{"id":3211,"date":"2012-08-22T18:17:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T17:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=3211"},"modified":"2012-08-22T18:17:12","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T17:17:12","slug":"asimov-anti-intellectualism-more-wiki-quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2012\/08\/asimov-anti-intellectualism-more-wiki-quotes\/","title":{"rendered":"Asimov, anti-intellectualism (more Wiki quotes)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So, the picture made me go on a Wikipedia reading frency (as it so happens).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anti-intellectualism<\/a><\/p>\n

Anti-intellectualism<\/strong><\/span> is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect<\/a>, intellectuals<\/a>, and intellectual pursuits<\/a>, usually expressed as the derision of education<\/a>, philosophy<\/a>, literature<\/a>, art<\/a>, and science<\/a>, as impractical and contemptible. Alternatively, self-described intellectuals who are alleged to fail to adhere to rigorous standards of scholarship may be described as anti-intellectuals although psuedo-intellectualism is a more commonly, and perhaps more accurately, used description for this phenomenon.<\/span><\/p>\n

In public discourse, anti-intellectuals usually perceive and publicly present themselves as champions of the common folk \u2014 populists<\/a> against political elitism<\/a> and academic elitism<\/a> \u2014 proposing that the educated are a social class detached from the everyday concerns of the majority, and that they dominate political<\/a> discourse and higher education<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Because “anti-intellectual” can be pejorative<\/a>, defining specific cases of anti-intellectualism can be troublesome; one can object to specific facets of intellectualism or the application thereof without being dismissive of intellectual pursuits in general. Moreover, allegations of anti-intellectualism can constitute an appeal to authority<\/a> or an appeal to ridicule<\/a> that attempts to discredit an opponent rather than specifically addressing his or her arguments.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Anti-intellectualism is a common facet of totalitarian<\/a> dictatorships to oppress political dissent. The Nazi<\/a> party’s populist rhetoric featured anti-intellectual rants as a common motif, including Adolf Hitler<\/a>‘s political polemic<\/a>, Mein Kampf<\/a>. Perhaps its most extreme political form was during the 1970s in Cambodia<\/a> under the rule of Pol Pot<\/a> and the Khmer Rouge<\/a>, when people were killed for being academics or even for merely wearing eyeglasses (as it suggested literacy) in the Killing Fields<\/a>.[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

Dictators<\/a>, and their dictatorship<\/a> supporters, use anti-intellectualism to gain popular support, by accusing intellectuals of being a socially detached, politically dangerous class who question the extant social norms, who dissent from established opinion, and who reject nationalism<\/a>, hence they are unpatriotic<\/a>, and thus subversive of the nation. Violent anti-intellectualism is common to the rise and rule of authoritarian<\/a> political movements, such as Italian Fascism<\/a>, Stalinism<\/a> in Russia, Nazism<\/a> in Germany, the Khmer Rouge<\/a> in Cambodia<\/a>, and Iranian theocracy<\/a>.[<\/span>citation needed<\/em><\/span><\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>University<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

In the English-speaking world<\/a>, especially in the US, critics like David Horowitz<\/a> (<\/span>viz.<\/em><\/span> the David Horowitz Freedom Center<\/a>), William Bennett<\/a>, an ex-US secretary of education, and paleoconservative activist<\/a> Patrick Buchanan<\/a>, criticize schools and universities as ‘intellectualist<\/a>‘[<\/span>citation needed<\/em><\/span><\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>In his book <\/span>The Campus Wars<\/em><\/span>[15]<\/a> about the widespread student protests of the late 1960s, philosopher John Searle<\/a> wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

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the two most salient traits of the radical movement are its anti-intellectualism and its hostility to the university as an institution. [\u2026] Intellectuals by definition are people who take ideas seriously for their own sake. Whether or not a theory is true or false is important to them independently of any practical applications it may have. [Intellectuals] have, as Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, an attitude to ideas that is at once playful and pious. But in the radical movement, the intellectual ideal of knowledge for its own sake is rejected. Knowledge is seen as valuable only as a basis for action, and it is not even very valuable there. Far more important than what one knows is how one feels. <\/em><\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

