Summary Of Gerald Graff’s Essay Hidden Intellectualism
In his essay Hidden Intellectualism Gerald Graff argues that besides the traditional academic intellectualism there can be some forms of hidden intellectualism that does not express itself through the established scholarly ways but rather hides under the mask of an ordinary talk about sports, fashion, pop-stars, etc. Graff believes that arguing about such non-academic things requires just as much intellectual ability as debates about theoretical issues do, and that every “street-smart” student is a potential intellectual (Graff 23).
To support his argument, Graff tells us his own story of transformation from a “street-smart” boy to an intellectual. He believes that arguing about toughness and similar things taught him the elementary skills of an intellectual debate. Graff also describes the experiment that he conducts with an English teacher Hillel Crandus (Graff 32-36) that presents the way of channeling the hidden forms of intellectualism into academic work and fosters the understanding by students of the very notion of “intellectualism”.
This research can be attributed to the strengths of Graff’s essay, as empirical findings always have a better potential of persuading the reader compared to the purely theoretical conclusions. Besides, it presents a solution to the problem of teasing out the buried intellectualism. However, a greater emphasis on the author’s personal experience can rather be viewed as a weakness than as strength. Though making the tone of essay more confidential, if I may say so, it brings too much of subjectivity. What worked for Graff will not necessarily work for others, and his own experience can hardly be viewed as a general trend.
What concerns different parts of the essay, I would like to distinguish the introduction that catches readers’ attention with the stunning example of Michael Warner’s metamorphosis, and the parts “Intellectualism and Conflict” and “Teaching the Problem: Thematizing Intellectualism”. The first one suggests an interesting and reasonable argument that intellectual conflicts are apparently better than violence and fights with guns. Indeed, having different views on any subject creates conflict situations, and if the parts of the conflict are reluctant to settle the issue by the means of arguments and reasoning, the tension often finds its outlet in a fight. Therefore, skills of argumentation should be encouraged. The part “Teaching the Problem” impressed me, as I have already mentioned above, by empirical findings and proposed solutions to the problem.
However, other parts of the essay seem to be more contradictory and didn’t impress me that much. As I have already mentioned, the parts “Growing Up Anti-Intellectual” and “My Hidden Intellectualism” present too much of the author’s personal experience which cannot be regarded as a general pattern. Besides, his personality formation took place in the fifties, and today’s’ realities are pretty different from those that were relevant fifty years ago. Hence the different influence of outer factors on adolescents.
Graff’s essay had a double-sided impact on me. On the one side, it made me think what intellectualism is and is it good or bad. I suppose that was one of the main goals of the author, and he achieved it. On the other side, I cannot agree with some points made by the author. The article implies that intellectualism is undoubtedly good but there is no clear explanation why it is so. What is good for some people may not be so positive for others. I think intellectualism is in some way an inborn quality, and Graff obviously has it, that is why even such non-intellectual activities as sports and arguing about toughness were useful for him and developed his intellectual ability. However, if a person does not have this inborn quality and is not inclined to analysis and evaluation, he or she will simply read the same magazines as Graff and adopt somebody else’s point of view without being able to support it by arguments. I would like to know more about Graff’s peers who were similar “street-smart” boys – have they become intellectuals either? Or they remained alien to purely intellectual activities still limited by argues about sports? I suppose the examples when interest in sports and street life remains what it is, or simply the interest in sports and street life, are much more abundant than examples when it grows into the development of intellectual ability.
In short, I agree that it is worth to encourage intellectualism in any form but I do not agree that every “street-smart” student can become an intellectual later on.
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