How Anti-Intellectualism is Destroying America

[Varian P]

Sad but true: Intelligence is a political liability in the US. Author of The Age of American Unreason Susan Jacoby explains why:

How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America

It's not the best-written article/interview in the world, but a lot of the points resonated, not least of all, the way certain folks like to use the words "intellectuals" and "elites" as if people who make an effort to learn and understand things ought to be ashamed of themselves.

 

[cloudy]

Good article, and sadly, very true.

It starts early, this "dumbing down." I can remember being teased mercilessly in school when I made grades significantly higher than those of my friends/classmates. Outside the norm is just that, and usually looked on with suspicion.

Look at how many people make excuses for the things that Bush says.

 

[Corylea]

Sad but true: Intelligence is a political liability in the US.

Sad but true, indeed.

On the other hand, if you reflect that the US was originally settled by religious fanatics, criminals, misfits, and ne'er-do-wells of all stripes, it's a wonder we've managed to make a go of the place at all. People who were happy and successful at home didn't need to come here, so we're the dregs of society plus the nonconformists and free-thinkers. When you think about it, we're lucky we haven't all killed each other off.

I've had European friends ask me why the US is still so preoccupied with religion, and I point out that they shipped all of their inconveniently religious folk over to us! "Why does the US have so many bizarre people who run amok," they ask. Well, bizarre people who ran amok in Europe in the 1700's got shipped here, and we've got their descendants. Don't send everybody you don't want over here and then blame us for having 'em!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Good article, and sadly, very true.

It starts early, this "dumbing down." I can remember being teased mercilessly in school when I made grades significantly higher than those of my friends/classmates. Outside the norm is just that, and usually looked on with suspicion.

Look at how many people make excuses for the things that Bush says.

There's a big difference between intelligent and being an intellectual. I am intelligent, very. I am not an intellectual. An intellectual is besotted by ideas, their discussion and massaging. You can be plenty smart without being an intellectual. The real problem comes from the concept of the Public Intellectual, a tradition that starts with Socrates. I would refer you to Richard Posner, who really is an intellectual, a judge and a very fine writer. If you look at the history of the public intellectual in America, you will find that they are always nearly scolds and since the beginning of the 20th Century, mostly Marxists. The record of the Public Intelletual is so poor, when it comes to analysis and prediction, that it is no surprise the such folk are derided. Read the book.

 

[Guest]

Sad but true: Intelligence is a political liability in the US. Author of The Age of American Unreason Susan Jacoby explains why:

How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America

It's not the best-written article/interview in the world, but a lot of the points resonated, not least of all, the way certain folks like to use the words "intellectuals" and "elites" as if people who make an effort to learn and understand things ought to be ashamed of themselves.

My husband and I just had this very conversation this morning.

When did it become a bad thing to further your education? Why aren't scientists and collegiate professors respected? Why aren't historians believed?

We're effectively dumbing down the country. Soon we'll meet the presidential standard of excellence.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

My husband and I just had this very conversation this morning.

When did it become a bad thing to further your education? Why aren't scientists and collegiate professors respected? Why aren't historians believed?

We're effectively dumbing down the country. Soon we'll meet the presidential standard of excellence.

I must live on another planet from you, Sarah. Here, everyone has this deranged idea that if you don't get a BA from a Major University, you're a failure in life. It's such bullshit. I welcome kids who want to learn something that is useful and gives them a comfortable life without sitting around conjugating Medieval German verbs for four years. For the born academic (like me) the university is the best of all possible worlds. But everyone doesn't need to sit through endless lectures or regurgitate eleven books that no one else will read for another decade.

More important than officially blessed Education is curiosity and the willingness to read, widely and voraciously. The prejudice that the article points to doesn't seem to show up until high school when the Mating Game gets into full gear. It's raging hormones that are the enemy of thought, IMO.

 

[CeriseNoire]

.....

 

[Varian P]

There's a big difference between intelligent and being an intellectual. I am intelligent, very. I am not an intellectual. An intellectual is besotted by ideas, their discussion and massaging. You can be plenty smart without being an intellectual. The real problem comes from the concept of the Public Intellectual, a tradition that starts with Socrates. I would refer you to Richard Posner, who really is an intellectual, a judge and a very fine writer. If you look at the history of the public intellectual in America, you will find that they are always nearly scolds and since the beginning of the 20th Century, mostly Marxists. The record of the Public Intelletual is so poor, when it comes to analysis and prediction, that it is no surprise the such folk are derided. Read the book.

