How to Make Yourself Sound More Cultured

10 names to drop that’ll have your guests amazed

Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash

Some light cheer.

Everybody loves a Zoom party but does being shown up for your lack of intelligence make you shiver? Do you fear the moment somebody tries to outshine you with a display of intellectual bravado?

Fear no more! Here’s a list of 10 people and what they said to make them infamous that’s bound to impress even the dullest of wit.

1. Hannah Arendt
   Phrase famous for: ‘The banality of evil.’
   Arendt, a Jewish anti-fascist, once famously defended an ex-nazi boyfriend against Allied charges. She believed that most people weren’t evil, including the ex, but had other motives. Eichmann, for example, didn’t hate the Jews, he simply was an ambitious arsehole who needed the ‘Kill’ quote to push him up the Nazi ranks. When your quiet, next-door neighbor turns out to be a serial killer, it’s reasonable to assume he only enjoys the process rather than hating people. That’s the banality of modern living.
   Make an impression rating: 8/10 (Everybody loves a good explanation of why Hannibal Lecter does what he does)
2. Marshall McLuhan
   Phrase famous for: “You know nothing of my work.”
   A postmodern theorist, McLuhan declared the ‘medium is the message’. A man who predicted the internet 30 years before it was…