Am I anti-Intellectual or…
Synova on Feb 17 2008 at 8:44 pm | Filed under: Culture, Education, Society, Synova's Page, Uncategorized
…am I just not impressed by YOU?
Jules Crittenden responds to a column by Susan Jacoby The Dumbing of America. She concludes…
It is past time for a serious national discussion about whether, as a nation, we truly value intellect and rationality.
The short answer is… yes, we truly value intellect and rationality.
It just doesn’t look like what you want it to look like. In fact, I’m tempted to start quoting The Princess Bride… “This word? I do not think it means what you think it means.”
She began…
It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an “elitist,” one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office. Instead, our politicians repeatedly assure Americans that they are just “folks,” a patronizing term… [...] Such exaltations of ordinariness are among the distinguishing traits of anti-intellectualism in any era.
It’s labeled “elitist” because it’s “elitist.” The reason it’s a powerful pejorative is that it embodies the notion that the person speaking considers herself better-wiser-smarter than other people. Viewing “folks” as a patronizing term proves my point.
Like most nostalgia fests, this one envisions a past more intellectual than I suspect it actually was, tosses out all kinds of figures about how dumb we are … most of them without any prior reference to indicate whether it’s an improvement or not …
He goes on to defend the value of non-print media. I’d add to that a defense of non-print entertainment as well. My children live globally. They socialize globally. They consume globally. They watch “foreign” films without the concept of “foreign”. Not like when I was a kid and far away places were exotic and remote. Their favorite television shows (and they all agree on this) are Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, and Good Eats. All of those are shows with a technical base exploring how things work and they all rely on applied science.
It’s not just the extensive list of sources for global news and information, it’s entertainment and LIFE. Our short attention spans are one way we accommodate the need to sort and assimilate such huge swathes of information efficiently and quickly.
It is elitism to demand that those adapting to innovation with enthusiasm mollify those who don’t play games or who insist that certain ways of getting information are inherently more worthy than others.
We value knowing things. We value intellect. We value reason.
We also value our own judgment about what we need to know.
Where is China?
China exists in a virtual matrix of information relationships. Does Susan Jacoby know where China is?
Sphere: Related Content
I have a hard time picturing millions of farmers in the 1890s reading War and Peace or knowing what is going on in Kosovo or Sudan.
True.
You know what they *were* doing, though? They were reading farm journals that included the weather forecasts for Egypt. (If they were Texas cotton farmers anyhow.) No doubt the intellectuals at that time didn’t think that such pragmatic concerns were lofty enough either.
I love this. What else would a rationalist say? What else could a rationalist say? Her rationalism blinds her to any distinction between “value(ing) intellect and rationality” and valuing intellect and rationality above all other things.
Elitists aren’t elitists because they’re mean or otherwise defective, they’re elitists because by over-valuing intellect and rationality in general they come to over-value their own intellect and rationality in particular.
Too funny.
yours/
peter.