tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post5976053807795289681..comments2023-09-29T02:49:02.989-07:00Comments on An Emphatic Umph: What is Smart?Daniel Coffeenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-4370800001900394102012-06-03T12:29:05.680-07:002012-06-03T12:29:05.680-07:00Hmn. I'm not sure. Say more about clever, if y...Hmn. I'm not sure. Say more about clever, if you would. My point, which I perhaps failed to convey as I write and publish quickly, is that smart is an ability to know things, not the actual knowing of things. Clever, to me, seems smaller — like a subset of smart. Like smart, clever need not know things — clever is all operational. But it seems slight, like the maneuvers within a greater operation. If that makes any sense at all....Daniel Coffeenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-62006404121249404092012-06-01T19:26:39.400-07:002012-06-01T19:26:39.400-07:00Interesting, Daniel, your portrait of smart felt m...Interesting, Daniel, your portrait of smart felt more like clever. I've always felt clever was the "novelest approach" to retort. If I had to choose a descriptive for what a Rhetor(ician) is being, she is being "clever". Your attribute for your brother, smart, fit's perfectly - to the point. "Smart", to me, feels..traditional. It's formula: absorption + connecting dots = consistent logical recall. Something like that. Whereas, clever, it decides if we're using dots or slashes, or the operator. Clever makes you believe the slash is a dot, then connects them. It's familiar enough to "get", and it's never boring. But it's not always more valid than boring old smart.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-55777486135873243082012-05-27T21:48:13.196-07:002012-05-27T21:48:13.196-07:00Thanks for commenting...I like your formula quite ...Thanks for commenting...I like your formula quite a bit: "smart = distancing oneself from the accepted importance." In a way, that's much more radical than what I said — and I like it for that. I wonder, as you suggest, if this is a necessary condition of being smart: it demands such distancing. Something very McLuhan in there... I need to think about that.<br /><br />Thanks again.Daniel Coffeenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-12319438003725486592012-05-26T21:38:48.124-07:002012-05-26T21:38:48.124-07:00I'm amused by this formula of smart, the one y...I'm amused by this formula of smart, the one you're describing: that person knows things I don't + those things seem to be of some accepted importance = smart.<br /><br />"Smart", of course, is about distancing oneself from the accepted importance, because those things aren't too lively, are they... so I'm with you.<br /><br />I like to tell people that skitz-ohs are much smarter than can be imagined, and their intelligence doesn't fit our stupid world... this is rarely well-received, but I like saying it (not because I think it's true, how the fuck would I know?, but because it's an amusing flip on the idea of what is smart)Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11114319502817244098noreply@blogger.com