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Nov 21, 2010 13:25

    ...brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the values lie. I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.

    - Mark Twain, "Eve's Diary"

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crunchywitch November 21 2010, 23:51:11 UTC
I alternate between thinking this is beautiful, and disagreeing with it, and wondering whether Twain was maintaining the gender constructs deliberately, in his representation of the woman as the one who didn't value intellect, and wishing there was some way of having it all three ways at once.

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mycrazyhair November 22 2010, 00:30:22 UTC
Well, the whole story is quite sexist. The part that I like about this quote is the idea that kindness is something you strive for and achieve, while intellect is something you inherit, so there's more merit in being kind than being smart.

The quote, by the way, comes up in the context of Eve thinking herself smarter than Adam, and thinking he's upset by that. She's trying to console him. However, I'm not sure whether Twain meant either of those two perceptions to be objectively true, particularly when you read the story in the context of the excerpts from Adam's diary, published separately.

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crunchywitch November 22 2010, 13:07:51 UTC
Sounds like two fascinating texts! It seeems to me, though, that we can learn both kindness and intelligence, really, and strive to be better at both - that both may be at leaat partially a product of environment.

But I think I'm responding more to my perception of anti-intellectualism in the world today than I am to Twain. You've added new titles to my "when-I-have-time-to-read-for-fun" list.

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mycrazyhair November 23 2010, 12:20:38 UTC
Hmm. I wonder if you and I are using different definitions of intelligence. I always thought of intelligence as your innate capacity to learn and reason.

How does a person learn to be more intelligent? You can learn knowledge, certainly. You can learn certain logic tricks that make it easier to deduce some things. The things your parents do for and to you in your early years may affect how your genes express themselves in terms of your brightness. But aside from that, I've always assumed that intelligence is something you're pretty much born and stuck with.

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