The last word

I think I've written about this before. Maybe it's just that I'm always thinking about it, so I feel like I've written it...but what's the deal with people needing to have the last word? No, actually what I mean to write is - what's the deal with people needing to have any word at all?

This comes up a lot in academic settings. And since I've returned to academia, I've remembered how I used to think about this a lot before. Currently, I sit in meetings, talks, etc, and I listen to people interrupt each other to put in their two cents. Now, if it was for the purpose of brain-storming, hypothesis generation, it would seem totally legit for people to contribute. But I'm talking about something entirely different. For instance, during a faculty talk about the work they do, I hear people asking questions that are so clearly not questions at all. They are more displays of the questioners knowledge. A way for that person to say "Hey, I know about this and I want everyone to know how much I know!" Or even worse "Hey, I really don't actually know anything at all about this topic, but I'm going to ask a tangentially related topic with hard-hitting jargon, and then at least I'll have contributed so I don't seem like the idiot in the room".

I'm all for intelligent discussion, don't get me wrong. I'm probably guilty of the above just as much as anyone else. But what's the deal with needing to feel smart? Is it the intellectual equivalent of beating our chests? Since pugilism is not necessarily the way to dominance anymore, are our words now our fists? Are we one-upping each other with intellectual capacity since - really - if we tried to drop-kick someone our socks would get tangled in our sandals?

I just think no one is really listening anymore. They are just waiting for a good time to hear themselves speak.