Rather than elaborating on my own ideas first, I thought I'd ask the rest of you what you felt when others dismissed certain writers and concerns as "pretentious":-- whether this bothered you, seemed justified or both.

Unfortunately, I've had a few irrepressible thoughts on the subject. I hope you won't mind if I empty my skull's pockets before asking to see what's in yours.

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Often, the word *pretentious* is misused by people who are guilty of the very thing of which they accuse others: the assertion of knowledge they don't actually possess. Most of the time, people dismiss something as *pretentious* when they really mean *affected*. In so doing, they show themselves to be the most pretentious of all: they use words they do not understand to condemn *someone else's* use of language.

Another layer to the ignorance of those who misuse *pretentious* habitually: The presumption that archaic diction is a mere affectation is itself pretentious insofar as it presumes a *natural* condition of language when there is no such thing. Language is an artificial construct, not, as Chomsky insists, the genetic contents of a lump in the brain. To call language natural is like speaking of soil-nurtured skyscrapers and sea-harvested antidepressants.

Common speech, natural? Bookish diction, an affectation? Tell that to the research librarian who never speaks to anyone, let alone, memorizes the speech rhythms of the charmingly inarticulate.

The problem with dismissing artificiality as affectation is that the idea of naturalism itself is synthetic. We live in artificial dwellings in an artificial society. Our ceremonies have been transposed through the centuries to the point of unintelligibility.

To pretend we are natural in condition or self-expression is to be guilty of *unconscious* influence, whereas to embrace artificiality *consciously* is to listen to one's own peculiar set of influences and build on it deliberately. The first is derivative; the second constructs a set of habits judged to be superior intuitively rather than determined by social pressure.

Thus, so-called "pretentious" artists show courage and independence, while so-called "unaffected" artists carry out their blind inheritance blindly: by adhering to rote social prejudice in any given context.

I think when it comes to people in the arts who have a higher intelligence then others, there is that feeling on the part of those with a lesser artistic ability or lower intelligence to write smarter, more talented people off as being "pretentious" because they are expressing their skills...much to the consternation of those with little or no talent or intelligence. Basically, because they themselves do not have the capacity to create such wonderous beauty in the world, their insecurities kick in as a defense mechanism, and because they do not have the intelligence to realize this, they instead point the finger and say "aww whatever yer jus'a snooty whachamacallit quit showin off!"
This labeling of the artist as "pretentious" on the part of the lesser person is simply another form of margenalizing the artist's works and a vain attempt to pull them down from their rightful place on the pedestal of recognition.