India has never won a match cos of Sachin, SRK cannot act and Facebook has no value

“Dude, India has never won a match because of Sachin’s batting. Can you recall any match that India won ‘cos of him? You cannot, it never happened!”

Zoom out a bit. I am sitting at the Bangalore airport waiting for my early morning Indore flight and that’s when I overheard this conversation. Now trust me, I am least bothered about the surrounding chitchats but I got super-interested when this guy spoke about Sachin Tendulkar.

Speaking against someone like the Master Blaster is very easy. I mean all you need to do is open your mouth 😀

I may not be one of the biggest fans of the God of Cricket but people usually don’t have their facts straight when speaking against someone of Sachin’s stature.

While it was none of my business to jump in and mention a few matches, I had also, by then, realized that Mr-Anti-Sachin was a part of the self-proclaimed-extra-ordinary-human-race known as Pseudo Intellectuals! Quick definition from the internet is below,

“a pseudo intellectual is someone dishonestly or insincerely using the language, style, or topics of an intellectual, but who lacks the goals, morals, or ability of a “genuine” intellectual. It is someone who acts pretentiously and wishes to win an argument or impress”

Basically, instead of presenting facts or data, they are more interested in trying to impress you with their “perspective”. I could easily recollect so many instances and several people, that I personally know of, who frequently flaunt their “intelligence” or “wealth of knowledge” but have no data to back it up. It is important to mention here that having a perspective or an opinion on something is great, it is one of the unique characteristics of us humans but presenting that opinion as “truth” with zero data drives you into the Pseudo Intellectual territory. I am neither against them nor does this blog intends to demean anyone but below are the five things that immediately came to my mind when I thought about blogging this. These may (or may not) represent pseudo intellectualism –

1. Pseudo intellectuals will always have an opinion on EVERYTHING that exists in the Universe. Notice how I didn’t say ‘World’, I said the ‘Universe’! You will never find them say, “I don’t know” or “I’ve never heard about this”.

2. Pseudo intellectuals will constantly despise everything that’s mainstream for example Shah Rukh Khan, Cricket or Sachin Tendulkar. Remember everything that’s mainstream is for the average. Pseudo intellectuals are way, way above average. And hatred is actually the very basis of pseudo intellectualism because hating someone mainstream gives instant recognition and attention.

3. Pseudo intellectuals will usually have a very good vocabulary. They’ll use flashy words and quotes from intellectuals to make themselves sound a bit cleverer than they really are. In some cases they won’t really have original thoughts on a topic but would still put across a point!

4. Pseudo intellectuals will usually not talk about figures or facts (because they may not know any). You will never find one say, “11% of World population is suffering from malnutrition.” But you will likely find them say, “The way human race is over-utilizing the natural resources of this planet, it is just a matter of time before humanity gets doomed!”

5. Pseudo intellectuals will usually flaunt a fake English accent. Unless they are working in a call center and have gotten used to it.

If you have few such friends, don’t hate me and don’t dislike them either. Most importantly don’t make them realize that you’ve read this blog. Just enjoy their company as they are usually fun people to be around.