Walloon wants to know why I describe George W. Bush as “anti-intellectual.” It was a side issue in the thread in question, so I started a new thread.
Anti-intellectualism is a pose affected by many politicians to appeal to the public. It consists of denigrating, well, intellectuals in general, but more specifically it consists of (1) casting intellectualism in terms of being effete, lacking common-sense, not having the problems and cares of the common man at heart, lacking in requisite religious and political loyalty, and other characteristics, and then (2) plastering that characterisation on one’s political opponents.
Anti-intellectualist dialogue was critical to Bush’s campaigns against Gore and Kerry. It was also important in the Reagan-Carter race and the two Eisenhower-Stevenson races. (Wasn’t Stevenson explicitly called an “egghead”?). To a large extent, for people in powerful positions, especially, anti-intellectualism is an affectation. But maybe it isn’t for Bush.
Bush embraces anti-intellectualism wholeheartedly. I recall reading that he loved it whenever the media got hold of one of his verbal gaffes because he believed it would just endear him to his supporters. It’s a powerful tool in that it allows him to wipe out the arguments of any opponents who claim to have facts, or information, or logic, or science on their side.
In a 2003 issue of Mother Jones, Molly Ivins wrote that Bush’s anti-intellectualism is not affected but largely genuine:
I’ve got no problems with people calling Bush anti-intellectual, as described above. I think that sort of bias is, in general, healthy. I also think it’s accurate to label Bush as such. Hell, I wish there were more folks like that in D.C. We have way too many “intellectuals” for our own good.
I think we have too many anti-intellectuals for our own good. At some point facts, analsyis, and reasoning have value over emotionalism and “gut” decisions. I think the presidency is definitely beyond that point.
Anti-intellectualism fosters a short-circuiting of the political dialogue. You never get to see who really has the better argument because the anti-intellectualist politician gets the mob riled up and hooting at the eggheads.
I agree with the OP - he does find it politically expedient to be seen as a “man of the people,” and being denounced as a goofy, ill-informed hick plays to his base. Remember him mocking the reporter who had the nerve to actually ask a question of Jacques Chirac in FRENCH during Bush’s joint press conference with the French president? Sacre bleu!
Anti-intellectual has nothing to do with anti-fact. People, intellectual or not, interpret facts to suit themselves. The OP went out of his way to explain that it does not equate with stupid. Intellectuals can be just as unreasonable as anyone, and often are.
Anti-intellectual doesn’t mean anti-intellect, acsenray. As even Molly Ivins concedes, Bush is not an idiot. He’s a smart guy. And he surrounds himself with very smart people. I doubt many decisions in the White House is based on “emotionalism.”
However, anti-intellectualism means that he disdains those self-appointed “intellectuals” who patronize others and think they are so much smarter than the mob. People who are, essentially, elitists. Bush is a man of the people. People see him as genuine and connect with that. People did not do so with an effete snob like John Kerry. I don’t think Bush is playing a part (and neither does Molly Ivins). Bush is simply being himself, and the average American out there in Fly-Over country sees this and likes him for hit. And the average person really hates the “intellectuals” who look down on them and disdain them for shopping at Wal-Mart, eating McDonald’s, and driving a pickup truck.
What I’m talking about is anti-intellectualism as a public communications technique, not as a policy-making method. I can’t say that Bush reaches his decisions through pure emotionalism, although I might suspect that he often does. I don’t doubt that the Bush administration has its own ways of reaching policy decisions. What I am pointing out is that it uses anti-intellectualism as a propaganda technique to garner public support for those positions.
What is dishonest and propagandistic about anti-intellectualism in political dialogue is that it is essentially ad hominem. It attacks the person rather than the argument. It’s an effective way of getting people to support positions that they might otherwise oppose or that might be against their interests.
But it is an effective way to get the public to ignore facts.
Since I was the OP, I’ll have to agree with this. I am not saying that Bush is stupid. In fact, I’m not saying that anyone, within the context of this discussion, is stupid. However, what I am saying is that Bush’s anti-intellectualism, however sincere it might be, is fundamentally a dishonest mode of public dialogue.
I’m sure that’s the case, and I believe that someone who is an intellectual in private life (a closet intellectual?) could just as easily use anti-intellectualism as a propaganda technique.
Yes, but at some point experience has to have value over hypothesis and visualization, and I think the presidency is definitely beyond that point as well.
American anti-intellectualism is less a direct disdain for book-learnin’ than it is a support of experience, and a disdain for those who see book-learnin’ as a substitute for experience, and a severe disdain for those who see book-learnin’ as more true than experience.
Intellectual is one of the smears that is used to describe the liberal elite.
