I’ll put it another way. Where I grew up, a common (although usually relatively mild) criticism of someone would be ‘she’s not easy’. People who used it didn’t mean ‘easy’ in the sexual sense, they meant ‘easy to get along with’. The person they were talking about didn’t fit in in the community or family in some way. Maybe she didn’t have the usual opinions about other people’s doings or misdoings. Maybe she was a bit of a drama queen and always wanted attention. Maybe she showed that she was a bit bored by the things that fascinated most people and was always going on about things that didn’t interest anyone else the speaker knew. She wasn’t easy; didn’t quite fit in socially for some reason, which might or might not have anything to do with intelligence.

I generally wasn’t considered easy as a child, although the people in my immediate circle didn’t fuss over the fact a lot, and my relatives didn’t treat me with the disdain Jane experienced. But I remain convinced that in addition to envy, the desire to have people fit in plays into the social divisions we’ve been discussing.

PS I didn’t intend to ask Jane if she was familiar with ‘ivory tower’, I intended to ask you. I was truly astonished that you said you hadn’t encountered that slur.

I knew a “golden child” when I was young. Bright enough, good looking, well spoken and a natural athelete. The family had money too. Looking back, I never got down to the level of Jane’s relatives, but I certainly wasn’t as much above them as I should have been.

Being bright and being disliked doesn’t necessarily mean you’re disliked BECAUSE you’re bright. Being all-round better is much more infuriating. No need to invent a new condition when garden-variety envy will suffice.

I still think envy plays a big role in this attitude in many cases, but I also think that sort of reaction can go way beyond envy, right down into the genes that evolved when membership in a group was essential to survival. We still need connection with other human beings in a very deep and profound way, and sometimes we meet that need by making it bloody miserable for anyone who obviously doesn’t fit in. *We* don’t put any value in education, not just ‘we’ the group of individuals, but ‘we’ the family or social class or work buddies, and to ensure the continuity of the group (even though we no longer need it to hunt mammoths), we’ll force anyone who doesn’t fit to hide who they are or to compensate in some way as the token intellectual or other minority. Or to leave. And this is almost instinctual – although there can be an overlay of more personal and chosen (or not combatted against) attitudes like envy as well.

I didn’t realize how strongly I still felt about this until I started writing.

I think one of the reasons I get so angry at some groups I would otherwise have much in common with is that the people who talk the most about being ‘inclusive’ do exactly the same thing. They form groups and they enforce the group mores. They just draw the lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in a different place than the members of the groups they condemn for excluding others. That’s probably why I think so strongly that there’s a genetic component in this ‘us and them’ thing, although like many genetic influences, it can be encouraged or not. It seems to take a conscious effort to accept people as they are instead of trying to fit them into your existing group, your existing comfortable social circle, and shoving them out if they don’t fit.

And perhaps the process is more obvious in the poor in a very materialistic society because it’s harder for them to take the high road and think ‘Oh, poor soul, she just doesn’t quite fit in, you know; she’s not people like us.’ Poor people get smacked in the face with the possibility that the intelligent and hardworking people are not merely not people like us, they’re people who do better than us. Maybe people who ARE better than us (especially in a society in which quality is often equated with financial success). Maybe the ones who get an education or work hard aren’t just rejecting us, and our way of life…maybe they’re right to do so because there’s a better one out there. That must be terribly hard to bear.

But at its roots, the process of ostracizing the intelligent is one possible expression of our strong natural urges to belong to a group; to have other human beings we can identify with.