anti intellectualism in the US

[nadinbrzezinski]

Anti-intelectualism is a modern disease in the United States

It is couched in anti authoritarian feelings, but this is currently a trait. And it is NOT limited to the right. It is quite prevalent in the left as well

People will attack those who have some idea of something due to professional or educational experience. Why? They will question anybody’s credentials, since authority of any kind is wrong

Think about the dangers of this.

Also consider how easy it is to fall back into mystical and magical thinking.

It happens here on DU, not as often as Free Republic, but it happens.

The people engaged in this also, at least in my opinion, are projecting and they are rather authoritarian on their own right, but since they do not have the credentials, or the experience, they accuse others of being authoritarian for using that experience to illustrate points.

I intend to read Al Gore’s book. From the excerpts he also makes this point.

And it is time to confront it, for what it is... bullshit, in fact, dangerous bullshit.

And no, I am not telling you to trust the authorities. Those of you who “know” me realize that I am far from trusting, especially our current occupants in the white house. That does not mean I will blindly use this broad brush and say that anybody with any kind of credentials is an authoritarian personality. Not only does this statement reflect poorly on the person making it, as in not knowing what that personality is... but also reflects that deep undercurrent of don’t trust anybody under 30.

It is frustrating, and I realize we can’t do a thing about it, except confront those spouting this bullshit

That is all

Nadin

[BuyingThyme]

1. This is Nadinbrzezinski calling out BuyingThyme.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1004446

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. No, this is a general statement

if you feel this is personal, I am sorry

Ye are not the only anti intellectual here.

Though you are a loud one

And I will call you on your bullshit, comprende?

[BuyingThyme]

56. No, it's Nadinbrzezinski trying to make the case that

authoritarianism and intellectualism are the same thing while, at the same time, trying to pretend that s/he's doing otherwise.

If you really believed I was being anti-intellectual, you would cite examples. Instead, you've only further exposed yourself.

[stirlingsliver]

3. Your Using Too Many Polysyllabic Words.

You are using too many polysyllabic words.

I don't understand what you are saying.

Could you use easier words?

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. LOL

[BlooInBloo]

25. meta-LOL!

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Anti Intellectualism is a BIG problem-but I don't think it stems from "anti authoritarianism"

Anti-authoritarianism, for good and bad, is a rather different animal IMHO.

If you look around, the folks grinding the anti-intellectualism axe are usually the same folks preaching blind obedience to authority. It's the thinkers who question authority.

[AX10]

6. Correct. It is the thinkers who question authority.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I'm not so sure

I think we do have a group of thinkers who also are authoritarian

It is more like I am right, and I will question your credentials just becuase I can.

That, at least to me, is a trait of one type of authoritarian personality

We are far more used to the other type, the non thinking type, if ye get my drift

On edit, it would make a fascinating PhD thesis for a poli sci or sociology student

:-)

[pitohui]

18. you can question credentials w.out attacking someone

on the internet especially we have no real way to know if some people are who they say they are

there is nothing wrong w. inquiring about credentials if someone claims special or exceptional knowledge not easily available to the rest of us

however it should be done politely and respectfully, instead of assuming that everyone who takes the time to post and participate is automatically an asshat

as for the folks who live to disrupt and make trouble, well, best to go directly to the alert button and move on the next post

some debates are sincere and engaged in for hope of learning a new insight, others are engaged in frankly for pure personal entertainment, sometimes difficult to tell who's who and what's what until you've already gotten too involved in a discussion

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Correct

by the way, at times I have provided, because of that, links to my MA thesis at San Diego State

My rescue expedience would be a tad harder to confirm... actually a lot harder

;-)

But even when providing links to verifiable credentials, at times it is just hard.

And I am using myself as an example right now...

;-)

And lets not even go down to the issue of gender (that is another ball of wax, I know)

[pitohui]

38. well you just do the best you can

gender isn't non-important, women who feel they will be especially targeted because of their gender are less likely to provide verifiable identification and indeed why should they be expected to

so it just makes it hard

you want to back up what you are saying yet you also have a right to privacy and security from whackjobs who would latch onto such information

[Uncle Joe]

61. You will not regret reading Al Gore's book

He is the intellectual with so much faith in the democratic process, he even lists along with his own and Moveon's website a site that disagrees with him on the issue of Global Warming, this to me is the opposite of authoritarianism.

The book is profound, powerful and enlightening.

[unpossibles]

29. that is a good point

although sometimes "authority" in intellectual matters is the academic or intellectual.

