5 . THIS particular knowledge are unimportant details of a much broader knowledge. As a Big Geographer does not care very much about the name of a three small villages somewhere in the Northern Noland. He knows the world very well, every state capital and the river it is on - and much more. Locals may think - How on Earth would you know where is Australia, when you don't even know how to come to Lolosmathen from Maxelberg!?
I've encountered this "pretending to be a Big Geographer" by dismissing something as "unimportant details" - many times.
Sometimes I run into people that have rather strong opinions on some topic, and it turns out that they are basing them on quite shallow and biased information. They are aware that their knowledge is quite limited compared to mine, and they admit that they don't want to put in the effort needed to learn enough to level the field.
But that's not really a problem. What is bothering me is that, sometimes, that declaration of ignorance is expressed with some kind of pride.
This behaviour is noticeable on other levels too, in politics or in the sciences-humanities culture clash.
I came up with several hypotheses which might account for this:
Do you notice this behaviour too? What do you think causes it?
EDIT: formatting, style, grammar