Re: Smart kids, (was Hapworth)
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sun, 23 May 1999 11:37:34 +1000
Thor wrote:
> Be serious. CAPABLE of being smarter, yes. CAPABLE of learning more,
> faster, yes. But smarter denotes accumulation of information & ability
to
> use it.
Well, I guess that drives a stake between your opinion on intelligence and
mine (and MW's). If intelligence is how many dates of famous battles you
can recite off by heart, how many times tables you can regurgitate, how
many A's you can get on your report card - then obviously the person who
has lived longer has the more information at his or her disposal. However,
true wisdom - that is, the state of being Wise (heck, `It's a Wise Child'!)
is something that I believe certain people are born with, an intangible
which cannot be eroded or changed from birth but just covered or uncovered.
I think this is the sort of intelligence Salinger intended us to believe
Seymour has - however, the innate difficulty in portraying such a hazy
value seems to have led him to plump for a more `worldly' wiseness for
Seymour.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest