# Pointy headed liberals **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872 "2002-11-01T18:12:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/1 "2002-11-01T18:12:55Z")
Why are liberals sometimes referred to disparagingly as “pointy headed liberals”? Why would a liberal be any more likely to have a pointy head (I’m picturing Zippy the Pinhead) than other people? ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/2 "2002-11-01T19:10:04Z")
[sarcasm]Extensive research has concluded liberals have smaller brains and less cranial volume than conservatives. This results in a smaller skull, thus the “pointy head” look. [/sarcasm] ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/3 "2002-11-01T19:10:31Z")
Researches have actually discovered a genetic connection between individuals with a predisposition toward liberal thinking and an increased likelihood of various physical conditions, including cranial deformation and cardiac hemoraging. However, why this is the case remains unclear. Current efforts are more focused on searching for a cure. It is hoped that some sort of soul-removal procedure will become viable in the next decade, and liberalism will be cured in our lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/4 "2002-11-01T19:15:26Z")
Wow, simul-sarcasm! Nice. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/5 "2002-11-01T22:49:31Z")
Also “pointy-headed intellectuals” and “pointy-headed academics”. Read [SDStaff article: origins of the dunce cap](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mduncecap.html) for a reasonable explanation. The Duns wore pointy hats because they believed it increased learning. Hence, you would find an intellectual fellow walking around with conical headgear. ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/6 "2002-11-02T00:50:05Z")
Others have said it best: John Stuart Mill: Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. Benjamin Disraeli: Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. Benjamin Disraeli: A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward. G. K. Chesterton: The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. John Kenneth Galbraith: The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. Leo C. Rosten: A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they’re dead. Mark Twain: The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them. Winston Churchill: Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains. Woodrow Wilson: A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt. George H. W. Bush: I’m conservative, but I’m not a nut about it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/7 "2002-11-02T06:53:49Z")
Conservative - A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. Politics - A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of princiiples. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. Radicalism - The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today. Ambrose Bierce - _The Devil’s Dictionary_ ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/8 "2002-11-02T07:09:27Z")
George Wallace, I think, was fond of referring to “pointy headed suedeo [sic – as in blue suedeo shoes]-intellectuals who couldn’t park a bicycle straight.” ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/9 "2002-11-02T07:14:31Z")
I think “pointy headed” is more associated with the “pseudo-intellectual” than with the liberal per se – though there may be operating an additional stereotype that liberals are more likely to be academics or theoretician/“intellectual” types, with all sorts of grand schemes for solving the world’s ills, but no practical skills/common sense (they can’t even park a bicycle straight, after all, we’re told); with conservatives stereotyped as more hands on businessmen who know how things really operate. As for precise etymology, I suspect you will find it in some now-obscure, but once influential, branch/taxonomic term of phrenology or similar attempts to link physical traits to moral/mental ones. Oligophrenia? Brachycephalia? Not sure which goes best with the pointy head. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/10 "2002-11-02T07:45:17Z")
Original quote by Walloon > [@](#): > > (I’m picturing Zippy the Pinhead) This may be a little pointed, but were you referring to the original Zippy Pinhead, a real person, or to the underground comic character? I’ve heard intellectuals referred to as eggheads. Does that imply a large head or a pointed one? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/11 "2002-11-02T09:19:04Z")
Here’s what the [the dictionary](http://www.bartleby.com/61/32/P0403250.html) has to say: ## **pointy-head**  SYLLABICATION: point·y-head PRONUNCIATION: [like this](http://www.bartleby.com/61/wavs/32/P0403250.wav) NOUN: Slang An intellectual. OTHER FORMS: pointy-headed —ADJECTIVE Dimwit-flathead is a related term that’s sometimes used to describe conservatives. Together, the two phrases form a nice symmetric pair of stereotypes and headshapes. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/12 "2002-11-02T16:18:18Z")
Gee Fibonacci, How long have you been waiting to use that? Churchhill said it best,- though I myself converted in my mid-20`s. Generalism and feelgoodism just wasn`t substitive enough for me anymore. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pointy-headed-liberals/134872/13 "2002-11-02T19:26:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whuckfistle \* > \*\*Gee Fibonacci, > How long have you been waiting to use that? > > \*\* More importantly, how long have you been waiting to use it in General Questions. Please email me in the next couple days to discuss whether you will be continued to allow to post here.