Pope 1 Kayla Pope Professor Alicia Bolton ENG 101 1 October 2013 Intellectual Stereotypes Have you ever

called someone a nerd or a geek? Are you embarrassed to associate with people who fit in that category? Intellectualism is a highly debated issue among the people of today. Some say it is the most important virtue a person can have; however, others say you can achieve fame and wealth without it. Grant Penrod expresses his opinion on intellectualism in his essay Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids. He reports that high school stereotyping is the first step of degrading intellectualism. Students who are considered nerds are labeled to have no social life. They are constantly ridiculed and bullied. Society believes that education is unimportant and a waste of time due to the fact that many celebrities have become wealthy without an education. Gerald Graff discusses a somewhat similar topic in his essay Hidden Intellectualism. Graff claims that if schools were to encourage students into learning something that actually interests them, then many more students would be considered intellectuals. He then states that intellectualism is not solely determined on what a student is studying, but how well they comprehend the information. Both AntiIntellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids and Hidden Intellectualism provide interesting claims and adequate reasoning, but Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids is a more effective argument because of its use of logos, pathos, and counterargument.

Pope 2 First, in Grant Penrods Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, logos is used profoundly. Logos refers to logic; they may be examples, scenarios, facts, statistics, etc. The strongest logos found in Penrods essay is in the introduction: The football team from Mountain View High School won the Arizona state championship last year. Again. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of the schools student body, so did the Science Bowl Team, the Speech and Debate Team, and the Academic Decathlon team. The football players enjoyed the attentions of the enthralled school . . . a virtual barrage of praise and downright deification. As for the three champion academic teams, they received a combined total of around ten minutes of recognition, tacked onto the beginning of a sports assembly. (754) This is an example of logos because it is a scenario of how intellectuals are constantly being overlooked every day in high schools. This is a logical statement because it demonstrates exactly how intellectuals are treated in high schools. Penrod uses logos again while discussing celebrities with little education. These celebrities have become wealthy without the need of education; he states that any drive toward intelligence or education becomes laughable in the eyes of media-inundated young people (755-756). His statement provides further information on the lack of necessity for education. Most young people look at celebrities as their role models. If these role models have little or no education, then the young people will no longer strive to get an education so they can be like their role models. In comparison, logos is used in Graffs Hidden Intellectualism. Although they are not as effective in this essay, they still refer to logic. Unlike Penrod, Graff uses his logos towards the middle of the essay. He does not elaborate on his statement: In short, I was your typical teenage anti-intellectualor so I believed for a long time. I

Pope 3 have recently come to think, however, that my preference for sports over schoolwork was not anti-intellectualism so much as intellectualism by other means (199 -200). By not elaborating on this, he causes this statement to be less effective than any of Penrods statements. He also uses logos when talking about Marilyn Monroe. He talks about how she married an intellectual man after divorcing a baseball star. He states that this suggested the way the wind was blowing (201). These logos do not provide a clear idea relating to his topic like the logos found in Penrods essay, making it less effective. Secondly, Grant Penrod uses pathos throughout his essay. Pathos refers to

sympathy and emotions. By incorporating pathos into his essay, he tugs on his readers heart strings. While introducing the idea of hated intellectuals, Penrod reports a

statement made about intellectuals: Man how I hate nerds . . . if I ever had a tommygun with me . . . I would most probably blow each one of their heads off (qtd. in Penrod 754). This is a harsh statement that lets his readers know how cruel people in todays society treat intellectuals. Penrod quotes an online venter named Dan6erous who states another harsh accusation towards intellectuals; A+ this and . . . got a 1600 on my SAT and got all AP class[es] next year woohoo. Thats all these people care about dont they have lives damn nerds (qtd. in Penrod. 755). By giving another example, Penrods essay becomes stronger and more believable. On the contrary, Graff uses pathos in his essay but not as effectively as Penrod. Graff does not include as much pathos as Penrod. He refers to his childhood as a way to explain how schools are approaching teaching students in the wrong manner. Graff states that he struggled as a child to be a smart boy or get the approval of the boys in his neighborhood:

Pope 4 On the other hand, I was desperate for the approval of the hoods, whom I encountered daily on the playing field and in the neighborhood, and for this purpose it was not at all good to be book-smart. The hoods would turn on you if they sensed you were putting on airs over them: Who you lookin at, smart ass? as a leather-jacketed youth once said to me as he relieved me of my pocket change along with my self-respect. (200) This statement makes his readers feel sorry for him as child. This is the strongest example of pathos that Graff uses in his essay; however, it is still not as effective as Penrods use of pathos in his essay. Lastly, another strength of Penrods essay is his counterargument. This brings the readers attention to a slightly different opinion about his argument. After stating that nerds are labeled as intellectuals who have no social lives he then incorporates a different position on the argument: Of course, not all nerds are socially excluded; most high school students could readily name a few intelligent people with at least a degree of popularity. The point, though, is that the image of intellectualism is disliked as anti-social, and the harms of even a fallacious perception to this effect spread to all of the intelligentsia. (755) This counterargument makes Penrods essay extremely accountable. It provides a

different view of the subject that he is covering, but at the same time weakens the view of the opposing position. This informs his readers that he is speaking generatively. By including a counterargument, Penrods essay becomes very trustworthy. Like Penrod, Graff also provides a counterargument; unlike Penrod, Graff fails to weaken his opposing view. Graff claims that making students nonacademic interests

Pope 5 an object of academic study is useful, then, for getting students attention . . . but this tactic wont in itself necessarily move them closer to an acad emically rigorous treatment of those interests (204). This counterargument does not weaken his opposing view. In fact, it may even weaken his view of the subject. This causes Graffs essay to become questionable and not dependable. Graffs essay also contains a fallacy called slippery slope. This means that he claims that because one thing happened it causes another thing to happen. This fallacy destroys Graffs credibility. In conclusion, while both essays have interesting points and opinions, Gerald Graffs Hidden Intellectualism is not as effective as Grant Penrods AntiIntellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids. Penrod provides better logos and pathos, as well as a better counterargument. Unlike Penrods essay, Graffs essay

contains a fallacy: slippery slope. This weakens the effective of his essay and creates the readers to doubt him. Now ask yourself again, have you ever used the term nerd or geek to describe someone?

Pope 6 Works Cited Graff, Gerald. Hidden Intellectualism. They Say I Say. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, and Cathy Birkenstein. New York: Norton, 2010. 198-205. Print. Penrod, Grant. Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids. The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and Handbook. 3rd ed. Ed. Marilyn Moller. New York: W.W. Norton & CO., 2013. 754-757. Print.