I'll add Posner to my obscenely long to-read list.

I take your point, but I think you're speaking of an extreme of intellectualism, whereas the article is discussing a scorn of mere facts, a rejection of the idea that basic knowledge, a rudimentary understanding of how the world works is valuable.

 

[Guest]

I must live on another planet from you, Sarah. Here, everyone has this deranged idea that if you don't get a BA from a Major University, you're a failure in life. It's such bullshit. I welcome kids who want to learn something that is useful and gives them a comfortable life without sitting around conjugating Medieval German verbs for four years. For the born academic (like me) the university is the best of all possible worlds. But everyone doesn't need to sit through endless lectures or regurgitate eleven books that no one else will read for another decade.

More important than officially blessed Education is curiosity and the willingness to read, widely and voraciously. The prejudice that the article points to doesn't seem to show up until high school when the Mating Game gets into full gear. It's raging hormones that are the enemy of thought, IMO.

I'm talking politically, VM. And it is very prevalent.

From the article, "Intelligence is a political liability in the US."

Thus Obama isn't intelligent or educated, he's elitist. Or at least that's how it's being played.

I remember hiding the fact that I was smoking most of the boys out of the water in Algebra II. I was nerdy enough, shy, with glasses and some musical talent - it was pretty much a death blow to your social life as a female freshman to also be intelligent.

In this political climate I'm made to feel almost unpatriotic. To not instantly believe the party line from W., to read for myself, to study, to learn, to doubt, to reason, to wonder, to think?

Heavens. I am a radical after all.

 

[amicus]

Don't waste your time reading the article, there is nothing, absolutely nothing there.

The author is an atheist opposed to faith and a shill for the leff, the teachers unions, barack obama and true anti intellectualism; the perverted left wing type where nothing is absolute, everything is relative and nothing matters anyway.

That is the true bankruptcy of the left, much better explained by Ayn Rand, forty years ago in several works, "The New Intellectuals", being just one.

Right wing fundamentalists cling to a faith and a belief that offers some degree of understanding the social world they live in while the left offers nothing to anyone save confusion and loss of purpose.

About the best thing you could call contemporary Americans is, 'anti intellectual', for it means they are rejecting the dialect of the left and the jaded, senseless nihilism of modern intellectualism.

Yeah, I know, who asked me anyway...


Amicus...

 

[cantdog]

I must live on another planet from you, Sarah. Here, everyone has this deranged idea that if you don't get a BA from a Major University, you're a failure in life. It's such bullshit. I welcome kids who want to learn something that is useful and gives them a comfortable life without sitting around conjugating Medieval German verbs for four years. For the born academic (like me) the university is the best of all possible worlds. But everyone doesn't need to sit through endless lectures or regurgitate eleven books that no one else will read for another decade.

More important than officially blessed Education is curiosity and the willingness to read, widely and voraciously. The prejudice that the article points to doesn't seem to show up until high school when the Mating Game gets into full gear. It's raging hormones that are the enemy of thought, IMO.

The content of the first paragraph of this post right here is pretty much anti-intellectual, kid. Still got the hormones bad, I suppose?

I think the attitudes are just tribal. The author makes too much of the thing. One tribe will denigrate the badge of the other tribe. If you're not Goth, you sneer at the badges of Gothness. If you're not élite, then you get to sneer at the badges of éliteness. Pretty much standard ordinary human behavior.

It ain't pretty, sure, but a lot of human behavior is unlovely. You can't find a country on the globe without the same sort of tribal crap going on in it. Doesn't make any of those countries doomed. All countries in all history have universally been composed of humans, and there we are.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think that should more correctly be "ostentatious" intelligence, perhaps. Because so much of the electorate is not university educated and because so many Public Intellectuals in the university systems have chosen to be completely obnoxious and superior, a truly intelligent politician will use direct sentences, one or two syllable words and speak plainly. What is complete political death is to come across like Noam Chomsky. This is where Obama needs to tread very carefully. And, if I suggested on another thread, if he chooses Ramsey Clark as his running mate, I just might vote for the guy.

 

[Guest]

Don't waste your time reading the article, there is nothing, absolutely nothing there.

The author is an atheist opposed to faith and a shill for the leff, the teachers unions, barack obama and true anti intellectualism; the perverted left wing type where nothing is absolute, everything is relative and nothing matters anyway.

