Edited by Stephen H. Segal
Published by Quirk Books
Reviewer Rating: 2.5 Bullets
I have a confession to make. I’m one of those guys that over-intellectualizes just about everything. This flaw in my make-up leads me to spend precious moments staring off into the ether of the Universe when a more immediate response is called for. I have been chastised for this behavior on many occasions by friends, lovers, and bosses, but it is such an integral part of my being that I can only apologize and vow to do better in the future.
The reason I make this confession is that it serves as a background for this review. When presented with the opportunity to read and give my thoughts about a book titled
Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture, my initial reaction (after much thought, of course) was that this sounded like a book written just for a guy like me. I mean, I have no reservations about being labeled a Geek. A book that, from its title, sounds like an exploration of the underpinnings of this label seems to be right up my alley. See, to me, the title suggests that the book will be a cohesive philosophical tract concerning what it is, exactly, that makes a Geek a Geek; it sounds as if this will be a carefully deconstructed understanding of why I lean towards what I lean towards.
Unfortunately, that is not what this book is.
For editor Stephen Segal, geekdom, geekhood, being a Geek is tantamount to a form of worship. He claims that this book is to function as if it were this religion’s bible. As Segal writes in his introduction to
Geek Wisdom, this is “the first compendium of sacred teachings from the wide ranging ‘holy scriptures’ of geekdom, that weird mass of pop culture and high art ranging from blockbuster movies to esoteric novels to cult-classic T-shirt slogans.”
Geek Wisdom consists of a approximately 200 quotes from various pop-culture sources upon which Segal and four other contributors wax philosophical. They take each quote as if it were a Nietzschean aphorism or a Zen koan and fill a page with an attempt to either understand it in a general context or expand upon it in terms of a more universal truth about the human condition.
The problem is that there is no unifying theme to the explanations. If this is supposed to be a “bible” for Geeks, then the religion is as dysfunctional as the stereotype that Geeks themselves often suffer from.
