When in European and US history were nerds most respected?

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I hope to get replies from those who have strong backgrounds in European and US history. Anyways, by 'nerd', I mean someone who excels intellectually, whether it be in philosophy, history, math, science, etc, AND also lacks social skills and tends to be a loner. So kids who get good grades (to help advance their career, not because they care about the intellectual content) but have social skills are NOT nerds

I have forgot alot of what I learned about European history. But I get the impression that the Age of Reason, or Enlightenment, may have been the best era. They championed reason and had optimistic views about intellectualism. I'm sure they'd be disgusted with modern society's obsessions with hedonism, materialism, the trash we see in movies and TV, etc

Isaac Newton was a Nerd and he was very respected.

ruveyn

last week

silicon valley, apple, TED, and new money from innovative breakthroughs have made normal people nerdier, and the nerd more respected.

I suspect that Immanuel Kant was a nerd by that definition. Rigid routines, highly systematising mind, outstanding at mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, never married, hated the emotional piety taught at his high school (but wrote a book called "Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone").

There may well be periods where the Thinker is disproportionately represented in the histories.

But Powervolk and Barker will never respect [though they may use] Thinkers or Dreamers, and Socializers and Scurrywarts will never fully trust them.

I suspect the periods you are inclined to claim had a large proportion of thinking Pioneers, who are capable of exchanging ideas and dialogue with Thinkers and Dreamers and are also able to energize and proselytize so as to get the others on board.

It's not when but where. If you're in a situation where your skills are useful you'll always be appreciated.

Weelll - you MAY be used. First the others have to NOTICE that your skills are useful.

Not really true.

Maybe your skills weren't as useful as you think then. I've never had a job where i've not been appreciated. In fact, it's what usually makes up for my social deficits.

Nerds are like dyslexics and people afraid of flying, they were not even recognizable as a type until recent times.

Nerds become labeled as such in adolesence.

Today we put teenagers together by the thousands into warehouses called public schools.

Before the nineteenth centurey people didnt go to school past the age of 12. After that you either helped with tamily farm chores or you lived as an aprentice to a tradesmen.

So there was no dichotimy between those with good grades and those with bad grades, nor the sub-dichotemy between those who get good grades to advance themselves and those who study because they get turned onto special interests- because nobody went to middle nor to highschool.

Also there was no dichotomy between teens who identified with thier peers and those who identify with elders because teens spent much less time with their own age group than teens are expected to today.

Teens in traditional societies of today (theyve done studies on groups like nomadic bedouin tribesmen) rarely even have contact with people their own age and spend most of their time either minding younger children, or hanging with elders.

So in the world of our pre 1850 ancestors, as in the world of traditional socities of today, nerds are not even a recognizable category of person.

So for most of history nerds were niether liked nor disliked-they were simply invisible.

Flawed. It doesn't matter whether a certain type of person was recognised or not. They still existed and found places and jobs that suited their needs. You're over generalising. I can see the logic in your argument but the world isn't that simple. We're talking about a certain type of person that existed whether or not they had a label and those personalities have always found their own way of doing things, their own niches. A personality doesn't come into existence because we invent a word for it, the word gets invented for a group of people that already always existed. With certain changes they became more obvious and recognisable compared to our way of life now, but if you looked hard enough you'd always find those same personality types throughout history doing the jobs that suited their personalities in those particular times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit is an interesting article.

Pre dark ages in history seemed to at least have multiple notable intellectuals. Majority of ancient civilizations made incredible progress in technology, philosophy, science and whatnot. I thought that a lot of knowledge was lost when Rome fell. Although I think the Byzantines held on to some of that knowledge still.

I have to agree with Naturalplastic. Although the intellectual personality type has long been a part of the human race and examples are found all throughout recorded history, the category of "nerd" as defined against teen peers is a modern social construct. I notice that other posters glided right past that and substituted "intellectual" where "nerd" was in the OP. But Naturalplastic was right to point out this historic distinction.

Back to the original question: and the answer is the same as it is today- some people respected intellectuals and some didn't. Recorded history is recorded by intellectuals so they will tend to lionize others just like them. The opinions of peasants weren't relevent and not recorded. I have no reason to assume that the random serf had any respect for- or actually any knowledge of- intellectuals. Did peasants of the time even know Isaac Newton was in their midst? Probably not. He looks respected in retrospect because it was the people who respected him who wrote about him.

You are ONE lucky person.

Starting with my first job [fired by the end of the first shift] and my nice years as tenured persona non grata faculty.

But maybe your jobs are not BASED on social merits.

I'm single minded. There's logic in every job you can do. I just take the attitude that if i'm being paid to do something and i have to be somewhere i don't like for x amount of hours i may as well do my best. My first job, at 17, i was being left alone to finish the job i was doing and being trusted with the keys to lock my area up within a few months of starting( place that employed 200 people). I've had bosses giving me lifts to work in multiple jobs. I've had management at my last job coming up to me and telling me that it's rare to have someone so intelligent working for them, managing directors introducting themselves to me even though im a no one. They were offering me trainee management jobs but i didn't really want any kind of responsibility. I dunno, i just work hard, although that's a family trait there so i dunno. I can name multiple members of my family that are equally hard working and have similar experiences in the work place. My mum stopped working at a shop recently and when she finished everyone had put money together to buy her some nice things. I don't know why people are like that to me/my family, i just do my best and things turn out well. It always makes me feel guilty when people gain weirdly good opinions of me, i never feel like i've earned it. I certainly never see it coming. I don't know why people sometimes hate me but i equally don't know why that gets turned around, people are just strange.