That is the true bankruptcy of the left, much better explained by Ayn Rand, forty years ago in several works, "The New Intellectuals", being just one.

Right wing fundamentalists cling to a faith and a belief that offers some degree of understanding the social world they live in while the left offers nothing to anyone save confusion and loss of purpose.

About the best thing you could call contemporary Americans is, 'anti intellectual', for it means they are rejecting the dialect of the left and the jaded, senseless nihilism of modern intellectualism.

Yeah, I know, who asked me anyway...


Amicus...

Leave Ms. Rand out of this for a moment, if you will, ami.

Can you explain what being an atheist has to do with intelligence? I'm serious.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The content of the first paragraph of this post right here is pretty much anti-intellectual, kid. Still got the hormones bad, I suppose?

I wish! At my age, the only kind of hormonal storm I get any more is grumpiness.

I think the attitudes are just tribal. The author makes too much of the thing. One tribe will denigrate the badge of the other tribe. If you're not Goth, you sneer at the badges of Gothness. If you're not élite, then you get to sneer at the badges of éliteness. Pretty much standard ordinary human behavior.

It ain't pretty, sure, but a lot of human behavior is unlovely. You can't find a country on the globe without the same sort of tribal crap going on in it. Doesn't make any of those countries doomed. All countries in all history have universally been composed of humans, and there we are.

Ellen Disayanake wrote some years ago in What is Art For? that ceremony and art make for a feeling of ingroup. They bond a people together. Ever since the stupidity of the early 20th Century, the critically aclaim has all gone to art that is remote, unpleasant and out of touch with anyone except those who wish to hold themselves apart from the bourgeoise. And who are the critics? Public Intellectuals. They have no one to blame for their general scorn but themselves. Spend time dumping on your fellow citizens and they will dump right back. Obama needs to go watch NASCAR or the Superbowl or something. Quit surfin' and go fishin', that's the ticket.

 

[Guest]

The content of the first paragraph of this post right here is pretty much anti-intellectual, kid. Still got the hormones bad, I suppose?

I think the attitudes are just tribal. The author makes too much of the thing. One tribe will denigrate the badge of the other tribe. If you're not Goth, you sneer at the badges of Gothness. If you're not élite, then you get to sneer at the badges of éliteness. Pretty much standard ordinary human behavior.

It ain't pretty, sure, but a lot of human behavior is unlovely. You can't find a country on the globe without the same sort of tribal crap going on in it. Doesn't make any of those countries doomed. All countries in all history have universally been composed of humans, and there we are.

Hormones? You mean me?

Care to rephrase that, Fireman?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Leave Ms. Rand out of this for a moment, if you will, ami.

Can you explain what being an atheist has to do with intelligence? I'm serious.

Intelligence is a pose that atheists use to demonstrate their superiority, these days. It's like trying to get the word "bright" used to describe atheism the way 'gay' describes homosexuality.

 

[Guest]

I wish! At my age, the only kind of hormonal storm I get any more is grumpiness.

Ellen Disayanake wrote some years ago in What is Art For? that ceremony and art make for a feeling of ingroup. They bond a people together. Ever since the stupidity of the early 20th Century, the critically aclaim has all gone to art that is remote, unpleasant and out of touch with anyone except those who wish to hold themselves apart from the bourgeoise. And who are the critics? Public Intellectuals. They have no one to blame for their general scorn but themselves. Spend time dumping on your fellow citizens and they will dump right back. Obama needs to go watch NASCAR or the Superbowl or something. Quit surfin' and go fishin', that's the ticket.

I watch the Superbowl.

I can tell you what plays they're running, too.

And I can bait a hook, cast, land, clean, filet and cook my catch.

I can also, as you probably can, relate to kids in their vernacular, but still switch vocabularies in order to converse professor-ese with my graduate advisor.

*sigh*

Never mind. I guess I don't really have a point. Unless to say I'm tired of being grouped in political/voting/religious categories according to intellect.

 

[desertslave]

To quote Mark Twain:

I never let my schooling interfere with my education. -- Alex Ayres, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned. -- Notebook, 1898

I think there's quite a bit of merit to this argument. Those who are educated or just very well-informed on their own (even better IMO), are viewed with suspicion by others. Religious superstition regularly battles against scientific evidence to the contrary. Middle class white America is affected; black America even more profoundly. The subculture of not acting "smart and white" has been expounded upon/against by such critics as Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell, and even Jesse Jackson.

