I think of it more as being a de-emphasis on grades versus sports in school, how people will make fun of you for using a wide vocabulary with multi-syllabic words, that being smart or well educated is much less important than looks, being good at sports, etc...
You heard a lot of this sort of fuss over how Obama's speeches were phrased. Lots of people were angry that he didn't "sound like one of us", or that he was "talking down to us", etc....
For some reason seeing a football player make a touchdown doesn't make the average person feel fat or slow, but hearing someone using "big words" and talking about something harder to understand that last night reality tv show seems to make the average person feel dumb or talked down to. And they lash back.
in-group out-group dynamics.
notice how everyone refers to a sports team as "our" team. As if the people watching have anything to do with the team's success.
Assuming the mirror neuron theory is true (I only read the NY Times version), we actually feel a little bit like we are scoring a touchdown when we watch someone else score a touchdown as a spectator. This is even more true if you have played a little bit of football.
Watching an intellectual sitting there thinking deep thoughts, you are mirroring, what? Since you can't observe what is in his head, how can you get any kind of thrill of vicarious participation?
The super model case is more complex. I remember another NY Times article about a study in which women got equally excited seeing beautiful, scantily clad women as seeing good looking, scantily clad men. The hypothesized reason was that the women were putting themselves in the place of those women, their mirror neurons imagining being desired/desirable as those women were, perhaps.
I'm guessing if the super model comes on the screen while the boyfriend/husband/other men are in the room, then it is more a sense that the image on the screen is a rival for attention? Or maybe a little of both.
I don't understand why. I'm of the same slight build as a supermodel, but most people aren't and a beutiful "plus size" model will still make them feel ugly. Though at least it would give more girls a reasonable weight goal.
Good question. How about having no emphasis on grades as such, but lots of emphasis on student-directed learning projects, and perhaps academic competitions among schools? Many students learn a lot more mathematics from their math team than from their graded math lessons, for example.
You heard a lot of this sort of fuss over how Obama's speeches were phrased. Lots of people were angry that he didn't "sound like one of us", or that he was "talking down to us", etc....
For some reason seeing a football player make a touchdown doesn't make the average person feel fat or slow, but hearing someone using "big words" and talking about something harder to understand that last night reality tv show seems to make the average person feel dumb or talked down to. And they lash back.