The only authority the anti-intellectuals seem to like are the Alpha Male authorities, which are not generally the same animal. They want to be "forced" into "submission" by the sheer Leadership of their superiors, not reasoned with - which is a sign of weakness to them.

I realize that sounds weird, but having lived with dogs all my life, it's how I see the dynamic. And yes, I realize that dog behavior does not make me an authority of primate social patterns.

And yes, I see the irony there.

:)

[BuyingThyme]

57. He had to say that because he's trying to tie his shortcomings

to his exposure in the other thread. (He had to find a way to tie the two together even thought they're totally unrelated.)

[dorkulon]

8. Goddamn liberal eggheads!

:sarcasm:

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Not that "modern". My mother was complaining about it in the 50's.

Her main complaint about moving into the suburbs was the provincial, anti-intellectualism she had to endure. Even when she was president of the board of education, she was talking above the heads of the other trustess, not to mention the superintendent and vice-superintendent.

Amendment to the above: Salem. You want to talk about anti-intellectualism gone amuck and incorporated into the law? This is a classic case of willful ignorance and greed that has undergone development throughout the centuries, leading us to where we are now.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Oh, yeah. Adlai Stevenson -a great man- was an "egghead".

The more things change.

[dflprincess]

47. I was going to post that very thought

God forbid we ever have a president who is "too" smart.

[Warren DeMontague]

49. We have to have someone you would "want to have a beer with".. right?

Although oddly enough, I used to spend a lot of time in bars.... and I can't think of a single person I used to enjoy having a beer with that I would trust with running this country.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. It is an american udner current

goes to a point hand in hand with populism, false and otherwise, but in the last thirty years, especially the last six, it's gotten really bad

[indigo32]

13. I dunno

today we have a President who is anti-intellectual. I'd say it's gotten worse. Have we ever had that in the past?

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. We came close a couple times

but this degree is astounding

harding comes to mind...

to a point Jackson

[no_hypocrisy]

20. Book alert. A real classic: Anti-Intellectualism in America. Published in the 60s.

http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellectualism-American-Life-Richard-Hofstadter/dp/0394703170

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. A classic, true

thanks, I think Al Gore's book is about to join him

[Phredicles]

53. And it goes back even further, at least to Andrew Jackson, who

I read somewhere was absolutely convinced that the world was flat.

It's funny: Our founders were very learned, very thoughtful people, but I believe by the second or third decade of the 1800s the climate in the US was already pretty anti-intellectual.

[Johonny]

11. I said to many of my friends

It's interesting that on the topics of anti intellectualism the far left and far right are actually very closely linked in their thinking even if they approach the subject from very different angles.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Yep, I think it would be a faxcinating study

[Frank Cannon]

15. On the left, I see a lot of buying into pseudoscience nonsense

I see all kinds of people on these boards constantly espousing no end of quackery and pseudoscientific craziness. Even during the Terri Schiavo fiasco, there were people posting here who were just convinced that Terri had the slimmest chance of getting up, walking, and living again. You could not tell these people that short of growing a new cerebral cortex, it was absolutely impossible. These posters only got even more enraged and accused those people who HAD opened a junior-college level A&P textbook of being snotty know-it-alls.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. that my friend is a sign of anti intellectualism

and my reference to magical thinking and mysticism

I remember that one... head meet wall, less painful

[pitohui]

23. superstition is a curse in all society, not just on DU

not sure what is to be done, they tried outlawing religion in the former soviet union, we see how well that worked out

it's a part of the basic unfairness of life that some people come w. better brains than other people, some people are more fearless and can confront the dark w.out clinging to mysticism, some people are just plain more intelligent and can think through a problem better -- and the people who can't really think things through logically or who can't face the dark without a crutch, those people are always going to be bitter about it, you know

[nadinbrzezinski]

On religion I see it as an evolutionary imperative actually

let me explain

Religion creates a world view and a social group

This allows for survival

In the modern world though it is slowly becoming obsolete. I don't know what the future of religion is, but even science can become a form of magical thinking, which leads to the question, do we need it to survive? I mean, as a species

Lord getting philosophical here.

