Anti-intellectualism inhibits learning

[coberst]

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
So what countries do you consider to be intellectual countries? Canada? Mexico? Cuba? Russia? Japan? France? Sweden?

It seems to me to be a sort of provincialism to imagine that America is some sort of colossus of anti-intellectualism. It’s simply American exceptionalism in reverse. We’re either the best, the toughest, the handsomest, the smartest, the friendliest, and the most honest, or we’re the greediest, stupidest, most gullible, most violent, most depraved. Only an American or possibly an Englishman could be so provincial.
[/QUOTE]

I do not know enough about other countries to judge their degree of bias toward intellecctualism.

[Revenant_Threshold]

[QUOTE=coberst]
Socrates is my ideal here.
[/QUOTE]
Socrates debated.

[coberst]

[QUOTE=Voyager]
First of all, I distinguish an interest in learning from intellectualism. One can get all As, and learn all the facts required, without being an intellectual. I’ve already agreed that there is a bias against learning as opposed to sports, say. I was lucky. The high school I went to was so big (a graduating class of > 1500) that those of us who cared about learning were somewhat isolated. In our little corner of the world, being a jock (except for golf) was considered as out of it as being smart is in many places.

True intellectual activity, on the other hand, doesn’t involve just reading and writing, but rather includes a discussion of the issues with others - questioning their positions and defending your own. Think about the high level stuff you have read. Much of it not only posits a point of view, but addresses those of others. Contrast that to politicians who never open themselves up to address opposing views. Just writing what you think is important without responding to others is just mental masturbation - it might feel good, but it isn’t very productive. Letting your ideas get challenged hones them also - or even might cause you to change them.
[/QUOTE]

“Can the intellectual, who is supposed to have a special and perhaps professional concern with truth, escape from or rise above the partiality and distortions of ideology?”

Our culture has tended to channel intellectuals, or perhaps more properly those who function as intellectuals, into academic professions. Gramsci makes the accurate distinction that all men and women “are intellectuals…but all do not have the function of intellectuals in society”.

An intellectual might be properly defined as those who are primarily or professionally concerned with matters of the mind and the imagination but who are socially non-attached. “The intellectual is thought of not as someone who displays great mental or imaginative ability but as someone who applies those abilities in more general areas such as religion, philosophy and social and political issues. It is the involvement in general and controversy outside of a specialization that is considered as the hallmark of an intellectual; it is a matter of choice of self definition, choice is supreme here.”

Even anti-ideological is ideological. If partisanship can be defended servility cannot; many have allowed themselves to become the tools of others.

We have moved into an age when the university is no longer an ivory tower and knowledge is king but knowledge has become a commodity and educators have become instruments of power; the university has become a privately owned think-tank. Brzerzinsky recognizes that

“A profound change in the intellectual community itself is inherent in this development. The largely humanist-oriented, occasionally ideological minded intellectual dissenter , who saw his role largely in terms of proffering social critiques, is rapidly being displaced either by experts and specialist, who become involved in special government undertakings, or by generalist-integrators, who become house-ideologues for those in power, providing overall intellectual integration for disparate actions.”

The subordination to power is not just at the individual level but also at the institutional level. Government funds are made available to universities and colleges not for use as they deem fit but for specific government needs. Private industry plays even a larger role in providing funds for educational institutions to perform management and business study. Private industry is not inclined ‘to waste’ money on activities that do not contribute to the bottom line. ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’

Each intellectual is spouting a different ideology, how does the individual choose what ideology? Trotsky once said “only a participant can be a profound spectator”. Is detachment then a virtue? To suggest that intellectuals rise above ideology is impractical. Explicit commitment is preferable to bogus neutrality. But truth is an indispensable touchstone.

I think that the proper role for the intellectual is commitment plus detachment. Do you think many of our present day intellectuals qualify as committed and detached?