<\/a>In 1972, sociologist Stanislav Andreski<\/a>[16]<\/a> warned readers of academic works to be wary of appeals to authority<\/a> when academics make questionable claims, writing, \u201cdo not be impressed by the imprint of a famous publishing house or the volume of an author\u2019s publications. [\u2026] Remember that the publishers want to keep the printing presses busy and do not object to nonsense if it can be sold.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Critics have alleged that much of the prevailing philosophy in American academia (i.e., postmodernism, poststructuralism, relativism) are anti-intellectual: \u201cThe displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is — second only to American political campaigns — the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>In the notorious Sokal Hoax<\/a> of the 1990s, physicist Alan Sokal<\/a> submitted a deliberately preposterous paper to Duke University’s <\/span>Social Texts<\/em><\/span> journal to test if, as he later wrote, a leading “culture studies” periodical would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.”[18]<\/a> <\/span>Social Texts<\/em><\/span> published the paper, seemingly without noting any of the paper’s abundant mathematical and scientific errors, leading Sokal to declare that “my little experiment demonstrate[s], at the very least, that some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting intellectually lazy.”<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>In a 1995 interview, social critic Camille Paglia<\/a>[19]<\/a> described academics (including herself) as “a parasitic class,” arguing that during widespread social disruption “the only thing holding this culture together will be masculine men of the working class. The cultural elite–women and men–will be pleading for the plumbers and the construction workers.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Surely Paglia is right about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a> Soviet Union<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/a>In the first decade after the Russian Revolution of 1917<\/a>, the Bolsheviks<\/a> suspected the Tsarist<\/a> intelligentsia<\/a> as potentially traitorous of the proletariat<\/a>, thus, the initial Soviet<\/a> government comprised men and women without much formal education. Lenin<\/a> derided the old intelligentsia with the expression (roughly translated): \u2018We ain\u2019t completed no academies\u2019 (\u043c\u044b \u0430\u043a\u0430\u0434\u0435\u043c\u0438\u0435\u0432 \u043d\u0435 \u043a\u043e\u043d\u0447\u0430\u043b\u0438).[48]<\/a> Moreover, the deposed propertied classes were termed <\/span>Lishentsy<\/em><\/span><\/a> (\u2018the disenfranchised\u2019), whose children were excluded from education; eventually, some 200 Tsarist intellectuals were deported to Germany on Philosophers’ ships<\/a> in 1922; others were deported to Latvia and to Turkey in 1923.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the revolutionary<\/a> period, the pragmatic Bolsheviks employed \u2018bourgeois experts\u2019 to manage the economy, industry, and agriculture, and so learn from them. After the Russian Civil War<\/a> (1917\u201323), to achieve socialism, the USSR<\/a> (1922\u201391) emphasised literacy and education in service to modernising the country via an educated working class<\/a> intelligentsia<\/a>, rather than an Ivory Tower<\/a> intelligentsia. During the 1930s and the 1950s, Joseph Stalin<\/a> replaced Lenin\u2019s intelligentsia with a “communist” intelligentsia, loyal to him and with a specifically Soviet world view, thereby producing the most egregious examples of Soviet anti-intellectualism \u2014 the pseudoscientific<\/a> theories of Lysenkoism<\/a> and Japhetic theory<\/a>, most damaging to biology<\/a> and linguistics<\/a> in that country, by subordinating science<\/a> to a dogmatic interpretation of Marxism<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Philosophers%27_ships<\/a><\/p>\n

Deliberate brain drain? That must be a new low.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Equality_of_outcome<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a> Equality of outcome<\/strong><\/span>, <\/span>equality of condition<\/strong><\/span>, or <\/span>equality of results<\/strong><\/span> is a controversial political<\/a> concept.[1]<\/a> Although it is not always clearly defined, it usually describes a state in which people have approximately the same material wealth or, more generally, in which the general economic conditions of their lives are similar. Achieving this requires reducing or eliminating material inequalities between individuals or households in a society. This could involve a transfer of income<\/a> and\/or wealth<\/a> from wealthier to poorer individuals, or adopting other institutions designed to promote equality of condition from the start. The concept is central to some political ideologies and is used regularly in political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity<\/a>. A related way of defining equality of outcome is to think of it as “equality in the central and valuable things in life.”[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a> Comparisons with related concepts<\/span><\/h2>\n

<\/a>Equality of outcome<\/em><\/span> is often compared to related concepts of equality. Generally, the concept is most often contrasted with the concept of <\/span>equality of opportunity<\/em><\/span>, but there are other concepts as well. The term has been seen differently from differing political perspectives, but of all of the terms relating to <\/span>equality<\/em><\/span>, <\/span>equality of outcome<\/em><\/span> is the most “controversial” or “contentious”.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n