Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Count me in
PrawfsBlawg: Why I am an anti-intellectual
I don't fully subscribe to the sentence in brackets, unless the definition of intellectual can be narrowed like that of the True Scotsman. Perhaps this is the intention of separating "intellect" from "intellectual" I simply think that intellect ought to be in direct opposition to the characteristics mentioned (Intolerance, humourlessness, didactic in prejudice). Further, some measure of intellect ought to be the ability to make oneself understood to others outside of a narrow sphere. Otherwise, what is the point? This?
Do read the thread, if only for the last comment (June 3, 10:51PM) which stands unanswered as I write this. It is from old blog-friend Stuart Buck:
I am most certainly an anti-intellectual. (I am not a "know-nothing" and hereby declare all-out war on the abuse of this phrase, which expression refers to the American Party of the 1850s or, more generally, nativism, and otherwise is just incoherent blather. What does it mean to be a "know nothing" in any other sense? That one admits to, or is proud of, knowing nothing? That one knows nothing in fact? Surely, "ignoramus" works better for the latter, and "bigot," for the former).
But to continue: My confession of being an anti-intellectual requires a bit of explanation. Being anti-intellectual is not the same as being anti-intellect. My beef is with a particular social class -- the "intelligentsia" -- and not with the practice of using one's intellect to reflect on experience. [In my experience, intellectuals (as a class) are ideologically intolerant, easily offended by ordinary humor, and pretentious in their prejudices, which they disguise as universal truths. ] (Whether any of these adjectives applies to Professor Heller's response to my little poke, I leave it for others to judge).
Moreover, I find a direct relationship between the academic obscurity of self-consciously "intellectual" writer's prose and the willingness of that writer to justify the unjustifiable.
I don't fully subscribe to the sentence in brackets, unless the definition of intellectual can be narrowed like that of the True Scotsman. Perhaps this is the intention of separating "intellect" from "intellectual" I simply think that intellect ought to be in direct opposition to the characteristics mentioned (Intolerance, humourlessness, didactic in prejudice). Further, some measure of intellect ought to be the ability to make oneself understood to others outside of a narrow sphere. Otherwise, what is the point? This?
By questioning its own composition it decomposes itself in order to create itself further.
Do read the thread, if only for the last comment (June 3, 10:51PM) which stands unanswered as I write this. It is from old blog-friend Stuart Buck:
If none of Butler's defenders are up to the challenge (whether because of time constraints or other reasons), perhaps they could at least point me to anyone, anywhere, who has explained her insights in plain English?
1 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Tue Jun 10, 04:19:00 PM:
Otherwise, what is the point? This?
Mindles - isn't the "This?" link a joke paper? I mean, come on, "FOUNDING NIETZSCHE: FIN D'OU T HOU S" = Find Outhouse. Trajectory of decomposition, down, heh! Funny stuff, good send up of dense academic writing.