Quotes and ideas from “Knowledge and Belief in Politics” Bhikhu Parekh

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=coberst]

Fred experiments with this matter and concludes that when he performs the afore mentioned exercise routine he can perceive color constantly.

If you were Fred would you inform your friends and acquaintances of this occurrence?

How would you explain this perception to others?

How would others respond to your efforts to explain what happened?

[/QUOTE]

I think in this context the others would say “Duh. We’ve been perceiving colors for years. What kept you?”

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=coberst]

The subordination to power is not just at the individual level but also at the institutional level. Government funds are made available to universities and colleges not for use as they deem fit but for specific government needs. Private industry plays even a larger role in providing funds for educational institutions to perform management and business study. Private industry is not inclined ‘to waste’ money on activities that do not contribute to the bottom line. ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’

[/quote]

I’ve been directly involved in funding academia from industry, and in evaluating proposals for government funding, both in technical areas. In industry, while you do get approval for academic funding based on your needs, the time frames involved, the level of supervision required, and access to internal “secrets” means this hardly ever comes out the way intended, and the academics usually do more or less what they want to do. (Which is best for society as a whole.) What you really get from funding universities is first access to the best students, some input into the direction of the project, and a first look at research results, maybe all of a month before they get published.

Some government funding is directed, like the old DARPA, but some is not, like NSF. Even DARPA goes off the rails. The internet, if you remember, came from a project to provide reliable communication between government computers in time of war.

I can’t imagine any direction at all in the funding of the humanities.

Conclusion: don’t trust your sources.

I think that the proper role for the intellectual is commitment plus detachment. Do you think many of our present day intellectuals qualify as committed and detached?

Though “committed detachment” sounds like an oxymoron, any good scientist qualifies. You may be committed to a hypothesis, (you have to be to work on it) but you should be detached enough to abandon it if the evidence tells you to. I’m not sure that many of us count as good by this definition.

[XT]

[QUOTE=coberst]
I hardly guard my discovery. I ride through the land trying to spread the word.

Imagine that you and many other colorblind people live on this isolated island. All inhabitants are colorblind from birth and know nothing about color; there is no word for color in their vocabulary.

Assume Fred is a health nut who exercises constantly and is always advising others to start a strict exercise routine for their health. Fred is well liked but most people on the island think that he over emphasizes the value of exercise.

One day after pursuing a specific exercises routine Fred become conscious of color. He is shocked and frightened and discontinues the exercise. Many weeks later curiosity gets the best of him and he returns to the exercise routine and there again appears the perception of color.

Fred experiments with this matter and concludes that when he performs the afore mentioned exercise routine he can perceive color constantly.

If you were Fred would you inform your friends and acquaintances of this occurrence?

How would you explain this perception to others?

How would others respond to your efforts to explain what happened?

Picture me as Fred in this little fantasy. Picture that my inspiration is not color but an intellectual life. Twenty-five years ago I stumbled upon what I now call the self-actualizing self-learning hobby. I accidentally discovered the power and importance of self-learning and my message to all who will listen is ‘get a life—get an intellectual life’.
[/QUOTE]

Imagine…using paragraphs. Instead of bullet point oriented sentences.

Anyway, I think you are still drawing conclusions and validating your ‘theory’ without any actual proof. Its sort of like building an entire structure (of logic in your case) on a foundation of sand. What proof do you offer that anti-intellectualism is rampant in the US? Only your own observations that this is so (tag line: ‘My cite is my post’). What proof do you offer that the US has EVER been pro-intellectual? None that I’ve seen. So, has this situation changed somehow in the US…or are we as we’ve always been, purportedly (according to you) anti-intellectual? If the former, then what has changed…and how exactly are you defining intellectualism here? If the latter…then how did the US rise to be one of the great nations with this anti-intellectual bias?

