The Cult of Ignorance in the USA
March 7, 2016 2:01 PM Subscribe
Beer???
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 2:13 PM on March 7, 2016
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 2:13 PM on March 7, 2016
That article seems to me to be conflating a lot of very different problems and phenomena.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [28 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [28 favorites]
That's nothing though - you should taste their beer. Gross!
The anti-intellectual beer?
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:16 PM on March 7, 2016
The anti-intellectual beer?
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:16 PM on March 7, 2016
This is close to my heart, thanks for posting. I curate a blog (link in profile) that highlights science denial type comments and this stuff enrages me.
posted by agregoli at 2:16 PM on March 7, 2016
posted by agregoli at 2:16 PM on March 7, 2016
tl;dr
posted by enjoymoreradio at 2:16 PM on March 7, 2016 [70 favorites]
posted by enjoymoreradio at 2:16 PM on March 7, 2016 [70 favorites]
Unaware of what year it was, Joe wandered the streets desperate for help. But the English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-city slang and various grunts. Joe was able to understand them, but when he spoke in an ordinary voice he sounded pompous and faggy to them.
Please forgive us, Mike Judge.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:18 PM on March 7, 2016 [25 favorites]
Please forgive us, Mike Judge.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:18 PM on March 7, 2016 [25 favorites]
And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.
posted by Mayor West at 2:23 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 2:23 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
It's a bit ranty, but its suggestion that a lot of what passes as online "left" activism is actually a form of avant garde consumerism rings true to me. The new elitism lies in being the absolute biggest fan of mass market popular culture you can be. Whereas the avant garde once defined themselves in opposition to mass culture, membership of the cultural elite is now framed by one's ability to performatively consume pop. The new untouchables are those who dare to question the poptimist hegemony.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:25 PM on March 7, 2016 [89 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:25 PM on March 7, 2016 [89 favorites]
In American schools, the culture exalts the athlete and good-looking cheerleader. Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs," "dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the more popular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect.
Reads like the treatment for an 80s teen sex romp.
Also, "Best of the Web"? Someone should alert the slumbering Matthowie.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:27 PM on March 7, 2016 [14 favorites]
Reads like the treatment for an 80s teen sex romp.
Also, "Best of the Web"? Someone should alert the slumbering Matthowie.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:27 PM on March 7, 2016 [14 favorites]
Funny, I just saw a Bukowski quote today: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
Taken literally it's not true, but I think he was hitting at the notion that a well-considered opinion or position must, by its very nature, be broad in perspective and compromised in nature. It's virtually impossible to represent logic and pragmatism with the utter confidence of a narrow, focused ignorance devoid of rigor. We see this with the Trump movement. The compromises borne of considered thinking are seen by the ignorati as simple weakness.
posted by jimmythefish at 2:28 PM on March 7, 2016 [41 favorites]
Taken literally it's not true, but I think he was hitting at the notion that a well-considered opinion or position must, by its very nature, be broad in perspective and compromised in nature. It's virtually impossible to represent logic and pragmatism with the utter confidence of a narrow, focused ignorance devoid of rigor. We see this with the Trump movement. The compromises borne of considered thinking are seen by the ignorati as simple weakness.
posted by jimmythefish at 2:28 PM on March 7, 2016 [41 favorites]
Metafilter: The Poptimist Hegemony
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 2:30 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 2:30 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
Interesting that this topic has emerged again publically after more than a decade. Its cyclical.
Dumbth by Steve Allen 1990
"Dumbth" (Allen's own term) is a spreading incompetence, illiteracy and gullibility across the land. "It's a combination of ignorance and stupidity, plus some unidentified ingredients," he said.
Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman 2000
Berman compares the predicament of contemporary America with that of the Roman Empire in its final days. Just like Rome, the United States suffers from an increasing gap between rich and poor, a teeming bazaar of eccentric faiths and a general dumbing-down of the collective intelligence. Today, democracy means ''the right to shop, or to choose between Wendy's and Burger King,'' while the ''corporate takeover of intellectual property'' has resulted in ''the replacement of intelligent citizens by mindless consumers.'' review
Paul Fussell's Class approaches this sideways
And of course, the whole Trust Us, We're the Experts
posted by infini at 2:31 PM on March 7, 2016 [22 favorites]
Dumbth by Steve Allen 1990
"Dumbth" (Allen's own term) is a spreading incompetence, illiteracy and gullibility across the land. "It's a combination of ignorance and stupidity, plus some unidentified ingredients," he said.
Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman 2000
Berman compares the predicament of contemporary America with that of the Roman Empire in its final days. Just like Rome, the United States suffers from an increasing gap between rich and poor, a teeming bazaar of eccentric faiths and a general dumbing-down of the collective intelligence. Today, democracy means ''the right to shop, or to choose between Wendy's and Burger King,'' while the ''corporate takeover of intellectual property'' has resulted in ''the replacement of intelligent citizens by mindless consumers.'' review
Paul Fussell's Class approaches this sideways
And of course, the whole Trust Us, We're the Experts
posted by infini at 2:31 PM on March 7, 2016 [22 favorites]
Funny, I just saw a Bukowski quote today: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
--W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming", 1919. Yep, cyclical.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:32 PM on March 7, 2016 [78 favorites]
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
--W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming", 1919. Yep, cyclical.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:32 PM on March 7, 2016 [78 favorites]
And the old classic, the Marching Morons.
posted by infini at 2:34 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:34 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
Thanks for letting me know about these ding-dong kids today
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [13 favorites]
Delicately, my perspective is that a good proportion of this problem sits with people being raised to believe they have "rights" to a whole bunch of stuff that they really don't have "rights" to, primarily a "right to an opinion", since a person having a "right to an opinion" can mean only two things: 1) that I now have an obligation to let them keep that opinion, even if it is factually incorrect, and 2) that they don't really care about anything, will never be convinced away from the position they presently hold, and they simply don't want to participate in debate on the issue.
Which, fair enough. But this "right to an opinion" bleeds out into every facet of their lives, and is distorted and mutated and shoehorned into an argument against, essentially, them not having to engage with anything they don't want to engage with, even if it is to their utter detriment. So a "right to an opinion" is used as a tool for people not to engage with science, for example, or history. And there are very, very few "rights" that people possess - perhaps only one or two - that correctly imply any kind of "obligation" on my part. I am obliged not to kill or injure you, and that's actually about it.
Of course people have a "right", if you could call it that, to their own personal preferences, such as chocolate over vanilla or taking a left down 53rd instead of 52nd because they like the trees down that street better, or having a cat instead of a dog, or dressing in neutral tones, or preferring Rowling to Tolkien, but I submit that preferences are vastly different to opinions. Opinions are things that grow and develop, rather than just happen and remain set. But refusal to engage with argument surrounding those opinions turns them into preferences, which completely nullifies their assumed power and their privileged position.
"My preference is that Catholicism [or whatever] is true" because that's like, ha, ok, sounds good bro, and it is vastly different to "Catholicism [or whatever] is true and I have a right to that opinion" because no you don't.
Just my opinion, anyway.
:P
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [38 favorites]
Which, fair enough. But this "right to an opinion" bleeds out into every facet of their lives, and is distorted and mutated and shoehorned into an argument against, essentially, them not having to engage with anything they don't want to engage with, even if it is to their utter detriment. So a "right to an opinion" is used as a tool for people not to engage with science, for example, or history. And there are very, very few "rights" that people possess - perhaps only one or two - that correctly imply any kind of "obligation" on my part. I am obliged not to kill or injure you, and that's actually about it.
Of course people have a "right", if you could call it that, to their own personal preferences, such as chocolate over vanilla or taking a left down 53rd instead of 52nd because they like the trees down that street better, or having a cat instead of a dog, or dressing in neutral tones, or preferring Rowling to Tolkien, but I submit that preferences are vastly different to opinions. Opinions are things that grow and develop, rather than just happen and remain set. But refusal to engage with argument surrounding those opinions turns them into preferences, which completely nullifies their assumed power and their privileged position.
