Anti-intellectualism

8 Comments

1. 

   Athenian on March 28, 2005 at 11:35 am

   Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut comes to mind.

   THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

   Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

   It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

   I found the story here having recently seen the film on DVD, which was surpringly good.

   Soon it will be illegal to think.

2. 

   Sirocco on March 28, 2005 at 11:41 am

   H.L. Mencken reporting from the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial,’ July 11 1925:

   The courthouse is surrounded by a large lawn, and it is peppered day and night with evangelists. Once and all they are fundamentalists and their yells and bawlings fill the air with orthodoxy…. I have yet to find one who doubted as much as the typographical errors in Holy Writ. They dispute raucously and far into the night, but they begin and end on the common ground of complete faith. One of these holy men wears a sign on his back announcing that he is the Bible champion of the world. He told me today that he had studied the Bible four hours a day for thirty-three years, and that he had devised a plan of salvation that would save the worst sinner ever heard of, even a scientist, a theater actor or a pirate on the high seas, in forty days. This gentleman denounced the hard-shell Baptists as swindlers. He admitted freely that their sorcerers were powerful preachers and could save any ordinary man from sin, but he said that they were impotent against iniquity. The distinction is unknown to city theologians, but is as real down here as that between sanctification and salvation. The local experts, in fact, debate it daily. The Bible champion, just as I left him, was challenged by one such professor… He had on a natty palm beach suit and a fashionable soft collar and he used excellent English. Obviously, he was one who had been through the local high school and perhaps a country college. Yet he was so far uncontaminated by infidelity that he stood in the hot sun for a whole hour debating a point that even bishops might be excused for dodging, winter as well as summer.

   So, will this scene repeat itself in Pennsylvania, 80 years later?

   And with Hunter S. Thompson gone, who will be our H.L. Mencken?

3. 

   SlackerInc on March 28, 2005 at 2:47 pm

   or even before.  As I previously noted in a dKos diary, the U.S. youth culture has an apparently unique aspect we could well do without:

   “Interestingly, most European schools have the crowds that Americans call ‘populars’ and ‘druggies,’ as well as crowds oriented around certain types of music (e.g. ‘metalheads’) and antisocial crowds, but athletically oriented crowds (‘jocks’) and academically oriented crowds (‘brains’ and ‘nerds’) are rarely found (Arnett, 2002)…students who try hard to do well in school are made fun of in the United States, but not, for the most part, in other countries.”  (Adolescence by Laurence Steinberg,  p. 177)

   I would be interested in hearing from the “world” folks whether this matches with their personal experience.  And if it’s true, where did we go wrong?  How can we fix it?

   Alan
   Maverick Leftist

   • 

     chocolate ink on March 28, 2005 at 7:07 pm

     I’d be interested in this report also from any of the ‘world’ people who could discuss this.

   • 

     DuctapeFatwa on March 28, 2005 at 7:19 pm

     shares this particular trait.

     And I would have to agree that in the US, it begins before adolescence, and continues through adulthood.

     Nor is it limited to particular ethnic/economic groups, although when it is discussed, it is usually related to inner city or low income minority kids.

     Yet it is just as prevalent in the affluent suburbs.

     I think it is viewed by many people around the world, in places where a very high value is placed on education, as a singularly curious phenomenon, that people should be proud to be ignorant.

     The closest thing to it I can think of are people in extremely isolated areas of Pashtunistan who consider that a woman’s ignorance enhances her purity.

     • 

       SlackerInc on March 29, 2005 at 9:06 pm

       I’m fascinated (and horrified) by this phenomenon.  As I say, I had previously assumed this was a pretty well universal phenomenon.  Or if not universal, surely not found only in the U.S.!  But alas, it apparently is.  Your “closest” example, as you are no doubt aware, isn’t that close since it is more about oppression of women than anything else.

       I wonder: has it always been so in the U.S.?  Something about the people that immigrated here?  Or something about the way our school system was set up?  Can it ever be changed?  (If it can, I’d tend to think it would only be by “breaking the link” between successive classes of students, by somehow segregating the “new breed” from the old.)  

       How did we ever rise to such a lofty economic and technological position despite this horrendous socialised handicap?

       I’m also intrigued that you talk about this being a phenomenon viewed around the world as a “curious” one.  Certainly I can understand how they would feel that way; but I am surprised that people around the world actually know about this.  How do they?

       Alan
       Maverick Leftist

       • 

         DuctapeFatwa on March 31, 2005 at 9:04 pm

         I can tell you that oppression of women is not about women at all, but social control. If you will forgive me quoting myself and simultaneously displaying my new gray box skills:

         Subjugation of women has been popular for millennia, and still is, largely because it is the most effective method for keeping a population in control known to man.

         and perhaps therein lies at least a beginning of an answer to the question under discussion.

         Your mention of the schools reminded me of things I have read about the “philosophy” of public schools; namely that their intent is not to produce enlightened and educated masses, but to train youngsters to sit quietly and do as they are told for several hours every day, and to impart only the basic education that will enable them to produce more profit for their employer.

         The problem with that is that such a notion is not unique to the US, so there must be some other, larger factor.

         “How do people round the world know about this interesting American cultural trait?”

         That is easy. Americans love to travel! 🙂

4. 

   infidelpig on March 29, 2005 at 5:44 am

   uhhh, ummmm, welllll, NO..yah,,that’s right, yes sir.

   (are the only responses, allowed by the general public, and accepted by the government. according to the brain surgeon general Rove)

   (Do NOT remove this tag, or you will be prosecuted by the New United RepubliChristian States Authority)