[QUOTE=coberst]
I am asking everyone who will listen that they become critically self-conscious. I claim that if society does not become more intellectually sophisticated our species will not make it for another two hundred years.
[/QUOTE]

:dubious: ‘Our species will not make it for another two hundred years’? What do you base this on? Do you have some kind of historical data suggesting that ‘our species’ was once predominently pro-intellectual? If not…how do you account for the clear fact that we have ‘made it’ for 10’s of thousands of years without it? If so then what do you attribute to the change in ‘our species’ away from intellectualism? What did we, as a species, have before that we don’t have now?

Frankly I’m not seeing our current society in the US as representative of the entire human species…nor do I think we are particularly anti-intellectual. Nor do I think there is much historical evidence that we were once in a golden age of intellectualism and have fallen from our ivory towers recently.

Finally I don’t think that if we continue with our current trend the entire human race will go tits up in 2 centuries. What evidence do you have to back up any of your assertions that you are the one guiding light, beaming out to all of us beer drinking reality show watching anti-intellectual types here on the Straightdope?

-XT

[tomndebb]

[QUOTE=coberst]
I hardly guard my discovery. I ride through the land trying to spread the word.
[/QUOTE]
Piffle.

You’ve been here, before. Remember?

As soon as someone states that they, too, are interested in seeking knowledge for the pleasure of understanding, you find something in their post that you decide is not within the scope of the definitions you have formed and you declare that they have failed to meet the standards of your new belief.

Everyone else you simply talk past instead of engaging in actual discussion.

My suspicion is that if you found too many (perhaps any) people who you would be willing to accept as having recognized your Great Truth, then you would no longer be so special. Therefore, you are compelled to show that no one but you has actually, really, truly, veritably, certainly discovered your Great Truth.

It is not a problem and I will not bother you any further. I just needed to check to see where you were on this particular visit. Perhaps others who engage you will discover some value in the discussions they have with other participants.

Socrates was a cranky old man driven out of his house by his even crankier old wife, who chose to spend his days leading unschooled youth down prepared paths to logical errors so that he could yell “AHA!” Any good lawyer, today, leads his witness to the same sort of trap, (which is why we hire judges to try to stop the lawyers from corrupting the truth).

[Cervaise]

[QUOTE=coberst]
How would you explain this perception to others?
[/QUOTE]
First, I would put down the bong.

[begbert2]

I know several people who go around learning new things for the sheer fun of doing so. I’m not one of them (I have different hobbies that I’ve found satisfy me much better), but I can assert from a pretty firm personal basis that in at least some circles, it’s quite nearly common.

But is this thread about people hating intellectuals now? I’d thought it was about hating people who talked like intellectuals, when talking to a “lower” audience; that is, persons who don’t speak properly to their audience but instead spend their time trying to flaunt their smarts by using ten dollar words and so forth. Those people are justifiably disliked, but I’d gathered that people generally liked the intellectuals that didn’t talk down to them.

[XT]

I thought the thread was about species extinction within 2 centuries if we continue down this anti-intellectual path we are currently (or perhaps have always) treading.

I’m SO confused…

-XT

[mswas]

[QUOTE=coberst]
I think that anti-intellectual bias may be the dominant ideology in America.
[/quote]

Above Market Fundamentalism?

How does one identify a bias that is very common within a society? How does a fish identify humidity? That is a problem.

Sounds like a question for intellectuals. Actually it’s not that hard. One can identify trends within society anecdotally. You’d have to establish judgement criteria, defend your definitions and then prove that a majority of the people think that way.

I would say that almost all remarks opposing or hostile to intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach display a bias. It appears to me that very few of us are acquainted with an intellectual. I cannot remember being acquainted with an intellectual outside of my college experience. If that is the norm then any attitude toward intellectual concerns must come from emotional bias.

It’s generally because self-appointed intellectuals are oftentimes arrogant jerks. I’ve always been a step above average intelligence. For a long time I was kind of a jerk about it, and people couldn’t stand me. Now I am not a jerk about it and I find very little resentment. In one of my classes for instance, I have had a couple of people tell me that they are grateful to me for asking questions they didn’t think to ask.

