You Otta Be an Intellectual!

Meffy said:
It's not a history lesson -- you have to write your own history, military, religious, scientific, and technological.
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"Judaism has been founded in Tokyo!" "Plato has been born in New York!" "The Spanish Empire has been destroyed [by Montezuma]!"
 
I think it was Margaret Thatcher who once said that being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

The same could be said, I think, for being an intellectual.
 
Third time, coberst. Still waiting for your answer.

you appear to be claiming that intellectuals do not constitute a significant portion of the population of every nation. Can you back this up? Or clarify that this is not what you intended to say?
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Now that you've started a new thread, are you abandoning this one without addressing the issues that have been raised in it? That's a losing game, you know. If you have evidence, please -- and BTW, you might want to take note of that word, it's a good one -- please present it.
 
@Forty-Two: Zigactly. Marvelous stuff, that. It's fun when Mozart is born in Mephitisia and looks like an Elvis impersonator.
 
Meffy

Yes I claim that intellectuals are not a significant percentage of the population of the United States. My observation is my evidence.
 
I less than three logic said:
Perhaps we should start by defining intellectual.

Also, I doubt your personal observation is going to carry much weight.
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Life is a constant need to observe and judge. You are making a judgment right here. There is a science of good judgment and that science is called CT (Critical Thinking). Our schools and colleges are begining to teach CT; our educational institutions are begining to teach young people how to think and how to make good judgments.

CT is a fairly recent addition to schooling therefore many adults never learned this important subject. Each adult would be advised to study this subject matter on their own.
 
coberst said:
Yes I claim that intellectuals are not a significant percentage of the population of the United States. My observation is my evidence.
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Such "evidence" is without value. Please provide actual evidence or concede that you do not have any.

P.S.: The abbreviation CT is also commonly used to mean "Conspiracy Theory" -- I recommend spelling out "critical thinking" to avoid confusion.

[edit] P.P.S.: I see "all nations" has mysteriously changed to "the United States." Welcome to the Dancing Goalposts halftime show! [marching band music]
 
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[pedant] Technically, a list-of-initials abbreviation is an acronym only if it's pronouncable as a "word," like NASA or NARAL or POTUS or LASER. But it's perfectly acceptable to deplore common nonacronymous initialisms as well. :-) [/pedant]

[edit] Some consider all initialisms to be acronyms. I scoff at such laxity. It is symptomatic of the Decline of Western Civilization and All We Hold Dear. Harrumph.
 
Meffy said:
[pedant] Technically, a list-of-initials abbreviation is an acronym only if it's pronouncable as a "word," like NASA or NARAL or POTUS or LASER. But it's perfectly acceptable to deplore common nonacronymous initialisms as well. :-) [/pedant]

[edit] Some consider all initialisms to be acronyms. I scoff at such laxity. It is symptomatic of the Decline of Western Civilization and All We Hold Dear. Harrumph.
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What, CT isn't pronouncable as a word? It's a Hebrew acronym. No vowels.

(Yeah, ok. I didn't know that. Thanks).
 
coberst said:
Meffy

Yes I claim that intellectuals are not a significant percentage of the population of the United States. My observation is my evidence.
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I actually agree with Coberst here. My evidence is that Republicans do just marvelously by slamming "pointy-headed intellectuals". Adalei Stevenson lost two US presidential elections to Eisenhower because he was portrayed as being "too intellectual".

The situation, though, is not that there are few intellectuals (as I define them) but that the term has become pejorative, so that even people who are intellectual will deny the label. Oddly, even those who will deny being intellectual will still claim to be smart. It is not so much a matter of what the words mean as how they are perceived.
 
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Tricky says--"The situation, though, is not that there are few intellectuals (as I define them) but that the term has become pejorative, so that even people who are intellectual will deny the label. Oddly, even those who will deny being intellectual will still claim to be smart. It is not so much a matter of what the words mean as how they are perceived."

You have defined the problem well. Anti-intellectualism is the problem. Our society has a strong anti-intellectual bias and I suspect it has such an attitude because those who form and mold the culture wish that to be the case. As long as the citizens have contempt for matters intellectual they will not be developing a critical mind capable of asking embarrassing questions. An anti-intellectual community is a community easily managed because their are few independent thinkers.
 
coberst said:
You have defined the problem well. Anti-intellectualism is the problem. Our society has a strong anti-intellectual bias and I suspect it has such an attitude because those who form and mold the culture wish that to be the case. As long as the citizens have contempt for matters intellectual they will not be developing a critical mind capable of asking embarrassing questions. An anti-intellectual community is a community easily managed because their are few independent thinkers.
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But they aren't really anti-intellectual. They just don't like the word. There are many conservatives who are well-educated, articulate and are even critical thinkers who simply hate the label of "intellectual". They equate it with liberal college professors or something. It is a political and perceptual situation more that a true lack of intellectuals.

That being said, there is a strong push in this country by the far right, mostly the religious right, to set education backwards. They don't like it when the knowledge we gain contradicts their religious beliefs or interferes with their ability to make money (e.g. the global warming deniers who don't take time to learn about the facts, but dismiss them as "inconclusive. This does not mean all global warming deniers.) Although these people scare me, I still don't believe they are anything close to a majority. Even Kansas recently kicked out their Intelligent Design-touting schoolboard members.

Rumors of the death of intellectualism have been highly exaggerated.
 
Tricky says--"But they aren't really anti-intellectual. They just don't like the word. There are many conservatives who are well-educated, articulate and are even critical thinkers who simply hate the label of "intellectual". They equate it with liberal college professors or something. It is a political and perceptual situation more that a true lack of intellectuals.

That being said, there is a strong push in this country by the far right, mostly the religious right, to set education backwards. "

I guess a good definition of anti-intellectual would include these statements; "they just don't like the word", they equate the word 'intellectual' with college professors, it is a political and perceptual situation, the religious right is trying to set education backwards.

People like educated people who are educated for the purpose of making money. People cannot accept someone who studies, not to make more money, but for the pleasure of knowing. People fear what they do not comprehend.
 
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