[pitohui]

35. if we bond over bullshit maybe we don't need to survive

this view is probably correct but it's rather depressing to think about! and the group think certainly never did much to ensure the survival of those who didn't go along to get along, be they the pagans or the little old lady herbalists or what have you, in my opinion, religion killed as many as it may have saved

we took a wrong path in the old days when we turned toward religion, family or tribe could have also provided a world view and survival, indeed, it probably provided the only "real" elements of survival while the priest class skimmed off the profits

maybe my view of history is just too dark but i don't see how religion has promoted survival, i see it only as having promoted endless war

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Oh we are at the point where it will kill us

the benefit is gone

In that I agree, and that benefit started to go right about the middle ages

[heidler1]

50. IMO the Russian Revolution was productive. I completely agree with your second paragraph.

[depakid]

28. "...espousing no end of quackery and pseudoscientific craziness."

Remember all of the "earthquake weapons" posts after the Boxing Day Tsunami?

Those had to be the most embarrassing of all.

[unpossibles]

36. I remember and agree with you

yet I also remember seeing later articles elsewhere about how drilling for oil could cause seismic disturbances.

Do I think the Boxing Day Tsunami was deliberate or weapon based or (lol) Karl Rove-based? Of course not.

But I also try not to ridicule things just out of hand. After all, it was once commonly known that man would never fly.

[depakid]

43. innumeracy and difficulty with scale

are serious problems in American society.

Some issues of scale can be solved (flight being a good example). Others- like energy issues related to petroleum and natural gas depletion and especially seismic events are so vast that lay people have trouble wrapping their minds around them.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

63. Gore did that himself from time to time.

He even once waivered on Creationism. I wonder if he mentions that in his book.

[athena]

64. ... and rejection of medical science.

As a scientist, I am deeply disturbed by the tendency of liberals to turn their backs on Western medical science. It is thanks to western medicine that most of us are here today: just a generation or two ago, people were dropping off like flies of diseases such as pneumonia, smallpox, and tetanus. Childbirth used to be much more dangerous, there was no reliable birth-control method, and even a relatively slow-growing cancer was considered a death sentence. Now that we've overcome most of these problems, now that heart bypass surgeries, organ transplants, pacemakers and contact lenses have become commonplace, people are starting to view western medicine as "uncool". They refuse to vaccinate their kids, go to chiropractors for cancer treatment, and buy into B.S. with zero scientific backing such as homeopathy.

To be sure, there is a lot that is wrong with the medical insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry. But that is separate from medical and pharmaceutical research, which is mostly performed at universities by grad students and professors, who don't get paid very much. Turning one's back on the science of medicine because of the problems with the medical industry is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[trotsky]

17. Totally agree.

It plagues us in just about every arena, and DU is sadly far from being an exception.

[Jed Dilligan]

24. Weird definition of "intellectual" here

I agree with Buying Thyme that this is obviously related to the flamefest she linked. I don't fall on either side in that discussion, because I will freely admit I am not informed enough.

However, your post is, IMO, pretty twisted. Intellect and experience are two different things. People have always "known better" because of their experiences. Every new idea in the history of ideas has met resistance because of that. Look at military history. Anesthesia was resisted because the "smart of the knife" was thought to revive battlefield victims; tanks were resisted because they were less reliable and versatile than cavalry; air power was resisted simply because. Each advancement was a victory of intellect OVER experience. I don't know if we're better off for all those particular advancements, but progress in other fields follows an identical pattern.

The voice of experience:

"Metal tools will never replace flint!"

"The spoked wheel does not have the strength and reliability of the solid wheel."

The "intellect" you brought to the debate in the other thread was a knowledge of standard procedures, i.e. rules to be followed in a certain kind of situation. This reminds me of cops saying "be smart," by which they invariably mean, "blindly obey me." Some of us hold the opposite definition of "smart."

:hi:

[AX10]

30. A very intriguing post Dilligan.

Another way of looking at this would be, "it looks good on paper, but does it work in reality?"

:hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Did not Link it

by the way, the procedures I refereed to, insofar as communications are used world wide

The Incident Command System was developed in the US, but is now quite standard

But my credentials, if you want to look at it from that point of view, not that you could easily verify them

Are ten years as a field medic with the Red Cross in Mexico, (2 in Mexico City, and actually now that I think about it ten in Tijuana)

Over those years I helped developed the incident response system for Tijuana

And the communications, if you asked me about my logs, what logs?

Communications were not recorded by us, lack of equipment truly

But yes, experience does matter, especially in situations here the Incident Response System, that actually was developed in the East Coast of the US, will be implemented.

It is just logic here

As to the police obey authority, again, I am not going to tell you to listen to the cop all the time, but if there is a fire with a danger of explosion and a cop tells you te get out... I'd listen.

Oh and since the AMERICAN Red Cross does not do this kind of work, I expect people to question this as well...

