The Clever, the Intelligent and the Importance of Vocabulary

Commonplace Newsletter #90

Definitions matter. Word choices matter. These are two simple statements- perhaps obvious to the point of redundancy- but in this text driven world they are overlooked and ignored constantly. It’s a real problem, this, and I am near convinced at this point that a good chunk of the shouting and finger pointing that passes for discourse today¹ is at its core a series of arguments rooted in the misuse and misunderstanding of what certain words mean. I would argue that in most of these cases the two debaters are either talking about very similar things under two different names² or about two different issues which they are both using the same term to refer to³.

Now, I’m not naïve enough to believe that all rancour is a result of such simple misunderstandings and that all arguments could be straightened out with a quick flick through the dictionary. Not at all. But what I do believe is that there is a lack of linguistic precision- whether intentional or otherwise- that seems to cause good faith discussion to descend into arguing. There is a lack of (or perhaps a lack of a desire for) rich, clear vocabulary, that has the end result of leaving people confused and easy to hoodwink and manipulate.

Photo by Cole Marshall on Unsplash

I have said before that beginning an essay by defining terms can be a sophomoric approach to writing. I’m going to partly recant this, or as least clarify this position. The reaching for definitions part of an essay makes us roll our eyes because we know (and remember from our own school day experiences) that trotting out the phrase ‘The Oxford English Dictionary defines x as…’ was nearly always a ploy to bolster the word count. The nearer I was to the deadline- and I have completed way too many pieces of academic work at the eleventh hour to recall this with anything other than mild sense of anxiety- the more likely I was to use this padding out tactic.

But this shouldn’t put us off exploring and clarifying the meaning of the words we use and using words in meaningful ways in our everyday lives. How can you know what you are talking about if you literally do not know what you are saying?   

I’ll give you an example by drawing on something that I have been pondering of late. See, a good while ago I wrote an essay called How to be Less Stupid which drew on Carlo M. Cipolla’s short treatise The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity in order to get into what stupidity is and how we can best mitigate and avoid it. Without rehashing that piece I’ll say that it was centred on Cipolla’s specific definition of stupidity, which sees a stupid action being one that benefits none of the parties involved. It is the unintentional creation and pursuit of lose-lose situations. Whereas intelligence is by contrast the intentional creation of win-wins. This is an immensely useful and enlightening lens through which to consider individual actions and decision making.

And so, in this spirit I have been mulling over the overlap and interplay between the supposedly synonymous words ‘clever’, ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent’. We often use them interchangeably, but I feel they are in truth distinct and that understanding these distinctions can be enlightening. And, if I am going to advocate for us all using our words a little more carefully it would be helpful if I straighten these words out by way of example.

Ok. My premise/hunch here is that the intelligent people are being crowded out and overruled by the smart and the clever and that this is at the heart of so many of the systemic problems we see today⁴.

See, to be clever is to be mentally quick and to have a store of either wit, ingenuity, or adroitness. Within it are implications of the ability being somehow innate or natural- think of a child being praised for their cleverness in a certain subject at school. Likewise, to be smart is to do with someone having or showing a high degree of mental ability and even more so than cleverness there is an implication that it can boil over into being too much- think of the insult smart alec. And with ideas such as smart dress or a smart uniform it speaks of sophistication, elegance and even a disrespectful boldness (‘don’t get smart with me’). Smart is then something of a surface thing, a projected external quality, something that is seen and appraised by others. It is about presenting a correct appearance, it is often measurable. Something then, that may well be possible to feign to a greater or lesser degree.

So given this, it is possible for someone who is clever to appear smart⁵. This quality manifests as a certain appearance, a certain way of being. And herein we get to some of the contemporary problems, in my view.

See cleverness is what we talk about when we talk about IQ. Clever people can ace exams, do excellently at university and thrive in the academic system. But cleverness alone is narrow and is drawn to narrow disciplines of the sort that don’t share the concerns with the precision of vocabulary and terminology that I have discussed above. When I think of cleverness I think of the highly (yet narrowly) schooled psychologist who can regurgitate all the current diagnoses and pathologies according to diagnostic criteria but is unable (or unwilling) to think outside the confines of their own discipline and methods used for enquiry. There is no broadness of thought or ability to look at problems from different points of view or with a different lens. The clever, then, correspond to what Nicholas Nassim Taleb has called the IYI- Intellectual Yet Idiot- those who have brains but not sense.

The clever tend to succeed in their professional lives as they are a boon to the systems and bureaucracies of their chosen discipline. They do not rock the boat (as they do not realise that they are at sea) and with their smart appearance and memorised talking points they make excellent pundits, talking heads and apologists for the ruling systems of the day. Journalism swarms with them, the schooling system as it currently stands seems to intentionally select for them with their ability to talk the talk and look the part without having any inconvenient or against-the-grain thoughts and ideas.

Intelligence, though, is different. Rather than being innate or something that is easy to outwardly signal intelligence is a cultivated trait. It reflects the ability to interpret soundly and to think deeply. It is something that guides your conduct. There is an ethical and moral component to it that is not implicitly there with cleverness or being smart. This is why intelligence can be a burden as it can make you act in a way that is not smart- which is to say not expedient or explicitly within your own interest.

Whistle blowing can be a sign of intelligence- as can articulating an unfashionable viewpoint- especially if airing said viewpoint is expected to have real world consequences, such as losing one’s job or good reputation.

This is rough and only the beginning of a definition, but I would say that wisdom is something like;the fruit of intelligent action applied across time. Intelligence is the ability to think broadly and deeply, to see the whole instead of merely your own specialised part, to play with ideas and take them to coherent conclusions. Intelligent people have developed the ability to think for themselves.

Intelligence would look at the conditions the aforementioned psychologist⁶ was diagnosing and be willing to appraise them in terms of broader ideas such as; melancholia, acedia, physical health, really tedious life problems, and other aspects that go far outside the delineated parameters and methodologies of psychology itself. Intelligence is holistic and curious and willing to suspend snap judgements and orthodoxy while pondering a solution. It is also unafraid to do nothing- if nothing turns out to be less harmful than just doing something- anything to help!

Intelligence seems to be a rare commodity today, which means that wisdom is too. Cleverness is in the ascendancy at the moment and the age of mass media and specialisation has led to its growing proliferation. But when it comes to the moral and philosophical matters that govern what a meaningful life and a thoughtful society might look like cleverness is not enough. This is in part due to the often inappropriateness of expanding such narrow expert viewpoints onto a national or even an international scale. Such intense specialisation can lead to seeing the world only through the specialist’s chosen medium. But of course, the clever lack the intelligence to see this. They are too smart for their own good.

Until next time,

Live well

Tom.

1. Especially in regard to discourse online. English is the primary language of the internet, and there are many, many official dialects of English worldwide which further adds to this confusion.

2. The English language has a very high number of synonyms after all.

3. A problem of equivocation.

4. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell observed: ‘The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.’

5. And vice versa, in fact there is little consensus on the distinction between smart and clever. There is however general agreement that these terms are not synonymous with intelligent and/or wise.

6. I’ve picked on psychology here as a point of reference- simply because my undergraduate degree was in psychology and philosophy- and I spent just under a decade working in the mental health sector.