Leonid Fridman America Needs Its Nerds

Well known article writer, Leonid Fridman, in his article, “America Needs Its Nerds”, describes the truthful idea that nerds and geeks, in our society, are ostracized while the kids who play sports and party are prominent. Fridman’s purpose is to impress upon the readers that nerds should not have to conform to society’s unimpressive values of what it means to be “popular”. He adopts an indignant tone in order to convey to his readers that the idea of nerds and geeks needs to fought.

Gerald Graff’s essay “Hidden Intellectualism” contemplates the age-old idea that street smarts are anti-intellectual. However, as Graff points out, “schools and colleges are at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into academic smarts.” (244). What Graff means by this is that being street smart does not mean a person lacks intelligence. Rather, educational institutions need to find a way to effectively ‘tap into’ this different format of intellectualism to produce academic intelligence. Graff goes on to point out that society associates ‘weighty’ subjects, like Shakespeare and Plato, with intellectualism, but not less serious subjects, such as sports and video games. In consideration of this overlook

A respected author John Green questions, "Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you 're a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey I knows that you 'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you 'd rather be thoughtful of them be vapid, that you believe that there things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan and why is that?” Many people who are passionate about their studies question the same thing. Leonid Fridman wrote a passage “America Needs its Nerds” in order to raise concern that our society does not value intelligence. Fridman uses compare and contrast to get his point across to the readers. He makes the text more relatable by characterizing the typical American mindset. He successfully explains to the reader that the persecution of intellectuals is something our country should not be doing.

In the article “America Needs its Nerds” by Leonid Friedman; Fridman argues that “intellectually curious and academic serious people” are not as respected as they should be. Instead of the more intellectual people being praised for their intelligence, they are ignored by society. Fridman builds this argument by using logic and facts, creative word choice, and comparisons.

America, often lauded as a land of freedom, is a place where revolution was started and freedom is proclaimed. The United States is recognized for the prevalence of personal rights, as a place the persecuted long to reach. Leonid Fridman argues against these concepts in his essay “America Needs Its Nerds.” He suggests that personal liberties are being restricted because of “rampant anti-intellectualism” and that the U.S. will suffer future consequences in terms of world power if “nerds” are not supported. To be clear, Fridman argues for the academically talented and information-seeking students in today’s society. He feels it is unfair that these students are too afraid to pursue intelligence to its fullest or to admit how much they study, so he presents an argumentative essay detailing the inequities and grievances these students face. He makes a convincing argument through his powerful diction, dynamic tone, emotional and

The text “America Needs its Nerds” could be very relatable for some people. Fridman’s word choice is very helpful when constructing his argument. To demonstrate how American society uses derogatory terms when talking about intellectuals he uses words such as “freak”, and the true definition of what a “geek” is. He also makes use of the

Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism” goes through many reasons why not being book smart could be a good thing. The sports world is a way of people connecting through the competitive sports that always lead to some sort of debate (268). Graff grew up always liking sports and being “street smart” living in Chicago. He always read sports magazines growing up and realized that reading magazines was a good tactic for schools to teach street smart kids how to write good essays based on their hobbies of reading magazines (265). “What doesn’t occur to us, is that schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work”(264).

In our society today, the terms “nerd” or “geek” are used derogatorily instead of used upliftinglyin an uplifting manner to those who are more serious about their studies or education. In today’s world especially, we are quick to judge based on appearance or what certain people’s interests may be instead of supporting them. In a passage from Leonid Fridman’s literary work titled “America Needs Its Nerds,” he discusses the present issue relating to “geeks” and “nerds” and the positive affect they could have on our nation if they are supported. Fridman expresses his stand on the issue through definition, contrast and appeal to emotion.

Year after year, America has been singled out for its deteriorating educational system. Fridman suggests in his passage that this is due to the attitude of anti-intellectualism plaguing American society. Fridman decides to use ethos and logos as his rhetorical strategies in his essay. Ethos convinces someone of the character or credibility of the persuader. Logos appeals to an audience by using logic and reason. In his passage, Leonid Fridman utilizes logos and ethos in order to urge his audience to value intellectual curiosity.

“America Needs Its Nerds” an article created by Leonid Fridman, puts forth a pertinent issue in today’s society: intellectually adept students are ostracized. Fridman argues that smart, curious students need to stop feeling ashamed for being smart and curious. Society needs to change because their current philosophy towards intellect is one of pessimism. Fridman develops these arguments in his essay by utilizing the rhetorical strategy of parallelism, drawing conclusions, and through his use of diction.

The mental capacity is treated as a disadvantage in the America, despite the fact it already helped the country many times. This long-term problem became the main topic of the Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs its Nerds”. The work first appeared on January 11, 1990 in the New York Times as a part of the series “Voices of the New Generation”. The author spoke about the negative attitude the American society has to smart people and demonstrates it with the usage of words like “nerd” or “geek”. Fridman’s essay applies to different groups of people, as the problem exists on different layers of the society: from schools to universities and the adult life. The author’s purpose is to demonstrate

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.

Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and

In the article, “Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America” Ray Williams discusses the increasing trend of anti-intellectualism in American culture. There is an anti-intellectualism that exists in American culture that is the result of the unpopularity of being smart in High School, the lack of the importance of teachers in the U.S. compared to Japan and the effect of reality TV and pop culture. Williams indicates that one of the reasons that anti-intellectualism exists is that education in the United States is not as strong as it once was. Williams says, “After leading the world for decades in 24-34 year olds with university degrees, the U.S. is now in 12th place. The World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. at 52nd among 139 nations

When asked to write about a sub culture that I was apart of several ideas went through my head. I could write about my belief system or my family’s own sub culture. But I realized that one subculture that I am apart of and one that I am constantly growing in is this nerd culture. This aspect of going to the comic book store with my brother and talking with the people that work there and seeing what they have to stay about the new story arc of Thor or Hawkeye. Or the fact that my brother and I go to the midnight showing of all the Marvel movies and meet new people and talk about what we expect to see tonight. Or how we show up early to every movie so we can get exclusive tickets for the IMAX. All of this is unique