Comes with the territory and a lack of desire to educate themselves.

[Jed Dilligan]

39. Everything here is irrelevant to my point

I never questioned your credentials, just your definition of intellect.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Which is fine

I can tell yuo right now that intellect is not only book learning

As we are ahem, learning in intelligence studies

[Jed Dilligan]

44. Generally, I would tend to question the "experts"

in an area that we, collectively as a society, obviously don't have right. (Education, economics, penology, housing, psychology, international relations....)

Emergency response isn't one of those areas IMO--for the most part, I think firefighters and EMTs have a pretty solid MO. But there's always room for innovation.

That's why we are the (mostly accursed) animals we are.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Oh trust me the innovattions in EMS come

after people die

As a species we are very stubborn to change... but that is a whole different ball of wax

But as to what is intellect, all those animal studies of the last 30 years have revealed that perhaps we are not that different from the rest of the animal
kingdon

I could give you anecdotal stories of our parrots have solved logical problems, or link to the actual studies that are still ongoing.

That alone will change (in time hopefully) our view of ourselves as part of a natural system

And I hope in time if we are to survive.

[BuyingThyme]

58. You can't help but repeatedly slide into authoritarianism.

Do you really not see it? Everybody else can. I guess it's phrases like "my credentials" that give you away.

[IChing]

26. That's why you were wrong on this thread

where I laid out my objections in the original post.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1004164&mesg_id=1004376

;-)

[BlooInBloo]

27. Yup - pretty much all Americans are fucking stupid, and damn proud of it....

... Which is a not-so-nice way of putting one of Gore's points in his book.

[no_hypocrisy]

34. How they do it: They claim they have something better than intellect: common sense.

And their common sense beats out "book smarts" any day of the week. You have a better chance of winning an argument with a dead person than with a stupid person.

[BlooInBloo]

41. Yup - the old Nietzschean inversion.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

31. I ordered his book, yesterday. But, I also ordered "Wounded Warrior".

I need a spiritual back-up for ALL THOSE TIMES 'reason' is thrown to the wayside.

:shrug: It's what I need to keep my inner strength.

[porphyrian]

32. Anti-intellectualism is an intentional product of our social engineering.

Smart consumers are bad consumers. Good consumers trust authority unquestioningly, can't be bothered with science beyond knowing it makes products better and know the options handed to them are the ones available. Politicians benefit from this. Corporations benefit from this. Religions benefit from this.

But, be careful who you label anti-intellectual. Everyone acts pretty stupid some of the time. With or without the manipulations of consumer mind-control, none of us are all that far from grunting hairy primates on an evolutionary scale.

[melody]

42. If you have the "street cred" to argue points, I think that's fine

What gets me is when people (and this happens a lot in this country) argue with
information based on their emotional need to believe the contrary. I say, if you disagree
with something, fine, but be prepared to show your work. Challenging many people to give you
an intellectual basis for their opinions often results in a blank stare. They've
never even thought about it.

[OHdem10]

45. Anti-Authoritarion ??? The RW including their Rank and

File are very authoritarion. This is why Guilliani
is so popular. They walk lockstep behind a leader.
Many believe that because Bush is President, you have
a responsibilty to stand behind him right or wrong.

[Arugula Latte]

48. Religion is the big culprit.

People check their rational thinking at the door and embrace mythology as fact.

[Spike89]

54. True, but hard ideology is a close second

Religion at least is semi-honest (sometimes) about its rejection of reason for pure faith.

[Cruzan]

51. Ideally you should always try to have multiple sources of information rather than

trying to overly rely on just one (or a couple). Then whoever you view as your 'authorities' are regularly being tested and reconfirmed (or eventually discarded if they're not measuring up).

[TZ]

52. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

The anti-intellectualism I run into on DU on a regular basis is discouraging. I used to think that kind of stuff was limited to the RW but not anymore (I can't even mention the name of my industry without starting a flame fest):applause:

[LeftishBrit]

55. I hear you! (and it's not just the United States)

In many walks of life in the UK, to be seen as intellectual is to be considered at best a harmless lunatic, at worst a person to be distrusted. Schoolchildren, especially boys, often won't work at school because their peers will look down on them for engaging in academic pursuits; and hate-filled tabloids claim to spout 'plain common sense' against 'the clever people'.