I have for several years been trying to describe a very simple concept, i.e. disinterested knowledge, I discover that almost no one can grasp this simple concept. I can only assume that it must be so alien to our culture that it is beyond our ability to imagine someone seeking knowledge just for the pleasure of understanding.

Did you ever stop to think that your inability to explain it is a limitation on your end? I for a long time tried to explain the concept of cultural models limiting our ability to communicate complex concepts to one another, that many of our arguments were actually differences of semantics, but because we have a lot of emotional investment in the conflicts we are rarely willing to accept the problem as being simply a difference in how things are defined. In my quest to explain the concept that I understood intuitively, I came across writings about the subject and learned terms such as ‘gloss’, ‘semiotics’, and ‘reality tunnel’.

There is a web site that discusses this matter. The conclusions support the following view: http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/WhyAntiInt.htm

I tend to see that there is some sense to the Hindu caste system. Different castes have the ability to understand different things. Joe Sixpack just isn’t the academic type. Not every idea has value to every person. It’s just as much a lack of intelligence on your part to try and explain an idea that serves no function to Joe, as is his lack of interest. Most people only learn things that are directly applicable. Joe clearly isn’t stupid, he can probably explain to you the difference between bandwidth and cache, he’ll tell you the precise details of the headers on the car he is rebuilding, and can cite the stats of his favorite Quarterback. All of those things are intellectual pursuits, but they aren’t the dilettantish abstraction that most intellectuals pride themselves in.

Humans have curiosity but such curiosity is of low level and loosely motivated. In the US curiosity and study are directed at utilitarian matters.

Curiousity by itself is not a virtue.

[coberst]

[QUOTE=mswas]
Above Market Fundamentalism?

Curiousity by itself is not a virtue.
[/QUOTE]

Curiosity itself may not be a virtue but can be the first step in that direction. Curiosity without action is only a begining. But consciousness leads to curiosity; curiosity connected to caring can lead to inovation.

[smiling_bandit]

[QUOTE=coberst]
Curiosity itself may not be a virtue but can be the first step in that direction. Curiosity without action is only a begining. But consciousness leads to curiosity; curiosity connected to caring can lead to inovation.
[/QUOTE]

Which is still a meaningless statement that fails to communicate anything of importance. You have not in the least suggested anything to the extent that caring or innovation might be important.

[coberst]

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Alternatively, if no one seems to understand what you are saying, it just might be possible that your idea is either flawed or irrelevant, of course.

Given the way that you have spread your message across an enormous swath of the internet, if your message had value, you should have encountered some number of people who could understand it. This would lead me to believe that either your message is wrong or that you lack any skills to convey it.

Given the large number of people I know who are very much interested in seeking knowledge for the pleasure of understanding, I suspect that you guard your idea as a private treasure and that if any person does not say the right words to persuade you that they have joined your adventure, you then dismiss them and add them to your list of people whom you believe don’t really get your message.
[/QUOTE]

What you say is possibly correct. I do not think so because often the majority is wrong. In fact my study of psychology explains just why the majority is often wrong. Socrates is my ideal and I suspect most of the citizens of Athens thought his attempt to enlighten them was wrong.

It is my view that at least 70% of the members of Internet discussion forums are younger than 25. It is my experience that young people think that to be negative is to be cool. Older people seem always to show a negative face to the world also. That is, I assume, the human tendency to do a turtle when faced with a new idea. Humans are either running with the herd or standing blankly staring into the distance or withdrawn into their shell until the new idea goes away.

[coberst]

[QUOTE=mswas]
Above Market Fundamentalism?

