Pretentious Meaning.

The definition of pretentious is an entity such as an institution or someone that claims to be very important or grand. An example of pretentious is someone saying they deserve a table in a crowded restaurant because of who they are. Pretentiousness is intended to impress or scare others. Pretentiousness can also be a tool to make people fearful in society.

Being pretentious means you are not equal to another person and that you have some sort of higher power.

“I am also a princess of my own domain”.

Pretentious people especially if they wear an authoritarian uniform or work in authoritarian institutions, act like they are something that they are not. At the end of the day regardless if one is Royalty, a Politician, The Police, or a Civil Servant working in a Local Council Offices, one is just an ordinary human being just like the rest of us. Yet people of statuses portray they are important and they somehow believe they have some sort of mystical power over you, although in reality they are either born entitled (Royalty) or work for an institution where they give out orders and somehow believe they are entitled and different. This does not make them special, they still do everything that the rest of us do, sleep, eat and survive.

In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, authority is practiced in ways such as a judicial branch or an executive branch of government. In the exercise of governance, the terms authority and power are inaccurate synonyms.

Italian politician Maurizio Gasparri causes outrage tweeted that the English are “pretentious pricks” when Italy beat England in the 2014 World Cup. Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Anthony Doerr tells Michelle Dean that he “grew up were to call yourself a writer would be pretentious” Journalist Ruth Dudley Edwards informed her readers that her “prevailing thoughts about the writer Salman Rushdie” were that he is “self-important, pretentious, attention-seeking and ungrateful” (Daily Mail, 19 June 2007). On BBC 5 Live in 2009, Richard Bacon got to grips with a question that has vexed humanity for centuries: “Is wine over-rated and pretentious?”

Society segregates people into classes making people such as celebrities have the power of self-importance because people idolize them like Gods.

People in institutions such as banks, schools, police departments, council, and political offices think because they are employed they automatically have a superpower.

These people believe they are somehow more important than you just because they work for a governing institution when in reality, if that job was taken away from them they would be in the same boat as you and then become vulnerable.

Pretentious people prey on ordinary people’s insecurities and vulnerabilities. By acting superior making the other person submissive and anxious can cause a cascade of problems due to the consequences of the pretentious person’s actions.

People try to survive the best way they can and these institutions should not be judgemental yet they are portraying their self-importance even though they are no different to you.

“I am feeling pretentiousness from some people working in one particular institution I have reached out to, that somehow think they are more important than me. I get the impression that I am insignificant and that I have to bow down to them. Furthermore, they have no regard for a person’s mental health state of mind. I feel I am divided into a social class because I have a disability and that I do not deserve to be treated with dignity”.

“I am a spiritual being in a physical body. Only God has the right to judge me and no one is better than me as I believe we should be all equal even though society has taught us that we are not”.

“This is causing me to feel unwell and anxious (my OCD has flared up even more with my intrusive thoughts). I cannot concentrate properly and cannot focus on my work. I also deal with stupid people that do not read their emails properly and then ask for the same information multiple times, even though the information has been submitted yet they failed to read it the first time around. I can directly blame people for my emotional distress that makes me feel this way, for degrading the quality of my life. The consequences of people’s actions can cause a domino effect which can cause a person to feel worse than they already are”

It is axiomatic that pretentiousness shows no one in good light. Pretension is measured using prejudiced metrics. The pretentious person – naturally thinking themselves to be very important, believing they are in possession of an educated and discerning mind – believes that normal folk will be submissive to them.

Pretension sets the amateur against the professional in a game rigged by tradition, qualifications, and institutional approval. Decipher the word “pretentious” and outcomes an open can of worms, a bestiary of class anxieties; fears about getting above your station, and policing those suspected of trying to migrate from their social background. The word is broken down fits in with emotional attitudes towards economic and social inequality and is used as shorthand in arguments over authenticity, elitism, and populism. Pretentiousness is the brand of witchcraft used by scheming institutes of society to keep the great unwashed at bay.

Society tries to control people by arguing about rules, regulations, and right or wrong ways of doing things is one way to divide people into social classes. To accuse someone of being pretentiousness, of trying to stand out, affirms the fact that the accuser (you) fits in with everyone else. Because pretension is measured against the baseline “norm” of the accuser, there is an assumption that pretension always involves moving up the class ladder. Pretension is taken to be synonymous with snobbery.

Citations & Credits

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/09/in-defence-of-pretentiousness

#pretentious, pretentiousness #selfimportance #snobbery