XX Factor

Re: Supply and demand: Intellectuals are in over supply

kgswiger — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:29:23 GMT

In me school-days experience (in days of yore), the anti-intellectuals didn't turn off their brains when they got out of school. They never turned them on to begin with.

Re: No

endorendil — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 11:52:20 GMT

This is my definition of intellectuals: 1.They do nothing but think and write so that others may see their thoughts in writing. 2. It must be a self description (as in Susan Sonntag). 3. if not a self description then it must be something someone says about you in a biography, most often after you are dead(as in , "Lenin and other intellectuals of his time..."). 4. the golden age of intellectuals in the US was the 1950's, when housing was cheap in New York city and there was an influx of European and ex pat American intellectuals fleeing the aftermath of WWII (though apparently unable to stop it from happening, as always).

It is interesting to see intellectuals defined intrinsically as useless, and incidentally as foreigners or repatriated ex-pat Americans. It goes a long way to explain why a country that prides itself on creativity and innovation - both essentially intellectual endeavors - could consider intellectual a cussword. It's a beautiful case of cognitive dissonance, similar to the fact that "liberal" is a cussword, although liberalism refers to the idea that freedoms should form the basis of society.

I've been a tractor driver who is a PhD dropout,

old new lefty — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:45:38 GMT

and I've influenced American, Iranian, and Iraq foreign policy through the internet. I'll fess up to being an intellectual.

Lubbehsuh, you assume wrongly.

old new lefty — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:43:07 GMT

Under what paranoia do you think that secular humanists embrace Muslim terrorists?

Re: Supply and demand: Intellectuals are in over supply

question? — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:26:24 GMT

Karl Marx was an intellectual as was Pol Pot (educated in France) The first group they attacked was their fellow "intellectuals and educated professions such as doctors and lawyers. How is that harmless?

Re: No

J.MADISON — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:20:41 GMT

cmolt:

Lubbesuh says:
"You fool, I switched glasses while your back was turned! Never go in against an anti-intellectual when logic is on the line! Hahahaha!"

IN OTHER WORDS IT IS A WASTE OF TIME TO HAVE A BATTLE OF WITS WITH AN UNARMED PERSON.

Re: No

cmolt — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:07:21 GMT

Lubbesuh says:
"You fool, I switched glasses while your back was turned! Never go in against an anti-intellectual when logic is on the line! Hahahaha!"

Re: No

Olive & Ouzo & Figgy — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:54:59 GMT

Right. When you post, it's one thing, but when others take the time to read it and reply, all you can do is shake your head (or do you affect a smirk of grim forbearance and roll your eyes like McCain when others are speaking?).

This is a forum. If you have contempt for discussion, don't post here.

Re: No

lubbesuh — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:19:18 GMT

Wow, I just checked in on this thread which I began a few days ago with a napalm bomb and see that it now has 586 views. What was I saying about egoists who have nothing to do but examine their navel's?

Re: No

BortimusPrime — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:26:54 GMT

duketime hit the nail on the head. Intellectual work has value to society, thus there is demand. And if it takes 100 academics to have a decent shot at a single innovation, and that innovation is valuable enough to be worth paying the 99 other guys whose research goes nowhere, it's a net gain.

Re: No

tribble22 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:26:40 GMT

Ooh, snap! Are you saying I can have my soy-based, non-lactose, organic, nonartifical sweetener cake AND eat it too?!

Oh wait...I'm not an intellectual according to this thread: I hold a day job as well as think. Ah well. No cake for me :(

No

degsme — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:39:02 GMT

No, not all copyrighted or patented work is the work of liberal intellectuals. But almost all of it IS the work of intellectuals.

And the regions these intellectuals choose to work and live in, and the polciies they create for their regions are ... well consistently "blue".

And they subsidize the red states. That's just plain fact. Blue regions are more productive per capita than red regions. They are also more creative and more intellectual.

THAT is what I think bugs the average conservative about intellectuals the most. They actually DO produce MORE stuff as well as have a richer intellectual life.