I honestly don't understand it, probably because I'm on the more-educated and less-gullible side. I think it's largely jealousy and resentment speaking, in a very ugly way.

 

[Guest]

Intelligence is a pose that atheists use to demonstrate their superiority, these days. It's like trying to get the word "bright" used to describe atheism the way 'gay' describes homosexuality.

Superiority? WTF?

That's reaching a great deal, I'm afraid.

I'm fourth generation Lutheran, yet floundering because my faith has been crushed, has not recovered and I'm doubting it ever will.

I don't feel superior. Just cheated and angry and lost.

I am getting the superior talk from those people of faith, however. That all-knowing smile, the "he loves you despite yourself" which is really insulting, if you think about it. "They" know better than me, that there is a god, they'll pray for me - as if their intellect is greater because they have faith.

Apologies for the threadjack.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I watch the Superbowl.

I can tell you what plays they're running, too.

And I can bait a hook, cast, land, clean, filet and cook my catch.

I can also, as you probably can, relate to kids in their vernacular, but still switch vocabularies in order to converse professor-ese with my graduate advisor.

*sigh*

Never mind. I guess I don't really have a point. Unless to say I'm tired of being grouped in political/voting/religious categories according to intellect.

I can't. Never could get into football. Rugby, now, is a whole different story. If it played regularly on US TV . . .

But your point is excellent. Never give anyone a chance to stereotype you.

In appearance I am a somewhat overweight, buzz-cut white male who looks (as my daughter once pointed out) like the grizzled old sergeant that I was for so many years. That should make me a rock-ribbed Republican.

I teach and belong to the AFT. That should make me a Dem.

I'm a life member of the NRA. Rep.

I'm Lutheran and well-educated. Should lean Dem.

I live very close to Orange County, CA. Rep.

But California? Dem.

See? Keep 'em guessing. It's good for hours of entertainment!

 

[trysail]

Way back in the '70s most of my contempararies realized that the economic value of a college education was becoming horribly diluted. The reason? Government, in its wisdom, and the demagogues decided that EVERYBODY was entitled to a college education. The result: a college degree in anything other than science or engineering has become a colossal waste of time (and money). The "education racket" and democracy's laughable attempts at leveling has done nothing but benefit the education industry. As the cost of a college education has soared because it has been artificially subsidized by government, its value has declined.
___________________
(Fair Use Excerpt)
For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time
The Wall Street Journal
By CHARLES MURRAY
August 13, 2008; Page A17

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes.

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.

The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough -- four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you're a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school.

The merits of a CPA-like certification exam apply to any college major for which the BA is now used as a job qualification. To name just some of them: criminal justice, social work, public administration and the many separate majors under the headings of business, computer science and education. Such majors accounted for almost two-thirds of the bachelor's degrees conferred in 2005. For that matter, certification tests can be used for purely academic disciplines. Why not present graduate schools with certifications in microbiology or economics -- and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library?

Certification tests need not undermine the incentives to get a traditional liberal-arts education. If professional and graduate schools want students who have acquired one, all they need do is require certification scores in the appropriate disciplines. Students facing such requirements are likely to get a much better liberal education than even our most elite schools require now.

Certification tests will not get rid of the problems associated with differences in intellectual ability: People with high intellectual ability will still have an edge. Graduates of prestigious colleges will still, on average, have higher certification scores than people who have taken online courses -- just because prestigious colleges attract intellectually talented applicants.

But that's irrelevant to the larger issue. Under a certification system, four years is not required, residence is not required, expensive tuitions are not required, and a degree is not required. Equal educational opportunity means, among other things, creating a society in which it's what you know that makes the difference. Substituting certifications for degrees would be a big step in that direction.

The incentives are right. Certification tests would provide all employers with valuable, trustworthy information about job applicants. They would benefit young people who cannot or do not want to attend a traditional four-year college. They would be welcomed by the growing post-secondary online educational industry, which cannot offer the halo effect of a BA from a traditional college, but can realistically promise their students good training for a certification test -- as good as they are likely to get at a traditional college, for a lot less money and in a lot less time.

Certification tests would disadvantage just one set of people: Students who have gotten into well-known traditional schools, but who are coasting through their years in college and would score poorly on a certification test. Disadvantaging them is an outcome devoutly to be wished.

No technical barriers stand in the way of evolving toward a system where certification tests would replace the BA. Hundreds of certification tests already exist, for everything from building code inspectors to advanced medical specialties. The problem is a shortage of tests that are nationally accepted, like the CPA exam.

