And by "people turning off their brains" I mean those "anti-intellectual" people that do. Obviously. But I thought I'd better make that certain.

tribble22:

I agree with O&O&F. When you basically define Intellectual as 'one who does absolutely nothing but think' of course intellectuals are useless.

But most of the people I know, and I'm quite sure most self described intellectuals, generally would include doctors, scientists, and engineers as intellectuals as well. Generally people do not pick a profession that requires thinking and wirting as part of their job unless they like thinking and writing.

The lack of direct practical applications for degrees like medieval lit. is an entirely different subject. And most would still agree even if you never directly use your knowledge of Chaucer in day to day activities, you are still better off having had the experience and exposure, whether you are an intellectual or just someone who wanted the easier route through a parental enforced college stay.

Most physicians *I* know, and I know a good number, probably would not describe themselves as intellectuals but more of educated tradesmen.

I actually like Lubbesh's description - someone who "thinks" for a living without any tangible product. I also understand though that the definition does tend to include only useless intellectuals.

Ok, but by that narrow definition, it's a no duh arguement. Really it's unargueable at all.

So someone who does nothing...does nothing of value...

When you narrow it that far, you're no longer even insulting 99.9% of liberals with the label, because we do not meet your definition.

I can define 'anti-intellectual' to be someone who sits around on the couch all day and never thinks at all and just watches tv. And I posit that said anti-intellectuals do nothing for society and produce no useful work.

Have I insulted you or opened your eyes about anything by saying this tiny fraction of people are as useless as your defined version of intellectuals? Probably not.

Actually, I don't even buy the argument that intellectuals are necessarily useless even by lubbesuh's definition. They can affect how others think and thereby affect what others do, which can have important practical consequences.

That is definitely true. But reality always has too many corner cases and exceptions to argue generalities and include them all. I'll still go with the very rare case of a person who did nothing but think as fairly useless, but the world has been improved by some 'useful' thinkers who also wrote/spoke/mimed their ideas to the rest of the world.

Ah, lub, Slate's resident intellectual, thinks economists are useless!

Well the issue is that of all the people in academia, sure only a few of them are going to produce anything significant. There can only be a few Einsteins in the world at any given time as a sheer consequence of probability. But without the cheese-eating foppish liberal intelligentsia you so disparage sitting around trying to come up with their own revolutionary ideas there would be no academic community, and people like Einstein would have still been stuck in the patent office, his theories reciprocated with admonitions to invent something useful instead of trying to figure out how the universe works.

How about Democracy? Or was that something a bunch of monkeys stuck in a room put together?

People have to think about how to do their job. Growing corn a bit of critical thinking to face the problems facing the modern farmer. Being an intellect isn't defined by the books you read, it's defined about how you think about the life you read.

"I think, therefore I am."

Well its not surrising your definition of intellectual is as narrow as it is. BillG is very much an intellectual. And for mosft of his life he has done nothing but think and write. In point of fact, from even the earliest days of Microsoft, he would yearly take time for what he dubs "think week" - where he would retreat and do nothing other than read and think. At the end of which he would write up his ideasl.

as for the self or other identification. we all know that such identifiers are meaningless. People self-identify as that which they want to be. Others lable people for personal reasons some noble, some caring and some not. But its not a meaningful measure.

Intellectualism is what you do. It is the celebration, care, feeding, creation, consideration and development of ideas.

And like most conservatives Lubbesuh, you are frightened of ideas. You are frightend of people who think cogently enough to see through the hollow spin that passes for conservative thought.

Most flyover americans may consider intellectuals useless. Probably because they resent the FACT that it is intellectuals and the consequence of their ideas that subsidize the lives of flyover Americans. If it weren't for socialism, Flyover Americans would live much poorer lifestyles.

Just go look up the percent of GDP created per capita in Blue States and particularly coastal states. Per capita it generates 5% above average GDP and flyover states generate 5% BELOW average GDP.

Now add in the fact that the coasts and blue urban districts now contain something like 60% of US population and its pretty clear that the Blue "intellectual" coasts generate about twice as much GDP as flyover country.

So while in their words and thoughs "flyover Americans BELIEVE intellectuals as 'pretty much useless'" - they are perfectly willing to live on the socialist redistribution from the productivity of these intellectuals. Of course they don't think that being smart is important. Because they are sucking at the teat of smart people and are too lazy to actually do the work it takes to be smart.

degsme:

Most flyover americans may consider intellectuals useless. Probably because they resent the FACT that it is intellectuals and the consequence of their ideas that subsidize the lives of flyover Americans. If it weren't for socialism, Flyover Americans would live much poorer lifestyles.

Just go look up the percent of GDP created per capita in Blue States and particularly coastal states. Per capita it generates 5% above average GDP and flyover states generate 5% BELOW average GDP.

Now add in the fact that the coasts and blue urban districts now contain something like 60% of US population and its pretty clear that the Blue "intellectual" coasts generate about twice as much GDP as flyover country.

So while in their words and thoughs "flyover Americans BELIEVE intellectuals as 'pretty much useless'" - they are perfectly willing to live on the socialist redistribution from the productivity of these intellectuals. Of course they don't think that being smart is important. Because they are sucking at the teat of smart people and are too lazy to actually do the work it takes to be smart.

the attitude that some onewho disagrees with your politics is .."too lazy to do the work it actually takes to be smart"is not the attitude of an "intellectual", but that of a snob.( and divisive, and discouraging of serious discourse about the problems the nation faces...but i digress)

and who is to say that it is the so called intellectuals who generate the wealth to which you refer? i would imagine the wealth is generated by the businessmen ( and women). and if california, a large portion of whose wealth is generated by the entertainment industry, is "intellectual", i am the queen of england.

they included consumption--if, for example, fly-over Nebraska produces 5% less but consumes 6% less than NYC then the NET productivity is higher in fly-over land. And by and large, the material stuff we use, corn, cars, etc. are made in fly over land. Try looking at the net--taxes sent to DC vs dollars returned. You'll find it is negative for most counties in the heartland. Don't take it state by state--what they get in Chicago isn't what they get in Naperville.

And what they get in Alaska is like anything they get in Springfield.

Try per capita rather than county, that is a better measure since Los Angeles county is so large it covers a multitude of need.

And if you look at per capita spending, Virginia and Maryland are no. 1 and no. 3 with Alaska right in the middle of them. Both New York and California are below the US average for federal spending with California ranking 44th.

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And Illinois as a whole gets even less than California as a whole. As for Napirville not getting the same as Chicago, you are right. Napirville (Dupage county) gets $6485 per capita while Chicago (Cook county) gets $6747. Not as big a gap as you would think.

Now I get Virginia and Maryland having more federal spending since they are pretty contain the overflow from DC (notice the large amounts for procurement and salaries), but Alaska? It is a freakin welfare state all by itself it seems.

and who is to say that it is the so called intellectuals who generate the wealth to which you refer?

The data on patents and copyrights. More than 95% of them come from the blue-state regions. Patents and copyrights are the work of intellectuals. The big thing all businesses focus on is "innovation" because innovation is responsible for some 65% of all topline revenue.

And if you think that it doesn't take intellectual thought to work as a writer, cimematographer or similar, you aren't being very realistic.

Note, I'm not calling myself an intellectual - I am a snob. I DO prefer to spend time with people who learned to think.

...and, furthermore, I wouldn't even say that intellectuals who don't affect practical matters are necessarily useless. Some people get satisfaction out of reading philosophic essays regardless of their practical applications or lack thereof; what's wrong with that? Or if we're going to say that such satisfactions are useless, then what's wrong with that?