Fans of The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts will be aware of Karl Pilkington’s strange, but somehow endearing, views on the world. The YouTube clip above is part of Satisfied Fool, a television show Karl did that sought to establish whether smart people are happier and what makes people intelligent. Germaine Greer has a starring role in the clip, and she’s certainly kinder to Karl than Will Self and the scientist, Heinz Wolff.
24 Responses to “Karl asks: Are smart people happier?”
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I don’t know any smart people, Darlene, so I can’t answer your question.
Are happier people smarter?
I think the question could be better phrased: Are insensitive people happier?
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth. Dostoyevsky.
I guess if you’re really ‘bright’ but really callous and superficial, you could have a really happy, really shallow, really lonely, wasted life.
Caroline explains why I’m always so cheerful.
Bugger.
And here I was thinking how lucky I am, being incredibly intelligent, an utter spunk and loved by all.
Instead I’m just callous and superficial.
You sell yourself short berengaria. Callous and superficial though you are you are also incredibly intelligent, an utter spunk and loved by all.
You’ve got it all, so flaunt it!
Sweet of you, Greg.
I will take your advice and flaunt my superficiality with pride…in a callous sort of way.
Ole Solomon was reputedly the ancient world’s smartest, having received his smarts direct from the Almighty; and he observed that, “he who would increase knowledge increaseth sorrow”. Mind you, he had several hundred wives, which doesn’t seem all that smart to me.
Ah, here we are, thanks to the internet; “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” Ecclesiastes 1:18
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth. Dostoyevsky.
The song ‘Starry, starry night’ conveys similar sentiments re Vincent Van Gogh.
Does being miserable go with being intelligent or do people who want to be thought intelligent and aren’t think by being miserable others will think they are intelligent?
It’s all so teenagerish – I’m depressed therefore I’m deep (rather than I’m depressed because I am).
I think it’s like the cheerful (and by the definitions above, idiotic) belief that the rich aren’t happy.
They look pretty chuffed to me, the bastards.
This man in the video is actually really smart,if you notice the questions,and his responses,and the camera shot to Brunel University with all the foggy background..and his wearing of a beanie.Given that even at this website,statements about Greer,are sort of impossible,after viewing the video.I think she is a bit cruel about Mensa people though,some of their backgrounds are pretty diverse,and, the likely scenario maybe,they cannot always use their intelligence creatively.Like most people they need employment,and,I would say most people find a problem in that work doesnt fulfill their real expectations.Germaine,may have suffered that all her life.On the question of happiness and intelligence,is it really necessary to evolve a question that suggests there maybe imbalances in living because of intelligence doesnt necessarily imply happiness!?If intelligence can be established,surely it is then a outcome in part of overcoming some matters that would previously make one unhappy,as it also could be said a degree of what happiness is to an individual may improve intelligence.To define a state of happiness and or intelligence,really doesnt serve much purpose under the conditions of this blog!?Why!?Because lets take as simple example of his beanie wearing,and what is known about beanie wearing in say winter conditions.A level of health and therefore happiness can surely be observed, by the wearing of such.It would seem intelligent to wear a beanie under these conditions, if it means one actually feels and functions better.Thus feeling intelligent and feeling happy can be a simply outcome of applying a simple process.To get to the simple process,may however be a highly complex set of understandings and acceptances.24 hours pass in a day,I dont think it is really possible to find a completely happy person as a highly competent intelligence.Maybe,humanity should try for a competent happiness which could mean,the individual doesnt let themselves down by whatever attitude they have to their intelligence.
I think that intelligence and happiness aren’t correlated in any way. But the point of the clip wasn’t to actually answer a question.
No berenjie, being miserable goes with being sensitive. However I would hazard a guess, that your feigning misery would result only in people suspecting that you are after something.
And I’d can the idea that having truckloads of filthy lucre will make you any more nauseatingly cheerful than you apparently already are.
I’ve always liked the political adage:
“People respond best to sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Does the same apply to misery?
