Has geek become respectable?

NBC has renewed both Heroes and Chuck, while CBS has Big Bang Theory. Ashton Kutcher produced Beauty and the Geek. There is the magazine, Geek Monthly. (A bit more successful than Nerd Magazine?) And the new Star Trek movie continues to do ok at the box office. TrekMovie.com brings this bit of news: Orci & Kurtzman To Produce Masi Oka Movie About Gamers. A movie about MMORPG players who save the world? Is geek now chic?

Video gaming isn't enough to qualify one as a geek -- there are plenty of young males who aren't geeks who play video games, either on the computer or on gaming consoles -- frat boys, jocks, and so on. Although G4 does seem to reflect the fact that the lines between geek and normal have been somewhat blurred, at least with respect to video gaming.

Is it just one form of adultlescence among many? Or is it a male predisposition towards certain traits and kinds of behavior, one on a spectrum that goes from normal to autistic and beyond? The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course. What elements of the male psyche serve as the foundation of geekiness? An almost-exclusive focus on the task at hand, the use and appreciation of tools, and dependence on the sense of sight for appreciation of objects. Anything else?

Without Western affluence, being a geek would not be possible. (I don't think the use of computers is essential to being a geek; but maybe there is a significant difference between nerds and geeks than I not am aware of.) I don't think anyone could successfully argue that the "Dark Age" monks and the medieval scholastics were geeks, though it may be that contemporary scholars can be fond of texts and books a little bit too much. But that is a problem with [modern] scholarship, which has been separated from true learning as the curriculum has lost its unity and become fragmented.


St. Albert the Great a geek? I don't think so.

The ancient Greeks would have looked down upon geeks--they would probably be excluded from citizenship. (Although this would also be true of members of other American social categories, who would be judged as having interests that were too narrow and hence not able to participate in the good life.) The problem seems to go beyond a lack of temperance or moderation, but to their ordering of goods -- what they believe happiness consists in -- and a lack of wholeness. The biggest casualty seems to be relationships with members of the other sex, as the mass media reminds us in its depiction of the stereotype. But if we ask the question of whether geeks can go beyond friendships based on common pleasures to friendships based on virtue, we find the answer almost immediately--not until they have a fuller conception of what the virtuous life is.

Since we supposedly live in a republic or polity, until a more classical ideal of citizenship is restored and made attractive to males, geekiness will remain attractive to many. Or, if the country continues to lose wealth and production power, very few will be able to afford being a geek.

At least the problem here hasn't reached otaku proportions?

japan otaku


Links:
chucktv.net
Think Geek :: Stuff for Smart Masses
Geek.com
Geek Squad
santa cruz/bay area geek social scene (geek social scene is not an oxymoron)

urban dictionary: otaku
University of Minnesota Press: Otaku
Otaku USA Magazine
Welcome to Otaku Town
Otaku Tourism
NPR: Revenge of Japan's Nerds
Aso promotes otaku culture in China
Otaku Proud of It
Japan Society, New York - Otaku Talk
Superflat Japanese Postmodernity

A blog, Dumb Otaku