I was flipping the channels and I paused briefly on FOX news and someone was talking about what a great guy the Supreme Court Nominee is. He was talking about how he came out of Harvard and went to work as a clerk for Rhenquist. He said (something like) "he put out a conservative world view, now most of the people there were products of elite eastern/Ivy League univerisities so this was very brave of him at the time.
Isn’t Harvard an elite eastern/ivy league univeristy? Or there a Harvard Texas that I don’t know about?
Experience is just a less explicit version of hypothesis, test, reevaluate beliefs. Those who defer to"experience" always seem to do so when they do not wish to have their assumptions scrutinized or challenged.
I do not think anyone actually takes the positions that you have outlined regarding intellectualism, John. You never saw Bill Clinton arguing that an Oxford education is more valuable than time spent in the field. Nevertheless, these views are imputed by anti-intellectuals to undermine the credibility of their opponents.
The US has always had a strong streak of anti-intellectualism. But if I’m not mistaken, this manifested itself more along the lines of “rugged individualism” and “common sense”. Someone like Thomas Edison (or pick your own example).
But now, I see it as increasingly degenerating into “anti-fact”. Or maybe degenerating is the wrong word, and it’s a separate, unrelated strain of thought? I don’t know.
Is it unfair to also describe George Bush as anti-fact? IMO, he is. Does it follow naturally from his anti-intellectual tendencies?
Intellectuals can also be unreasonable, as you say, but I’d like to hear your argument as to how that unreasonableness is the equivalent of anti-fact.
He is? Did he go to public school or state college? Did he work his way up from the middle-class? Did he run a successful small business? In what way beside manufactured image is he a man of the people?
This is a great thread. I also think that Bush in particular, and the Republican party in general, have become very anti-intellectual. There was a time when conservatives had spokesmen like William Buckley who were clearly intellectuals. After Nixon and the southern strategy the right has come to embrace populism in rhetoric (though not in practice).
What bothers me is that the aniti-intellectualism is such a straw man. The weak, effete snob in the ivory tower with no real world experience. That just doesn’t seem to be the reality. The intellecuals I know can (and will) give you both sides of the issue. We kid a friend of ours who always prefaces an answer to our questions with “on the one hand”. Of course you can always find some leftist wingnut to parade out.
Someone said that we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. Some questions do have factual answers: is a given sales tax regressive or not, does the SS proposal close the funding gap? Other questions don’t: should taxes be progressive, is socialized medicine a good idea?
What bother me is that we are moving to a place where there is no intellectual rigor. Everyone feels they know as much as the experts. This is true of the right wingers who expound on creationism and the left wing who think that the drug companies are in a conspiracy to hide effective herbal remedies.
I’m, of course, using this word broadly to illlustrate what many think. In general, though, why I get the impression of Kerry as being an effete snob is his general manner of acting around common folks. He seems very stiff and uneasy. His complete lack of knowlege about hunting, even though he tries to pose as a hunter. The fact that he wind-surfs and snowboards. The fact that he owns a home in Sun Valley.
And then there is Teresa – sorry, but any guy that marries a crazy, drunk European such as her is suspect in the eyes of many.
Keep in mind that this is all subjective, but if you go to many parts of the country you’ll hear such things said about Kerry. People can’t connect with him.
Not all intellectuals are snobs, but the snobs are the type most folks are thinking about when they talk of intellectuals and why they dislike them. You’ll find quite a few intellectual snobs among the liberal talking heads, who go around saying that Bush is stupid and that the people who support him are stupid.
This question shows that you don’t really get the difference between a “man of the people” and an intellectual. Someone like Bush may be rich and have gone to prep school and the Ivy League. It’s not about where you went to school or your origins. It’s about your attitude – would this guy be a good guy to have a beer with (of course, with GWB, he would have been a lot more fun to have a beer with before his 40th birthday, but I digress)? You can be intellectual and still be a man of the people. Bill Clinton was.
And in focusing on these superficial characteristics, the anti-intellectual gets to skip over the actual debates over policy and competence.
So it is purely a superficial matter, then?
It seemed that you were setting up a dichotomy between “self-appointed intellectual” and “man of the people.” Doesn’t anti-intellectualism depend on equating intellectuals with effete snobbery?
It seems to me that your use of the term “self-appointed” is a part of the propaganda technique as well. Does anyone set himself up as an intellectual? It’s a label – or usually an implication – imposed by the anti-intellectual upon his or her opponent.
But why is this even a factor for a president? You are not going to have a beer with GWB or Bill Clinton. How is the fact that you would enjoy having a beer with him make him a better choice for president?