But when so many of the players would benefit, a market opportunity exists. If a high-profile testing company such as the Educational Testing Service were to reach a strategic decision to create definitive certification tests, it could coordinate with major employers, professional groups and nontraditional universities to make its tests the gold standard. A handful of key decisions could produce a tipping effect. Imagine if Microsoft announced it would henceforth require scores on a certain battery of certification tests from all of its programming applicants. Scores on that battery would acquire instant credibility for programming job applicants throughout the industry.

An educational world based on certification tests would be a better place in many ways, but the overarching benefit is that the line between college and noncollege competencies would be blurred. Hardly any jobs would still have the BA as a requirement for a shot at being hired. Opportunities would be wider and fairer, and the stigma of not having a BA would diminish.

Most important in an increasingly class-riven America: The demonstration of competency in business administration or European history would, appropriately, take on similarities to the demonstration of competency in cooking or welding. Our obsession with the BA has created a two-tiered entry to adulthood, anointing some for admission to the club and labeling the rest as second-best.

Here's the reality: Everyone in every occupation starts as an apprentice. Those who are good enough become journeymen. The best become master craftsmen. This is as true of business executives and history professors as of chefs and welders. Getting rid of the BA and replacing it with evidence of competence -- treating post-secondary education as apprenticeships for everyone -- is one way to help us to recognize that common bond.

________________________
Mr. Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book, "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality" (Crown Forum).

 

[Lisa Denton]

Don't waste your time reading the article, there is nothing, absolutely nothing there.

The author is an atheist opposed to faith and a shill for the leff, the teachers unions, barack obama and true anti intellectualism; the perverted left wing type where nothing is absolute, everything is relative and nothing matters anyway.

That is the true bankruptcy of the left, much better explained by Ayn Rand, forty years ago in several works, "The New Intellectuals", being just one.

Right wing fundamentalists cling to a faith and a belief that offers some degree of understanding the social world they live in while the left offers nothing to anyone save confusion and loss of purpose.

About the best thing you could call contemporary Americans is, 'anti intellectual', for it means they are rejecting the dialect of the left and the jaded, senseless nihilism of modern intellectualism.

Yeah, I know, who asked me anyway...


Amicus...

Does personal bias further intelligent thought?

 

[Guest]

Way back in the '70s most of my contempararies realized that the economic value of a college education was becoming horribly diluted. The reason? Government, in its wisdom, and the demagogues decided that EVERYBODY was entitled to a college education. The result: a college degree in anything other than science or engineering has become a colossal waste of time (and money). The "education racket" and democracy's laughable attempts at leveling has done nothing but benefit the education industry. As the cost of a college education has soared because it has been artificially subsidized by government, it's value has declined.
___________________

Of course everyone is entitled to a college education. It doesn't mean they'll ever achieve it, however.

A quick search from Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States

In the year 2000, there were 76.6 million students enrolled in schools from kindergarten through graduate schools. Of these, 72 percent aged 12 to 17 were judged academically "on track" for their age (enrolled in school at or above grade level). Of those enrolled in compulsory education, 5.2 million (10.4 percent) were attending private schools.

Among the country's adult population, over 85 percent have completed high school and 27 percent have received a bachelor's degree or higher.

Only 27% of the 85% that finished high school actually got a college degree.

 

[Varian P]

Don't waste your time reading the article, there is nothing, absolutely nothing there.

The author is an atheist opposed to faith and a shill for the leff, the teachers unions, barack obama and true anti intellectualism; the perverted left wing type where nothing is absolute, everything is relative and nothing matters anyway.

That is the true bankruptcy of the left, much better explained by Ayn Rand, forty years ago in several works, "The New Intellectuals", being just one.

Right wing fundamentalists cling to a faith and a belief that offers some degree of understanding the social world they live in while the left offers nothing to anyone save confusion and loss of purpose.

About the best thing you could call contemporary Americans is, 'anti intellectual', for it means they are rejecting the dialect of the left and the jaded, senseless nihilism of modern intellectualism.

Yeah, I know, who asked me anyway...


Amicus...

Either you didn't read the article, you didn't understand the article, or you're deliberately avoiding discussing the substance of the article.

 

[Guest]

Either you didn't read the article, you didn't understand the article, or you're deliberately avoiding discussing the substance of the article.

That would be ami.

He didn't answer my question, either.