Sounds like a question for intellectuals. Actually it’s not that hard. One can identify trends within society anecdotally. You’d have to establish judgement criteria, defend your definitions and then prove that a majority of the people think that way.
It’s generally because self-appointed intellectuals are oftentimes arrogant jerks.
Curiousity by itself is not a virtue.
[/QUOTE]

These kind of remarks are what I conclude to be anti-intellectual bias.

[mswas]

[QUOTE=coberst]
These kind of remarks are what I conclude to be anti-intellectual bias.
[/QUOTE]

Sounds like a question for intellectuals. Actually it’s not that hard. One can identify trends within society anecdotally. You’d have to establish judgement criteria, defend your definitions and then prove that a majority of the people think that way.

Discussing a way to prove your assertion is anti-intellectual?

I think you suffer from an anti-intellectual bias.

I point you to Fallacy

Particularly:

Begging the question (also called Petitio Principii or Circulus in Probando–arguing in a circle) consists in demonstrating a conclusion by means of premises that pre-suppose that conclusion. Jeremy Bentham points out that this fallacy may lurk in a single word, especially in an epithet, e.g. if a measure were condemned simply on the ground that it is alleged to be “un-English”.

This should help you in your anti-intellectualism. Perhaps this page will get you where you are seeking to go. It might help you with your unsupported assertions and fabricated statistics.

[Little_Nemo]

I think that anti-intellectual bias may be the dominant ideology in America.

How does one identify a bias that is very common within a society? How does a fish identify humidity? That is a problem.

I would say that almost all remarks opposing or hostile to intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach display a bias. It appears to me that very few of us are acquainted with an intellectual. I cannot remember being acquainted with an intellectual outside of my college experience. If that is the norm then any attitude toward intellectual concerns must come from emotional bias.

I have for several years been trying to describe a very simple concept, i.e. disinterested knowledge, I discover that almost no one can grasp this simple concept. I can only assume that it must be so alien to our culture that it is beyond our ability to imagine someone seeking knowledge just for the pleasure of understanding.

There is a web site that discusses this matter. The conclusions support the following view: http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/WhyAntiInt.htm

Humans have curiosity but such curiosity is of low level and loosely motivated. In the US curiosity and study are directed at utilitarian matters.

It’s possible that you’ve discovered some great idea and that everyone else is so biased against that idea they fail to appreciate its truth. But perhaps the problem is that you have not clearly communicated your idea. Or it’s possible that your idea isn’t as great as you believe and other people have understood and rejected it.

[coberst]

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
It’s possible that you’ve discovered some great idea and that everyone else is so biased against that idea they fail to appreciate its truth. But perhaps the problem is that you have not clearly communicated your idea. Or it’s possible that your idea isn’t as great as you believe and other people have understood and rejected it.
[/QUOTE]

Communicating ideas that are unorthodox is a big problem. We have only words that most people comprehend in only an orthodox fashion. Critical thinking is one such word.

I have tried to acquaint readers with the unorthodox meaning of critical thinking and it is a big problem.

When I started out I did not recognize this problem and just tried to go directly into explaining what the unorthodox meaning was. This proved to be a failure. I discovered that people saw the phrase ‘critical thinking’ and decided that they were a critical thinker and thus did not read anything more. When we use common words most people conjure only common meanings and they do a turtle when I try to discuss the unorthodox meaning.

[Cervaise]

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Or it’s possible that your idea isn’t as great as you believe and other people have understood and rejected it.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, okay, but, have you ever, really looked, at your hands, man?

[coberst]

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
It’s possible that you’ve discovered some great idea and that everyone else is so biased against that idea they fail to appreciate its truth. But perhaps the problem is that you have not clearly communicated your idea. Or it’s possible that your idea isn’t as great as you believe and other people have understood and rejected it.
[/QUOTE]

That is a possibility. But if the majority says that X is false when I write that X is true I conclude that I am facing a universal characteristic of human nature. For example, I have 5 children and 7 grandchildren and I know that teens think that to be negative is to be cool. So I might conclude that most of the responders are teens.