Within the first week of classes, we all contributed in creating an archive of questions that we had about the English major. We filled up an entire document with these questions — and I contributed a few myself — but there was one question I had that I still remember. I remember it because it’s the one question that I really wanted to see answered, although I can come up with a few clarifying ones when prompted. I’m sure it’s a question that many other members of our major have as well. It is: “Why are English majors viewed as prone to be pretentious?” And I think I’m ready to make a guess.
The answer is, simply, because we are. I understand that this is not a popular opinion, and I regret to inform anyone reading that this blog post will be lengthier than most so that I might clarify it.
To begin, I must make the meaning of the question that I’m answering explicit. First our noun, “English majors”. When I use this term, I’m referring to the comprehensive body. I don’t mean to imply that each individual English major struggles with this issue. Our verb, “prone”, is less cryptic. I’m asking why English majors as a whole are viewed statistically more likely to be pretentious. Speaking of… our adjective. The exact meaning of the word “pretentious” is particularly important, as are the exact meanings of most words that carry negative connotations. Its exact meaning is:
…which is exactly how I mean to use it. So another way to phrase my question would have been “Why is the comprehensive body of English majors viewed as comparatively more likely to contain people who try to act like they are smarter, more important or more cultured than they actually are?”
And once again I have to answer that it’s because it is. It’s more likely for one individual member of our major to be accurately described as pretentious than it is for one individual member of most other majors. My support for this is going to get a little wobbly as I’ll be using trends and patterns that I’ve personally observed. If you reject my answer because you think it’s unfounded and wrong, no hard feelings.
UNCITED ASSERTION #1: Most people like to feel smart. That, I hope, isn’t too controversial. Most people derive pleasure from getting A-plusses, creating works of art, solving crossword puzzles, etc.
UNCITED ASSERTION #2: Doing well in college, among other things, makes people feel smart. A degree is, if nothing else, physical proof that the recipient is at least slightly smarter. Not everyone is going to college to feel smarter. There are plenty of reasons to go to college. I’m only saying that one of them is to feel smart, and that some percentage of people go to college primarily for this reason.
UNCITED ASSERTION #3: It’s harder to be bad at English than it is to be bad at other subjects. I want to clarify that I don’t think English is easy. Any degree is earned, regardless of the subject. But the difference between English and many other subjects is that aspects of the English curriculum are subjective. In chemistry, biology and mathematics there are right answers and wrong answers. Yes or no. Points or no points on a test. The answers on an English “test” can be argued. There are any number of right answers, so long as they are argued properly. English is also based on skills that virtually every student acquires at a young age, those being reading and writing. Some students may find that twenty page papers or Russian formalist theory is beyond them, but they need to know how to read and write proficiently to learn most anything. Students who are good at nothing else are at least good at those skills. Joe Moran discusses this briefly in Interdisciplinarity when he outlines the birth of English as a discipline in Chapter 2. He talks about how English was founded “on an activity that every educated gentleman was supposed to be doing”. (Moran, 20)
That isn’t to say that there aren’t people who are bad at English. Some people are best at maths and sciences and terrible at everything else. But some people who do badly in English classes would do even worse in a major where there is only one answer per question. That also isn’t to say that there aren’t people who are really, really good at English. Just as with any other subject, there are people who are good and bad. My point is simply that it is easier to hide it if you are bad.
Based on other posts here, this is probably where I’ve completely lost/offended/earned death threats from many of you. And it’s exceedingly difficult to prove whether or not one subject is objectively harder than another beyond what I’ve just discussed. But I believe my third uncited assertion to be correct, and I believe that when these three assertions interact with one another, they result in students who want to feel smart but are unable to do so in a more concrete, objective field of study hiding their incompetence — and thus trying to appear smarter than they are — in a field like English. They are, by the definition of the word, pretentious.
This can happen in other fields. There are many students getting degrees in fields like computer science, engineering and biology who are not as smart as they believe — or would like to believe — that they are. They are, however, at least peripherally gifted in those fields because if they weren’t they would have found that out long ago. Students, like water, take the path of least resistance and if they are not good at a subject they will often default to a subject that is more difficult to be bad at.
So. If I really think that our major is prone to being pretentious, where does that lead me? Is there some solution to this dilemma? Something we can do to cut down on the number of people majoring in English to look and feel smarter than they are? I don’t think so. I think all we can do is each of us think for a good, long time about why we’re here. Like I said, this isn’t an issue that affects each English major personally. If we can assure ourselves that we’re here for the right reasons, then maybe we should stop worrying so much.
After all, if we’re sure — absolutely sure — that we personally aren’t pretentious, then why does my question matter in the first place?