Everyone needs to stop calling me pretentious. Right now. This detestable designation has sept into our contemporary cultural like a viral infection of the kidney, and it fails me to launch a moral crusade against it. It’s a vacant phrase, a tool for the uneducated to attack the righteous. It kills debate, like the ones I love to initiate on the comparable virtues of French and Russian cinema, or on the complex differences of principle and tone that divide Japanese neo-folk from its American counterpart.

 

Discourse is the spice of life, or at least I think that’s what Foucault said. And the development and refinement of ones wit and intellect are some of the many personal and spiritual benefits that a deep and nuanced knowledge of the arts can provide. Oxford is supposed to be a place of debate and inquiry, a marketplace of ideas, a utopia of the thinker. But that hideous word permeates this ancient campus, following me with the devotion of an old lover that holds a tenacious and ancient grudge.

 

I have been accosted in Jericho Coffee Traders for my proclivity for extra-large, extra-foamy, medium temperature flat whites with goat milk, harassed on Broad Street for my well-tailored and semi-ethically sourced vintage garments, and chased out of Magdalen boat house for simply providing pointers to the women’s eights (they sorely needed the advice!). And all the while, that rotten rhetoric retains its rigid wrought iron grip on my ears.

 

What I am is extravagant, bookish, and very engaged with all the relevant political and cultural discourses of the age. A man à la mode as they say en Europa. I’ve got opinions on everything going, as a good, educated man should! It is then utterly and completely inexplainable that each time I engage in conversation with my fellow companions they insist on calling me pretentious.

 

It is such a peculiar phenomenon. During a recent post-formal chat over some port, I was affronted with the accusation for merely requesting we discuss the subtle romantic influences of our college architecture. I think better words would be ‘inquisitive,’ or ‘thoughtful’ which better highlight the generosity I showed by attempting to intellectually elevate the conversation. After all, it did make better conversation than discussing the latest tikky tokky trends.

 

To better understand the word’s prevalence, let’s turn to its definition, of which the Oxford Dictionary is very clear: ‘Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed.’ Now, I can see why this is an easy angle for the budding critic; it’s a low blow, an opportunity to destroy an argument before it’s made. It lays siege to understanding, burning the foundations of my Alexandrian library of knowledge before I have the chance to share it.

 

When one is pretentious, they are—to speak in the roughness of common parlance—chatting out their arse. Their words become hot air, a pompous mirage that hides a serious lack of understanding under decorative language and style. It wipes away legitimacy, claiming that the target’s words are nothing but pseudo-intellectual nonsense. But the brunt of the issue, making the whole thing all the more offensive, is that it’s rarely—if ever—used correctly.

 

Often when the word pretentious is used, another adjective is far more fitting and illuminating. For example, I was recently explaining to a mouth breather from some Northern nowhere-town that the brutalist architecture of her hometown is not ‘hostile’ or ‘inhuman,’ but an idealistic expression of a socialist utopian view of society that ought to be preserved. Though she naively accused me of pretentiousness, I wasted no time in letting her know that my stipulation of an analytical view on her personal experience was, in fact, ‘out of touch’ and ‘paternalistic’.

 

Northern students purport to suffer from a lack of outreach; I feel compelled to speak on these false reports, having strongly suffered the effects of the aforementioned student’s fist outreaching to my face.

 

Furthermore, my lengthy article in the Cherwell extolling the virtues of Oxford’s new chancellor, the Right Honourable Lord Hague of Richmond, faced the same blanket dismissal. What fools! Such comments could never be described as over-intellectualisation; they require very little thought in the first place. Clearly, anyone with a brain reading my words would surely label them as ‘bland’ and ‘sycophantic’. Nevertheless, such assailers would be wanton to know that my comments only matched Cherwell’s style-guide mandated tone!