It's even worse because it gets linked to the class system on all sides. Traditionally, working-class people who got and took the chance to pursue intellectual interests were seem by the upper classes as 'getting above their station' and by their own families as 'turning into snobs and forgetting where they came from'; while at the other end of the scale, the aristocracy often regarded learning as a tenth-rate option for physical weaklings who couldn't play cricket and rugger and go off to rule the Natives in the Great British Empire. Things have improved (especially as regards attitudes to girls pursuing intellectual interests, which was quite unacceptable in the past = "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever", but some of the attitudes have not yet died down.

[LeftishBrit]

65. I should perhaps modify the above slightly...

by replacing "in the UK" with "in England". There seems to be rather less of this anti-intellectualism in Scotland and Wales.

[distantearlywarning]

59. It happens all the time on DU.

Bugs the shit out of me.

People who don't work in a field but have a factually correct opinion get told to shut up because they don't work in the field and therefore don't know anything.

However, if someone does work in the field and says so in an attempt to provide a basis for others to evaluate their opinion, they get accused of being a snob or trying to lord it over other posters intellectually.

And lets not forget the gifted child wars from many months ago (summary: gifted children are all smug assholes whose rich parents pulled strings for them in school). And oh yes, the DU thread the other day where a recent college graduate talked about how he couldn't find a job in Bush's America, and half his responses were filled with invective that went something like, "If you weren't such a priviledged self-entitled little shithead you'd stop whining and get yourself a REAL job slinging burgers like the rest of us MORALLY UPSTANDING people who never went to college".

This is probably the one thing that pisses me off the most about DU (and the world, really). The bitterness and hate for intellectuals and people who've made something of themselves educationally, or just even people who work hard at thinking through problems and actually finding something out about the opinions they spout. I'll probably get flamed to hell and back here for saying this, but a job at a university is just as valuable as a blue-collar job, and in some cases, more valuable, at least in terms of making the world a better place. That isn't to say that people in non-intellectual jobs aren't important or good or anything like that, or even that they aren't good or valuable people in the world. But I personally worked all kinds of shit jobs in my life before I went back to school, from hostessing at a fast-food seafood restaurant to construction to secretary for a corporate insurance company VP who couldn't even figure out how to read his own email (but at least he wasn't one of those Ivory Tower assholes who think they're better than everyone else, right?). And I think my current work as a Ph.D. student in a research science discipline is more valuable and important than my work at any of those other jobs. Just my opinion... (P.S. - Before any embittered anti-intellectuals get their panties in a wad, please note that I did not say that I became a more valuable person after going to grad school.)

[stanwyck]

60. Rightwing radio depends on anti-intellectualism

Hate-radio is all about enraging people. They're hooked on the high of rage. Facts and rational discourse are not welcome. Only manufactured news, edited to evoke the most rage, is spewed forth from the ardently "real guy" hate-talkers.
That's why they screen all their calls and don't have one on one debate, unless it's carefully edited and pre-recorded (like O'Reilly). Rush really is handled (like Bush). Nobody gets through to discuss the other side directly and call Rush out on his lies.
It's theatre.

[Jade Fox]

66. That's one of the best.....

descriptions of Right-wing radio and TV I've read.

I see the results of this phenomenon in a Fox-News-watching co-worker: She automatically goes for the "outrage" about any topic. When I pin her down about the facts, or ask her what she's going to DO about a situation other than complain, she goes blank. It's rage addiction, disconnected from anything resembling reality.

[NashVegas]

62. Authoritarianism Has Nothing to Do With It - Bogus Argument

Intellectualism in the US died when industry and advertisers realized the financial power of baby boomers; the result was the diving standards in popular culture.

Being pro-intellectual does not automatically equal being authoritarian; example: Noam Chomsky. Nor does being pro-authoritarian equal being intellectual; example - *.


Too many people who are intellectuals look down their noses at the masses, and that doesn't exactly help matters.

[Jade Fox]

67. Right-wing rage is manufactured.....

by the Limbaugh/O'Reilly's of the world to distract from the Corporations taking over our country. Left-wing rage is rooted in actual events, even if the knowledge of those events is second hand. Yes, this is a generalization, but I think it holds true.

I believe the Right Wing Noise Machine is largely responsible for the indiscriminate distrust of all authority now prevalent in our culture. The Right Wing Noise Machine invented the technique of destroying factual credibility based on claims of bias. (The media reports facts that make the Right look bad, and those facts, however indisputable, are discounted because of the media's "Liberal bias").

My understanding is that the term "Authoritarian Personality" does not refer to an actual authority--one who is knowledgeable due to education and experience--but to those people incapable of independent judgment who have a dependency on the authority, legitimate or otherwise, of others.