The Smartest Person in the Room

The Smartest Person in the Room

(Or Why Being Better Informed Doesn’t Make Us Smarter)


I recently watched a comedy routine by Mexican comedian Franco Escamilla that made me laugh.

And then think.

He was talking about how nobody wants to be considered stupid anymore.

He recalled how two students could once walk out of an exam and have a conversation like this:

“How did you do?”

“I failed.”

“Me too! High five!”

Apparently, not knowing something wasn’t always such a terrible thing.

Then he told a story about two Mexican television personalities, Andrea and Galilea.

Andrea had previously been widely ridiculed for a comment suggesting that fluctuations in the dollar exchange rate wouldn’t affect people who earned and spent pesos.

Later, during a conversation about Alfonso Cuarón’s film Roma, Galilea apparently misunderstood the reference.

She thought the film was about Rome, the Italian city.

The film, of course, takes its name from the Roma neighborhood in Mexico City.

And according to Franco’s humorous interpretation, Andrea saw her opportunity.

She could finally pass the baton.

After being the one everyone laughed at, she could now point out someone else’s mistake.

I laughed at that part, too.

But then I wondered.

Galilea knew Rome was a city in Italy. She simply didn’t know which Roma they were talking about.

Andrea knew.

One had information the other didn’t.

But was that enough to make one smarter than the other?

We often confuse having information with having knowledge, understanding, or good judgment.

They’re not the same.

Knowing the correct answer doesn’t necessarily mean we understand the entire situation.

And understanding something doesn’t automatically mean we’ll use that understanding wisely.

Yet we sometimes seem more interested in proving that we know something than in actually learning something.

Someone makes a mistake, and we rush to correct them.

Not always because the correction matters.

Sometimes, perhaps, because being right feels good.

Especially when someone else is wrong.

But I’ve never believed intelligence should be a competition against other people.

I use information, knowledge, understanding, and judgment to make sense of the world.

It’s an approach that works for me.

It doesn’t require everyone else to see things the same way.

And it certainly doesn’t require someone else to look foolish.

After all, being better informed doesn’t necessarily make us smarter.

And making someone else look foolish certainly doesn’t.

Perhaps we don’t need to spend so much time demonstrating how intelligent we are.

Perhaps we should simply concentrate on making better use of what we know.

And let that speak for itself.

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TPSbyKatsu | Short Stories

Reflections on people, learning, and the systems we create.