Fighting the Crab Bucket Mentality
by Matthew Graybosch
My wife sometimes reads "Dear Abby" (an American syndicated advice column). When reading "Dear Abby" tonight, she found a column in which a man signing himself "Overeducated in the South" wrote asking for advice on how to deal with people who felt intimidated by his two college degrees. Abby's response? "Although I have never met you face-to-face, I can tell you with some certainty that it isn't the society we live in. So, that leaves 'you'."
I cannot quote the entire letter or its asinine response for copyright reasons, but I can provide a link. You can read the column here, but you will have to scroll past the letter from a soldier who can't trust his wife. However, I can quote the email I wrote to the column in response to Abby's reply:
Dear Abby:
My wife and I both read your response to "Overeducated in the South" on 28 October 2005, and were dismayed by the callousness of your response. While my wife is content to shake her head, I find it necessary to respond.
You said to Overeducated that it was not society's fault that people found his intelligence and education intimidating, but his own for not being "socially adept". You told him to see a psychologist and spend valuable time and money in trying to find out why he cannot fit in.
I think that you are wrong, because I think that you did not take into account the fact that people are often envious of their superiors and feel the need to tear others down in order to prop up their own self-esteem. The co-worker who felt that she could not do her job because Overeducated "intimidated her" is one such person. The supervisor may well be another; perhaps he took the intimidated woman's side because he feared that Overeducated may go after his job.
My wife, an Australian, tells me that there is a name for such stupidity back home. It is called the "Tall Poppy Syndrome". I have also heard it called it the "Crab-Bucket Mentality", named after crabs in a bucket that will try to hold back a crab that tries to escape the bucket, instead of climbing out with him.
I was tempted to suggest that Overeducated would be better off hiding his ability from those unable or unwilling to appreciate him, due to my own experiences, but my wife pointed out the defect in my thinking: to suggest that he hide his ability would be to agree with you, that Overeducated should change in order to fit a defective society.
Overeducated is not defective: people who find themselves intimidated by intelligence and education are the defective ones, no matter how 'socially adept' they may be. How socially adept is a person who cannot even hide her envy enough to work professionally?
If Overeducated is still single because his intelligence intimidates women, then logic dictates that these women are not good enough for him, and that he should be patient and continue to look until he finds an equal. He might find an equal online, not through dating services, but on internet forums geared towards his interests. Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) provides such forums. That is how I met my wife.
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School of Hard Knocks alumnus
I think somebody had to say this. Whether it will see print is beyond my control, but it still had to be said. "Overeducated" does not need a psychologist; he needs a copy of The Fountainhead.
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