There is something to be said for blissful ignorance.
Deborah, ‘blissful ignorance’ describes the state that most human live in! Also I think that being smart and being intelligent are two entirely different things.
I think smart (intelligent) people are probably happier as they get older because they’ve probably had a fuller life. Neither misery or happiness last forever. Of course, if you’re neither smart or intelligent,you probably don’t know what you’re missing out on so it doesn’t matter. True sensitivity doesn’t necessarily equate with misery, it just means you’re more aware of other people’s feelings as well sas your own. People who are utterly self-absorbed are neither smart nor intelligent and, in my experience, either piss people off or bore you to tears. This doesn’t precluder them from being start or intelligent, but it sure gives them their fair share of misery because after a while one crosses the road to avoid them so to speak. Dostoevsky is a special case. Though he was undoubtedly a literary genius he brought most of his personal misery upon himself because he was a compuylsive gambler and a repressed paedophile. This did not prevent him from writing crime novels of mostly tormented genius, but it does mean one has to take his reflections on the pain of srnsitivity with a grain of salt.
BTW, if anyone out there with truckloads of filthy lucre wants to give it to me to test Caroline’s theory out, I’d be more than happy to accept (in the interests of science, of course).
If the money makes me miserable, I promise I’ll give it back.
Oh, and Paul – if you’re truly insensitive and people cross the street to avoid you, this doesn’t make you miserable.
You either pity them for not understanding what they’re missing out on or don’t notice in the first place, because if you’re self absorbed, you just don’t.
Not speaking from experience here, rather from my great empathy and understanding.
Genuinely unintelligent people don’t make knowing TV shows posing contrived questions that pivot on the setting up of cheesy strawman dichotomies like this. Pilkington is ‘unintelligent’ in the same Hollywood way that Ugly Betty is ugly.
I’m a just a bit fed-up with all this anti-intellectual fake-punter wot’s-it-all-about-guv mockney horseshit streaming out of post-Cool Britannia. All these ‘working everyman’ elite shtick-artists – chefs, sculptors, musicians, historians, actors, academics, TV and journalism Names – are enough to make you flee to the nearest Ivory Tower and go after a PhD in the most rarified upper attic of academe you can find refuge in. For a second there I thought I was watching a Jack Strocchi Comment adapted for TV by John Birmingham. Speaking of whom…what a complete Tamed Performing Wanker Greer is in this clip, eh. Once upon a pre-Meeja-Spayed day she would have told ‘Satisfied Fool Pty Ltd’ to fuck the fuck off. All that disingenuous crap about Mensa…I mean, really. Fuck off, Pilkington, you glassy arch twat. Transparent fakery, folks, condescending wankage, poor man’s Socratic irony slapped on opportunistically and heavy-handedly with the Showbiz pancake…all spewed forth with a cynical sneer for The Crystal Dollar Box. Swallow it at your peril.
Bah. Piss boy! Bring me a gilded plate of Enlightenment grown-ups. Time is passing, and we grow evermore bored with faux-ironic posing from the vapid middle-classery of Pop Culture Inc.
/rant
Ah Jack me old china, open yourself a cold one mate.
Pilkington is little different from our Kenny, except he has dons rather than dunnies to play with.
I share your plight, David G.
Phillip, you’re absolutely right. Karl is smart, and his questions reveal it. There is a theory that Karl is just a comedic invention, but I don’t buy it fully it.
I understand what you’re saying with that, but I enjoy Karl’s endless ramblings.
Happiness is something that comes and goes, I reckon. It’s certainly not a state we should be aspiring to all the time.
You can tell someone is really smart when they own a yacht, their kids go to boarding school, and their spouse lives in another country along with all their relatives!
Not sure who said it, but I recall a pertinent saying (the clauses may be the wrong way around).
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel, a comedy for those who think”.
Actually, I think that if the question used “content” rather than “happy”, with “content” allowing quiet stoicism, the answer to the question would be simpler.