Name-Dropping
I read this response by an English college professor to a question on which books he considered as essential reading for a young person:
The unfortunate thing, though, is that that following this professor’s advice would only put you on the fast track to nowhere. How many institutes that you know of actually practice his philosophy? Are they not more likely to reject the kid who says he read Harry Potter instead of Dickens? To dismiss the kid who read into the shades of gray in the Mahabharata instead of some Greek epic?
This tendency to drop names (like who you have read) doesn’t exist only in the languages departments. The science streams and the corporate world do their own name-dropping with terms like “Nobel Prize winner” and “ownership”.
Half the people who do the name-dropping don’t have a clue as to what the term means, or whether it even applies in that particular context. Nor do they question whether just because some guy with authority or awards under his belt said something makes it true. Like that time in 1998 when a (Economics) Nobel Prize winner’s ideas were used to run a fund that went on to crash and burn spectacularly and nearly took down entire the Western financial system with it. How appropriate that the title of the book on that disaster was “When Genius Failed”!
Name-dropping in many cases is usually just a way to evade any analysis or questions about the idea or the concept being proposed. Or a way to sound knowledgeable because you have used enough technical terms. Personally, I think that Richard Feynman hit the nail on the head when he said there’s a huge difference between knowing the name of something v/s knowing something.
"For what it's worth, I don't think what a young person reads is nearly as important as how he or she reads. Young people who learn to read with patience and care and long-term concentration, with pencil in hand to make notes (including questions and disagreements), will be better prepared for college than students who read all the "right" books but read them carelessly or passively."This quote is an instance of the point I made in my previous blog about the education system’s emphasis on the “how”, not the “what”. But in this instance, focusing on the “how” is a good thing!
The unfortunate thing, though, is that that following this professor’s advice would only put you on the fast track to nowhere. How many institutes that you know of actually practice his philosophy? Are they not more likely to reject the kid who says he read Harry Potter instead of Dickens? To dismiss the kid who read into the shades of gray in the Mahabharata instead of some Greek epic?
This tendency to drop names (like who you have read) doesn’t exist only in the languages departments. The science streams and the corporate world do their own name-dropping with terms like “Nobel Prize winner” and “ownership”.
Half the people who do the name-dropping don’t have a clue as to what the term means, or whether it even applies in that particular context. Nor do they question whether just because some guy with authority or awards under his belt said something makes it true. Like that time in 1998 when a (Economics) Nobel Prize winner’s ideas were used to run a fund that went on to crash and burn spectacularly and nearly took down entire the Western financial system with it. How appropriate that the title of the book on that disaster was “When Genius Failed”!
Name-dropping in many cases is usually just a way to evade any analysis or questions about the idea or the concept being proposed. Or a way to sound knowledgeable because you have used enough technical terms. Personally, I think that Richard Feynman hit the nail on the head when he said there’s a huge difference between knowing the name of something v/s knowing something.
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