Re: Hmmm

duketime — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:48:01 GMT

Came here through Fray-watch so may be late to the game, but (and I'll be forward with my perspective) one thing that strikes me in this whole discussion is how easily the Conservative slant ignores the fundamentally pure-Conservative ideal of the "free market".

Of course, the job market isn't going to be a perfect "free market" (and academia can be argued to be somewhat more socialist than the corporate market) but that cheese-eating fop is gainfully employed by somebody (to the anti-intellectuals' disdain, I'm sure, though possibly earning less than many of these salt-of-the-earth business-owners despite being highly "credentialed"). How can free market economics suddenly not apply in possibly the most fundamental market that everybody has to contend with? Christopher Hitchens (earlier cited, I believe, as just such an intellectual) writes material that is highly read (and was specifically selected for a highly exclusive publisher because of his popularity) and he falls into the category of one who sits and thinks and writes. And yet he's doing (I imagine) quite well for himself because people are electing to spend time and money that they've earned through their means on material he has produced. Should he be criticized for this?

Or how about the opposite angle? Those that do produce cars or corn or whatever else? I guess it's not applicable that both industries (in America) are highly subsidized to allow the hard-working to continue making money to put into the economy (the hard-working are benefiting from socialism). Hey, in the 30s it was the hard-working blue-collar ditch-diggers (and re-fillers) that earned money to plug back into the economy to get America back on track, but it was FDR (certainly an intellectual) and his team that had the capacity to come up with and implement the recovery plans.

This discussion comes down to the economy and production and who's pulling their weight for what they get (arguably the cornerstone of the blue-collar vs. white-collar divide) and the problem is that it's difficult for white-collars (and academics) to appreciate the blue-collar effort (though they can certainly see and touch the output itself). But the other side is that blue-collars seemingly don't even realize white-collar output (which often can't be seen or touched, much less appreciated), and this is where anti-intellectualism (or elitism and all similar class war terms) comes from.

Yes, we need food and cars and places to live and things to build the places we live and stuff to power the whole lot of it. However, just as vitally, we also need the consumption of these things, the capacity to produce these things, the desire of these things, etc. etc. We can have all the cars in the world and it won't matter if nobody wants one (or a new / better one) or can't afford one etc. (Bernanke would qualify, I'd imagine, as an intellectual, and his role is facilitating production and consumption is clearly vital).

And I guess this is also why there's this schism ... blue-collar work parallels engineering in a manner (engineers are conservatives, remember?) because the tasks are often clear and the criteria for success and failure are observable and testable, which sits well with the conservative ideal of order. Intellectual work becomes much fuzzier. The tasks are nowhere near as clear and the metrics for success and failure are near incomprehensible, if existent at all (I mean, there's no schematic to managing the US economy and the metrics of success are very soft, as in unemployment, the DOW, consumption, GDP, etc.).

Hmmm

Wrenn — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:44:27 GMT

I just took a quick short poll. Of the people who got back to me.

The Masters in phsyics going for his doctorate in astronomy at BU (and student teaching) emailed me back and considers himself an intellectuial.

the PHD in physics texted me back and said the same (he has 29 patents at this time, and was named one of the 50 most important people in networking by PC magazine 2 years ago. )

Three unix/linux gurus... in VA, PA, and MA returned email also stating same. As did the Physics PHD who works in robotics.

The OPs definition of 'intellectual' is extremely personal, narrow and negative, with respect to the word overall.

I discount and refute the OP's personalized definition and replace it with:

Merriam Websters.

1 a: of or relating to the intellect or its use b: developed or chiefly guided by the intellect rather than by emotion or experience : rational c: requiring use of the intellect <intellectual games>2 a: given to study, reflection, and speculation b: engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect <intellectual playwrights>

Re: The data

suzie — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:16:13 GMT

degsme:

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 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.

all people who have copywrited work or created a patent are liberal intellectuals? you know that for a fact?

being a snob does not mean enjoying the company of an educated person...it is assuming that he will enjoy yours.