America Needs Its Nerds By Leonid Fridman

Certain ideals that are valued in American society have caused concern in some people due to the alarming threat they pose. In the passage, “America Needs its Nerds,” by Leonid Fridman, the author discusses a social problem he sees that is prominent in the United States. Throughout the reading, Fridman mentions how often anti-intellectualism is seen and why it is our issue in America. Fridman’s purpose in writing this passage is to bring the issue to the minds of people and to make them question their own personal stance. Fridman uses different strategies in order to convey his idea that people who are curious and serious about knowledge should not be labeled a nerd. To begin, Fridman starts his argument by stating how wrong it is that our society looks down upon intellectuals. Fridman conveys this idea when he explains that the people who want to learn are named “nerds” and “geeks” (1). Fridman also uses imagery to further expand the stereotype of being a geek by revealing that the actual meaning of a geek “is a street performer who shocks the public by biting off the heads of live chickens” (2). Fridman’s use of the words “shocks” and “biting off” show that a geek is clearly not a normal person, but rather someone bizarre (2). The use of these words also adds emphasis to the fact that people who are smart are considered someone who is extremely peculiar. Except the problem is that the scholars that are labeled by these unflattering terms are not strange; they are only