 

Another common site of this crime against the thesaurus is in the warm and welcoming halls of the Oxford Union. My last debate speech, a rigorous treatise on the benefits of AI for addressing the multitudinous and intersecting issues faced by modern governments and businesses, was well-argued and thoroughly researched. Nevertheless, my critics accused me of pretention for obfuscating the main issue (the debate happened to be on the removal of statues of slave owners—I fail to see how my points were not relevant).

 

Perhaps, at a push, one could describe my insistence on fore fronting of AI for every conceivable issue to be ‘self-absorbed,’ ‘singularly obsessed,’ or even ‘insincere’. But it’s the dominant issue of our times! And at no point did I assume a point of knowledge that I could not confirm from my own research or attempt to display a higher level of understanding than I could justify! How then could I be called pretentious? The implication is ghastly and, simply put, lazy. In this instance, the pretention accusation served to infringe on my basic right to freedom of expression, so sacred to that glorious and magnanimous institution.

 

It rears its tête hideuse at the worst moments. Usually, it arrives just as the discussion is getting good, just as we arrive at the point of interest, or as a unique or stimulating reference can help approach the issue from a new angle. But, invariably, my quoting of Chaucer or invocations of Rodin leads to the repetition of that horrible, effacing critique. The brattle of its consonants echoing in my head became too much to bear, the barrage of insults often following it too excruciating.

 

Evidently, a label of pretention is a prelude to ad-hominem. In fact, I would argue, it has become the pinnacle of ad-hominem itself! When it is so broadly applied to each and every grandiose sycophant, it loses all meaning other than an insult to the speaker’s intelligence. It creates an atmosphere of fear and distrust, discouraging thought and punishing intellect. Why should we debase ourselves with such a dangerously trite phrase when there are so many other beautifully scathing words we can throw at our enemies.

 

There’s ‘vapid,’ ‘insipid,’ and ‘lacklustre,’ for those with nothing to say, ‘tedious,’ ‘mundane,’ and ‘uninspiring’ for those who lack style, and ‘ostentatious,’ ‘orotund,’ and ‘overblown’ for those whose only merit is flair. We’re losing the ability to describe! To paint pictures with words! What is the point of debate if we can no longer painstakingly deconstruct the personage of our opponents through a meticulous and pointed use of the English language? This article, therefore, has been written in order to educate the masses in the proper standards of principled and respectable rhetoric.

 

I know that these are dangerous sentiments to speak. But I am a brave man. As I write this, I am Jeanne D’Arc upon the pyre, my eyes fixed steadfast on the bulging mob before me. Each one holds the word ‘pretentious’ in their frothing mouths like a torch in their hand, burning with the intent of my utter destruction. But I am not afraid; I know them.

 

The users of ‘pretentious’—of which I have no doubt many of you readers are—are that sneering mass of common pseuds; the liberal intelligentsia, the imitator philosophers, and the part-time cultural critics. You look down your noses at those who dare to elevate conversation, while accelerating the flattening of all culture to lowest common denominator. And you make me sick doing it. Why should I listen to you if you do not have the prudence to pick up a thesaurus?

 

If one intends to engage with me, please think before you do so. Use words that are relevant to the topic at hand, and thoughtfully choose them for maximum effect. If you are unable to do so, you fail to meet the basic intellectual requirement for my attention, and I will Revolut request you for wasted time and intellectual energy. Doubtless, under this new scheme of intellectual taxing, I will become a very wealthy man. But it is not just the money I will cherish; the world is losing its intellectuals, so I beg of you please heed this warning. I do not wish to end up the only great mind able to distinguish a philistine from phentolamine (though I fear I already am).

 

So go forth and read my dear cherries and return to converse with me only when you have obtained the literary capabilities to do so. In the meantime, I will continue to write extensive reviews of obscure silent films on my letterboxd, to speak loudly in tutorials about my keen insights and idiosyncratic analyses of the readings, and to contribute incisive articles of criticism in perceptively satirical styles to The Isis. And I shall do so without the fear of pretention, because I no longer respect the charge.∎

 

Words by Cameron Bilsland. Image courtesy Pixabay via Creative Commons.