“Intelligent Snob”

(In response to Angela K.’s posting on The Malaysian Insider)

It often requires greater intelligence to abstain from making such brash judgments. I have been observing for years, how supposedly intelligent individuals fail to function properly in their daily routines, as they are not able to 'regulate their emotional valves', as in the case of "Intelligent Snob".

I have to agree with Angela K. on several issues pertaining to the manner at which education is handled in Singapore, and for that matter, in Malaysia. Our inclination to learn by rote has created a wave of graduates at the forefront of the job market, who are, to varying degrees, neither able to think critically nor creatively. For years, our institutions of higher learning have been churning out graduates who have, in the years that followed, dominated a substantial chunk of the job market, and even the education system, hence further entrenching this mentality.

I reckon, at this juncture, that “Intelligent Snob”, who graduated from Harvard as she had claimed, is intelligent enough to recognize that there are, according to Dr. Howard Earl Gardner (who happens to have graduated from Harvard too), several types of intelligences, which constitute what is known as the ‘theory of multiple intelligences’, which aims to debunk the myth that intelligence can be measured scientifically.

This very fact makes what “Intelligent Snob” had written look like an old joke (albeit a well-written one), that reeks of anger and sheer ignorance, and that of an individual who has a troubled self-esteem. “Intelligent Snob” fails to realize that it takes more than academic prowess (and recognition by virtue of one’s alma mater) to succeed in life, and inspiring stories of the lives of icons such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison bear testimony to this fact.

I am a Malaysian who is due to graduate from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia this August. Does that make me any ‘lesser’? Think before you write.

By Lionel Lam Song Poh

Further reading:
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090707-153400.html

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