Who Said It: Jaden And Willow Smith, Or The Greatest Philosophical Minds Of Our Age?
The New York Times just published an interview with the spawn of Will and Jada, and it got WEIRD.
Did you know that both Jaden and Willow Smith are releasing albums this week? Phwoar. Just when you thought your 2014 could not get any better.
To mark this auspicious occasion, the most oblivious teen superstars in the world — the spawn of Jada Pinkett and her husband — sat down with the New York Times for a total mess of an interview where they mashed together more poorly understood philosophical and scientific concepts than Interstellar in full flight. I guess you have to admire them for trying to be something more than your average celebrity dynasty, but across the course of this chat the siblings — who, to be fair, are only 16 and 14 respectively — evince all the self-awareness of custard.
So, the real question is: do you have a better grasp of the history of human thought than Jaden and Willow Smith?
Take our 100% scientific test to find out.
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1. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
A) Socrates
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
2. “Look closely. The beautiful may be small.”
A) Immanuel Kant
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
3. “Breathing is meditation; life is a meditation. You have to breathe in order to live, so breathing is how you get in touch with the sacred space of your heart.”
A) The Dalai Lama
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
4. “Then you think about what you think, which is very dangerous.”
A) Karl Marx
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
5. “The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.”
A) Slavoj Zizek
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
6. “Time for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please, and that’s how I know it doesn’t exist.”
A) Lewis Carroll
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
7. “When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple. It’s a tool for understanding mathematics and things with two separate realities. But for creativity: That comes from a place of oneness.”
A) Edward De Bono
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
8. “Those who have nothing have only their discipline.”
A) Alain Badiou
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
9. “There’re no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it’s the best thing.”
A) Jonathan Franzen
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
10. “The critical ontology of ourselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctrine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accumulating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them.”
A) Michel Foucault
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
11. “What’s your job, what’s your career? Nah, I am. I’m going to imprint myself on everything in this world.”
A) Justin Bieber
B) Jaden Smith
C) Willow Smith
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Answers
1 – A, 2 – A, 3 – C, 4 – C, 5 – A, 6 – C, 7 – B, 8 – A, 9 – C, 10 – A, 11 – B
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Results
0: You did not do this quiz. In fact, you probably shut the tab less than five seconds after opening it with an audible “ugh”. I imagine you are probably haranguing a co-worker about how much you hate the internet as we speak.
1-3: Given that three of the questions were obvious jokes, getting any of those wrong suggests a level of disconnection from pop culture, philosophy and language that borders on the comatose. Do you need us to send help? Blink twice for yes.
4-7: Mediocrity is a cruel mistress. However, you may take some solace in the words of Jaden Smith, who once said: “Our learning will never end. The school that we go to every single morning, we will continue to go to.” Preach, Jaden.
8-10: Well, you sure know your Badious from your Smiths and your Kants from your Smiths. You’re even pretty good with your Smiths and your Smiths. I’m not really sure how this knowledge will help you in life, but here have this fun sticker as a mark of my respect.
11: While impressive, the fact that you can tell Jaden and Willow Smith apart 100% of the time from a basic fragment of text is seriously worrying and we have alerted the relevant authorities. Remain in your seat. Someone will be through to arrest you shortly.