Enough about me. Let's talk about my shoes.

There's being determined to make others think one right at all times, a fierce drive to be accepted as an authority in word if not in deed, that can twist a person into a freak who has no other value than being the one who knows. Some people are just nuts over being right, no matter how much they have to destroy anything resembling reality or truth. But there's another kind of person who has a need to be "right." He's kind of person one meets below: one who has no concern with being of "right" opinion but who demands of himself that he be "cool" at all times, in line with all about him; who is "right" in his presentations of the commonly accepted. This one goes well beyond caring about being accepted as an authority of any kind. He just wants to be known as one who is clever enough to pose interestingly. We can meet in this dark alley of the mind the Conformist Contrarian. Here's an example of one who is right in style, fashionable.

[A] Boston Globe editorial felt the need to compare Washington and Jefferson unfavorably to...Bill Clinton.

George Washington's parents no doubt took pride in his childhood honesty, but therein may lie the reason he was among the least intellectual of the Founding Fathers. A Canadian study last week declared that children who lie are actually showing their mental acuity and creativity. "Parents should not be alarmed if their child tells a fib,'' Kang Lee, director of the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto, told the Telegraph of London. In fact, children who are making things up at age 2 have fast-developing brains, which portend greater intellectual achievements. Thomas Jefferson, whose genius sometimes led him down a twisty path around the truth, may have been an example. So might his mentally agile successor, William Jefferson Clinton. As for Washington - perhaps there's a new explanation for why he confessed, in the great Parson Weems legend, to chopping down the cherry tree: Maybe young George just couldn't come up with a good enough cover story.
More at American Thinker.

The writer above seems to be one of those people desperate to impress his mates with the coolness of his contrarian ideas. It passes as "intellectual." There's a better term for it, but we'll leave it at that, the author's text above being sufficient condemnation.