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Quote of the Day: The Intelligentsia
Intelligence does exist even in the Intelligensia. It does sometimes happen that a man of real talent has a weakness for flattery, even the flattery of fools. He would rather say something that silly people think clever than something which only clever people perceive to be true.
G. K. Chesterton, All Things Considered (1908)
Chesterton wrote that early in the twentieth century. It is even truer now, in the first quarter of the twenty-first. In his book, The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin warned us of the dangers of a new kind of politics – one where politicians sought office in order to have a platform to perform on, not to address real problems with legislation. Our media reward silliness (witness the incessant promotion of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), while ignoring or suppressing anything that threatens the dominant position of the monoculture.
Ricochet is a pocket of sanity in the midst of fools.
Published in General
My favorite quote (attributed to just about everyone) on the subject is this one:
The definition of an intellectual: Someone educated beyond his intelligence.
It is unfortunate that we must run with a controversial performer like Trump rather than some more disciplined, statesmanlike figure but the other side is more dysfunctional. It is noteworthy that Democrats who too often vote like serious adults (Manchin, Sinema, Fetterman, Gabbard…) are marginalized or expelled whereas malignant buffoons like The Squad are given attention. The Harris candidacy is a bad joke, a giant absurdity that ought to be some kind of final reductio ad absurdam but instead, it looks like America has not yet hit bottom.
That is perfect!
I think it’s going to have to get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.
Semi-related: As I recall, the term intelligentsia is Russian in origin, and in order to be regarded as a member of that class one had to not merely be highly educated but also politically far-left.
Did you mean to write “A definition” rather than “The definition”?
If not, then
1. I hope you will put on your critical thinking cap and see if your implicit assumption—that there is only one definition of “intellectual” in use today—makes sense, and
2. you discover that the implicit assertion is untrue (in other words, it is indisputably true that people sometimes use other definitions), and
3. it follows logically that the quote is not true, and
4. that causes you to discard your current favorite quote, and promote your second-favorite quote to first place.
If any of these sentences is unclear, please let me know which number.
Wonderful post, Fractad!
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Side Note.
It is of such quality that it makes me more acutely regret the failure of our supplier to give us a basic search function. Ricochet has such untapped potential!
I regret the lack of a working search function many times a day, every day, in any case. But much more when I read something like the above article that I know others and I will want to find and read again, or use in a post.
We should get together scope out high level requirements and work estimates for a project to write it ourselves.
A friend once told me about a study where 75% of the people questioned believed they were above average. I’ve since come to the conclusion that probably half of them were wrong.
It would be a hoot if some journo asked Kamala what we should do to address the fact that almost half of American schoolchildren are below average.
It would! Especially if she hadn’t been prepped for it. (The recited response to a specific policy question, “I am from a middle-class family” is less funny after the first time you hear it.)
She is funniest when she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say, and has to ad lib. Then it’s “Quick, somebody get that bimbo a salad bowl!”
Obviously they did not attend school in Lake Wobegon.
Thank you very much, Mr. Camp!
Wasn’t it Hillary Clinton – or maybe Michell Obama – who declared that all of the below-average schools should be closed?
This is also a point regarding my position that we all may encounter a number of people each day who are significantly below average intellectually, but we just don’t know it because they don’t LOOK very different. And we don’t interact with them enough to learn the truth: they’re in the same grocery stores, etc. So we assume that they’re probably about as smart as the people we work with etc, which is probably not true.
I’m enjoying this thread about what the true meaning of “average” is. Here’s my QOTD from May 21:
“People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not have one-tenth of the knowledge of all of the average persons put together. ”
Thomas Sowell
Hoo boy. That’s a crazy good quote.
Thomas Sowell is a secret Misesian economist.
But if all those people together are so smart, why do they elect Democrats?
Have you never visited Lake Woebegone, where all of the students were above average?
Because intelligence is almost irrelevant to the process, for us as well as them.
Hey, I lived there for a few years in the 70s. The lake is fictitious, but the place and people on whom Keilor first based his monologues were not. Later, as Keilor became more successful, he kind of lost touch with those people and tried to hang out with the New York artsy community instead. The result was that his monologues became less entertaining and more formulaic. Sometimes he just phoned it in. I remember a cringeworthy show he did in Dublin that bore no relation to the people he tried to talk about. But he already had a reputation so people paid to go hear him anyway.
I agree, and his falloff seemed to be pretty steep.
Sinclair Lewis Syndrome. Lewis wrote about the folks back home while hanging with the in-crowd in Jazz Age Manhattan. The harder he ripped the folks back home on Main Street, the better they liked it. To this day, at least one of the writers of the New York Times believe they understand better an entire swath of the country by the descriptions contained in a century-old novel.
Perfect.
Even nominal, supposed, high-level RINO Hugh Hewitt said the other day that “expert-ism” is a disaster. I could hardly believe my ears. lol
The Founders set this country up to avoid this, and we completely tore it down.
No, because Lake Woebegone, like Utopia, does not exist.
For the record, I loved that show. lol
Too bad what’s-his-name was such a weirdo pervert.
It’s a just a joke . . .
I cannot pick a number, as I must bow to your intellectual analysis . . .
Honestly…this might be the best summary of the field as I have read. Would very much like to have a better horse than Donald Trump (but hey…the voters have spoken…we ride him now to the end) but the other horse…good gosh…there are no words. There is a choice….both may be not what we want but one is much much worse.
I really don’t want to hear the NR Editors et al lamenting if Kamal Harris wins and she begins immediately to dismantle the Supreme Court….Nationalize industries….goes after her opponents etc etc….Trump may be a populist (well…maybe riding the populist wave to get elected is a better way to put it…he is fully transactional…again no the best horse ) but ge will not imho dismantle the Constitution the way a Harris administration will…the choice is there…
Thomas Sowell has a good book about this “Intellectuals and Society”
One of the things he noticed about the Intellectual class if they are an expert in one area, they believe they are a expert in everything. I call this the Tom Nichols effect
Or not even an expert in ONE area that really matters.
An old favorite: