ‘intelligent’ makes a vocal minority froth with accusations of elitism and emotional deficiency hidden by pseudo intellectual armour, and an apparently unthinking equation of high intelligence with low emotional intelligence.

@OrigamiStar
Interesting that you say "Clearly, it’s a pity if you’ve been in a situation in which you don’t understand the language register being used" when I haven't indicated in my post that's been an issue for me. I am part of that world, I just witness the use of unnecessarily woolly language as a way of demonstrating intellect rather than conveying information more effectively.

I think the field of feminist academia is the worst for using unnecessarily complex and obfuscatory language - like it is over-compensating to be seen as a 'real' discipline. "Clearly, it’s a pity if you’ve been in a situation in which you don’t understand the language register being used" is a prime example of the OP's point - it is not misogyny, it is arseholery.