we often enshrine intelligence as a binary (i.e. smart or stupid) or some kind of threshold of intellectual faculties to clear to be considered “intelligent” overall, but the willingness to hold that there are multiple parallel and divergent faculties, each of which can be fostered or developed further beyond whatever natural aptitudes we possess for the faculties that come easily to us is liberating, and i think allows us to develop empathy for ourselves and others in a way we’re often conditioned not to in academic and professional environments we spend at least a third of our lives immersed in
i think a top five worst observable phenomenon is a societal over-indexing on intelligence, and i really like the multiple intelligences idea as a way to rationalize smarts in a way that’s inclusive and generative in a social and economic landscape that’s really quick to weaponize a nebulous, hyper-generalized intellect to explain the world in a really boring, anti-social, and generally wack way in order to simplify how we understand things that demand nuance
Mar 23, 2025
Related Recs
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Remember that, smart alecks!
Some more of my core guiding principles around this idea:
Truth and fact are two sides of the same coin.
They are interconnected but not interchangeable.
On a similar note:
Truth is complex and often paradoxical.
If you think you can lay it out in black and white terms, sorry bud – you don’t have a handle on it. The capacity to hold space for seemingly conflicting ideas is essential. That means letting go of the idea that your truth is the truth.
Critique something/someone only from a place of understanding
^ did a whole rec on this. To add to it: if you spend a lot of time criticizing those who you disagree with, whose benefit is it for? Mainly it’s a signifier to those who you do agree with that you’re part of the same in-group. That’s fine and it has its place, but constructively challenging the views and behaviors of those within your own community (including yourself!) is much more valuable.
And on that note:
Understanding ≠ condoning
Most people skip the work of trying to truly understand because they’re afraid they’ll seem complicit. Say someone commits a violent crime. Trying to understand the familial, socioeconomic, and systemic circumstances that factored in – developing empathy for this person – does not mean you condone the behavior or that you care any less for the victim of their crime. You are not doing any good to the cause of peace of justice or whatever you claim to stand for by refusing to understand people (however fucked up and misguided they may be).
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Ok that’s long enough, maybe I’ll drop some fun ones in another post lol bye
Jul 17, 2024
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It really cheeses me off when people think they know what others are thinking or what makes them tick or what their motivations are for something.
Recently heard someone say, "Oh the whole reason 'Brad' did good at [this thing] is because he got social validation from his success."
And I said, "Oh really, did Brad tell you that?"
And of course the answer was no, Brad never said that. It was just a great big assumption about Brad's motives—and a negative assumption at that.
You contain multitudes. I contain multitudes. We contain multitudes.
We are right now the living, breathing, growing sum of a trillion different factors. It is far more interesting and fulfilling to be curious and ask and be surprised than to project our narrow, limited assumptions on others.
(apparently this is a bit of a theme for me today since I already posted about it in another form)
And if you find yourself mind reading and assuming and putting others in a box, then you know what, no worries! Me too sometimes. But let's not stay there.
Oct 19, 2024
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unfortunately some of it is that deep and you can still enjoy life while pointing that out <3
Nov 20, 2024
Top Recs from @alaiyo
Mar 23, 2024
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason it’s still standing is bc it’s unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isn’t just charting the attention economy but also attempting to “solve” it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Mar 25, 2024
