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I Am An Anti-Intellectual
I can’t take it anymore. Uncle! You were right, Thomas Sowell — though not right enough. Nothing good can come of intellectuals.
This is a stunning reversal from my earlier position. If you told the 2014 version of me that I’d join the barricades against the educated, against the literature junkies and the philosophy hobbyists and the “curious” class writ large, I’d have laughed in your face. But here I am.
Why have I changed? Because they’ve changed. Because I didn’t know, lo those many years ago, what a vacuous lot they were. I didn’t know that they, and not the illiterate underclass, were the real cultural vandals. Nothing in their behavior suggested as much. Forgive me, for I was blind.
If I drew a Venn diagram with two circles; one circle devoted to people who self-identify as voracious readers, and one circle devoted to people who think the United States is “systemically racist” and that believing in and publicly acknowledging the existence of two sexes is “hate,” the two circles would overlap by about 95 percent. And the problem isn’t that these people have been filling their heads with garbage and nothing else. A devotee of Charles Dickens or Fyodor Dostoyevsky is as likely to yell “ACAB!” as a devotee of Angela Davis. Nor is it about the educational institution, either. What happens to the idealistic young 21-year-olds churned out by the country’s six or seven classical liberal-arts colleges — the beacons of hope we conservatives pour so much money into? They head off to the charter and parochial schools, ready to enlighten a new generation . . . and turn woke. In with “pyramid of white supremacy” diagrams! (This very diagram circulated among Hillsdale alumni last summer, to some acclaim.)
So, I’m out. Call it reverse snobbery. Call it an overreaction. But if all that exposure to the best that’s been thought and said gives me is a mop of blue hair and a warm and fuzzy feeling whenever Ellen “Elliot” Page appears on television, then . . . what’s the point? Best to take my chances with the pipefitters.
Published in Culture
To follow-up, in my oft mentioned dig that we are well into the anti-intellectual era in American, I tend to rely on the part of the definition of “intellectualism” that ties it to the concept of “knowledge being wholly or mainly derived from pure reason; rationalism.” With that, you wouldn’t have to scratch a troll very hard in these parts to find a near perfect example of “anti-intellectual.” (I may not be the smartest knife in the drawer but I am NOT one of those.) I don’t think that is what you are going for…I would put your “intent” (if I may) more along the lines of those in the hollow credentialed class that infects much of our society today.
I mentioned above that according to my preferred definition, K is an intellectual.
I didn’t say what that definition is, so thanks for supplying part of it for me! See the bolded text.
I think of the class name “intellectual” when I see a person who
With respect to reading, ceteris paribus “more intellectual” means “more thirsty to learn from others”, which means more drawn to reading (and conversational learning).
Intellectuals throw in latin phrases where completely unnecessary just to show off. ; )
quod erat demonstrandum, pur se.
(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)
What about your purse!?
Love that line.
I will go back to Socrates. The people I respect are wise because they know they know nothing. Those that get us into trouble are the ones in love with their own intellect. They think they can handle complexity and are enamored of the deepness of their thought and nuanced understanding. But human beings suck at understanding complexity. Show me the person who thinks they understand how the world works with any certainty, and I’ll show you a progressive.
I like the one where Dilbert asked the judge to throw out his case because there was no e pluribus unum and no lo contendre.
Yes. I’ve noticed over and over again that the people who self identify as voracious readers aren’t always voracious readers. A large number of people who self identify that way not only don’t read books that challenge their worldview. They sound like they disapprove of the practice.
This disapproval isn’t a new thing although, from what we all read and hear, it’s gotten worse. I can remember having brown paper bag covers over certain books in certain environments, as if these books were porn or something, to avoid drawing to myself disapproving attention from people back in the 1970’s. Not that I remember a word of this book now, but one was “Up From Liberalism” by William F. Buckley. The paper bag covers didn’t stand out because we used to be asked to keep textbooks from getting too dinged up by covering them.
I find it interesting that “intellectuals” have a difficult time accepting traditional faith, yet they have infallible faith in global climate change, systemic racism, the Democrat party, Antifa’s mission, Bill’s and Hillary’s motives, Obama’s intellectual superiority, etc. For people who have no faith, they accept a lot of stuff on faith.
I feel your pain. It was probably easier for me, as I’m a working class mutt from way back, but I feel exactly the same way about it as you do.
I’m an intellectual – at least as much as a scientist / engineer can be intellectual.
I go out of my way to learn new things and enjoy expanding my knowledge. I have been since I was a kid devouring encyclopedias.
It’s the humanities and liberals arts intellectuals that are really a problem. Most PIs in sciences are too busy going for grants to be “thought leaders” (man I hate that term)
Kephalithos will no doubt explain that I am the minuscule fractions of a percent that is inherently conservative, which would be news to me pre-9/11, and unneeded flattery for my ego. I would add that if we are actually doomed, I do not want to waste time listening you moan about it.
This makes no sense to me at all. This idea seems to be attributed to Socrates, though I think that the attribution is dubious.
Your position seems supremely Post-Modern, which is strange in an idea attributed to the ancient Greeks.
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
Philosophy teachers are the worst.
Never knew any intellectuals. Guess that was a function of being an accounting major and going to law school. Learn a skill; advise people how to make/save their money. What does Socrates have to do with that? Then the military. Save lives. By bombing the bad guys. Not much philosophy there. Then back home. Make a living. Raise kids. Enjoy and life and (ok, its California) drink some wine. What is this B.S.?
There is a figure known as a “public intellectual” (e.g. Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Jordan Peterson). Such individuals are typically conservative.
Was it about cheese-eating surrender monkeys?
At least it won’t be a problem in the future:
Now he’s quoting Ecclesiastes.
Correct.