The Nerd-Geek Distinction

Plato offers insight into two words that are often used interchangeably, but which could not be more different.

Dec 08, 2023

The AdamoZone is a column by Luca Adamo, Vice President of Marketing and columnist at The American Postliberal. Published every Friday at 5:00pm EST.

What is a Geek?

I would like to begin this piece by asking you to imagine something: picture an “academic” in your head.

If I had to guess, the person you pictured is probably no Adonis. What comes to mind is probably a chair-bound goblin, whose lack of conviction — which prevents them from giving you a straight answer to the simplest of questions — is only trumped by their lack of fashion sense. What I am trying to say is that the “academic” you pictured was probably a huge geek!

If anybody hated geeks, it was Plato. One of humanity’s greatest minds spends large portions of his dialogues performing the philosophical equivalent of wedgies and swirlies. In the Republic, he states that those who “devote themselves exclusively” to the intellectual life turn out “overcultivat[ed],” “cowardly,” and “softer than is good for them.”1 Ouch!

Plato goes on, stating that he who “spends his whole life humming” and “entranced by” philosophy “melts ... and dissolves [his spirit] completely until he has cut out ... the very sinews of his soul,” and “makes himself ‘a feeble warrior.’”2 This sounds a bit like our previously described “academic,” no? Plato states that geeks, in having such weak spirits, become “quick-tempered, prone to anger, ... and filled with peevishness.”3 Plato here presents us with a wonderful view into the nature of somebody who is too bookish for their own good.

What is a Nerd?

However, if anybody could be described as an “academic” or “bookish,” it was Plato! Plato was deeply immersed in Greek poetry, consistently and thoroughly citing Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. He also displays a rich knowledge of mathematics throughout his many dialogues. Plato clearly hit the books.

And yet, Plato was no geek! He was probably ten times more book-ish than your average overly-bookish geek, and yet he was the farthest thing from a “chair-bound goblin” who “lacked conviction.” How can this be? How did Plato keep the “sinews of his soul” intact, while still managing to be so intellectual?

The answer, according to Plato, is “physical training.” Of course, just as devoting oneself “exclusively” to intellectual training will turn you into a geek, those who “devote themselves exclusively to physical training”4 will turn themselves into meat-heads. A gym-bro who refuses to read will become an “unmusical hater of argument who no longer uses argument to persuade people, but [instead] behaves like a wild beast, and lives in awkward ignorance without rhythm or grace.” Meat-heads, according to Plato, are “more savage than they should be,” lacking proper conviction in their own way.

Obviously, it is not good to be a peevish, cowardly geek or a stupid, savage meat-head. Plato’s lesson is that only hitting the books or only hitting the gym will ruin you. If want to have healthy souls — if we want to be “harmonized temperate and courageous” instead of “cowardly or savage”5 — he insists that we must do both.

On some level, our conventional wisdom understands this: nobody would seriously try to argue that studying and exercise are not important and that we should neglect one at the expense of the other. However, our culture lacks Plato’s unique, soul-centered insight on the matter, largely because our culture does not think about (or really believe in) souls. People will point out that “being intelligent and well-read will help you navigate business situations” or that “exercise increases blood flow to the brain,” but that does not even begin to explain why scholarship and athleticism are both essential.

Scholarship and athleticism are both essential (and on their own, detrimental) precisely because of how they work to balance out our souls. The best of geek and meat-head should combine in order to create what Plato describes as the ideal human form: a nerd!

In being a nerd, the geek’s lack of resolution surrounding all that he knows is transformed into conviction when his knowledge-base is graced by the fortitude and discipline brought on by working out, making him courageous instead of weak. Likewise, in being a nerd, philosophical knowledge allows the meathead to properly articulate his innate sense of the right and wrong instead of resorting to force, making him temperate instead of rough. Plato was certainly a nerd. Not only was he a genius, he was also jacked (hence his name, “Plato,” deriving from the Greek word for “broad,” “platon”).

Being a nerd truly is the best of both worlds. It allows us to grasp why studying and exercising are even worth doing in the first place: a clear-eyed love for the good, true, and beautiful.

However…

This would seem like the perfect place to end this essay… if not for an unavoidable fact: not everybody has the makings of a nerd. Plato’s possession of both groundbreaking intelligence and diligent athleticism is extremely rare, and in his case bordering on superhuman. I can only speak for myself and I know that I am barely approaching him in both attributes. I could never write anything as brilliant as The Republic, and I am certainly no math whizz. As for sports, I do like going to the gym, but clearly do not have the makings of a varsity athlete; Donald Trump’s theory of exercise depleting our limited energy supply is more my style.

Does this mean that everybody who is not a nerd — who does not have the makings of a jacked genius — is barred from the ideal human form? Of course not! This is because of a truth that Plato, in living before Christ, could not have grasped: the ideal human form is not found being a nerd; it is found in being a saint. And anybody, by the Grace of God, can be a Saint, no matter their intelligence or athleticism. This even includes those with severe deficiencies in either — those that Plato and the rest of the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world would have left in the cold to die as infants.

Of course, if one is inclined towards philosophy or athletics, ignoring said inclinations and not making proper use of one’s talents is bad. You should learn and exercise as much as your proclivities, capacities, and circumstances allow for (which, in everybody’s case, will include at least some of each, and probably more than you are doing now). This will shape you into a more virtuous and harmonious person, as Plato says it will.

However, it is not as if the more intelligent and athletic you are, the better. Thanks to Christian revelation, our heart can now be shaped towards its ultimate, divine purpose: we can now be holy, irrespective of our particular talents. Now that we can attain the gifts of hope, prayer, and the seven sacraments, our souls can be taken to heights beyond that of the nerd by a force outside of ourselves and our own abilities, namely God.

It ultimately does not matter how smart or athletic you are. If you have been gifted with potential in those areas, that great! Actualize that potential — it is a sin not to be a nerd if you can manage it, and you should avoid being a meathead and a geek at all costs. However, do not be discouraged if you are not the strongest or if you are not the smartest.

What truly matters is your charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity — those can all ultimately be cultivated through a relationship with Christ through His Church. This is how both St. Augustine, who is probably a greater genius than Plato, and St. Joseph of Cupertino, a friar and mystic from the 17th century who could not pass the simplest of exams no matter how many times he tried, managed to be Saints. You can be a Saint, too, even if you lack the nerdly gifts.

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C. D. C. Reeve, Plato’s Republic, pg. 94

C. D. C. Reeve, Plato’s Republic, pg. 95