Someone writing for How I Met Your Mother has been reading my blog. Either that, or they've been a graduate student in the humanities. In the most recent episode, Ted embodied exactly what I wrote about in my very first blog entry -- basically, people who name-drop Foucault, or, as we saw last night, recite Dante's Divine Comedy in the original Italian at parties, have a great tendency to be douches.
In this episode, Ted finds himself at a snobby gala attended by such random hysterical figures as Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times crossword (and in another moment of HIMYM brilliance, we find out that Ted was right: Ulee is a common crossword answer "because of all the vowels"). In any case, at some point in the evening, Ted begins pontificating on the concept of Hell and decides to recite the opening lines of Dante's Divine Comedy..."if you'll allow me, in the original Italian..."
He has not yet gotten through the first three verses when it strikes him: "You know, I actually sound kind of douchey." Three lines. It takes most people three decades to realize the douchey-ness of discussing 14th-century Italian literature at social gatherings -- and by then, they're so pretentious that they don't mind.
Ted's thought that follows -- while he continues to delve into the opening of the Inferno -- sums up my entire hypothesis about intellectuals:
"I'm the biggest douche on the planet!"*
And all it took was TV to prove it.
*I could have linked to so many other things right there, be thankful that I just chose to show you the clip at hand (which is highly worth watching, by the way).
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