"My preference is that Catholicism [or whatever] is true" because that's like, ha, ok, sounds good bro, and it is vastly different to "Catholicism [or whatever] is true and I have a right to that opinion" because no you don't.
Just my opinion, anyway.
:P
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [38 favorites]
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
@roughbeast #slouchin #2ndcominglol #lookinforfalconhaveuseen
posted by Sebmojo at 2:37 PM on March 7, 2016 [61 favorites]
Are full of passionate intensity."
@roughbeast #slouchin #2ndcominglol #lookinforfalconhaveuseen
posted by Sebmojo at 2:37 PM on March 7, 2016 [61 favorites]
Whereas the avant garde once defined themselves in opposition to mass culture, membership of the cultural elite is now framed by one's ability to performatively consume pop
In the Internet era, with global commerce, fast fashion, etc., what is completely avant-garde 6 months ago is mainstream today.
It just follows that cult fandoms would be labeled as "performative consumption," because every other marginalized identity can find allies on the Internet, and more than ever, people don't necessarily have to fall in with other "weirdos" just to find allies. Or if they are, they're doing it differently than previous generations, and that's OK.
Some of the stuff that's noted is genuinely horrifying (Americans not knowing Washington was the first president?), but others are just old people saying their preferred media is better. Oh no, fewer people are reading novels or poetry? Yeah, that's YOUR generation's culture. Don't confuse generational differences with anti-intellectualism.
posted by explosion at 2:37 PM on March 7, 2016 [18 favorites]
In the Internet era, with global commerce, fast fashion, etc., what is completely avant-garde 6 months ago is mainstream today.
It just follows that cult fandoms would be labeled as "performative consumption," because every other marginalized identity can find allies on the Internet, and more than ever, people don't necessarily have to fall in with other "weirdos" just to find allies. Or if they are, they're doing it differently than previous generations, and that's OK.
Some of the stuff that's noted is genuinely horrifying (Americans not knowing Washington was the first president?), but others are just old people saying their preferred media is better. Oh no, fewer people are reading novels or poetry? Yeah, that's YOUR generation's culture. Don't confuse generational differences with anti-intellectualism.
posted by explosion at 2:37 PM on March 7, 2016 [18 favorites]
DAN ASHCROOOOFT!
posted by I-baLL at 2:38 PM on March 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by I-baLL at 2:38 PM on March 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
ASH-CROFT ASH-CROFT ASH-CROFT
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:39 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:39 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
If I had to simplify my explanation as to how this sort of thing has happened, I would say the following:
Years ago there were three television networks. For better or worse, those networks chose what news would be viewed by the public. Mostly, they felt an obligation to tell people what they needed to know. If they felt people needed to know about Vietnam or political candidates or foreign policy, they would run stories on it. People would watch it. People would generally believe it. This gave the networks a great deal of power, and they undoubtedly abused this power at times. However, they had a general belief between the three networks that they had a moral obligation to provide the public with information that was important. While I am sure they cared about their ratings, they didn't care nearly as much as they did about their prime time ratings. So they ran the news with a focus on the content that might have even been at the expense of the ratings. They gave the people what they needed, not what they wanted.
Then they started to run news programs in prime time like 20/20, Dateline, etc. These shows aired in prime time and the networks wanted to maximize their ratings. They soon found that sensational stories and programs outperformed the drier material in the ratings. They altered their prime time news programming to try to get better ratings. They began to give people what they wanted, not what they needed.
Then an entire news network was created to explicitly give the people what they wanted, not what they needed. This network wound up destroying all of the other news networks in the ratings. Everyone scrambled to give people what they want, not what they need. Not surprisingly, people are more interested in being entertained than they are in being educated. It was true in grammar school, and it remains true in adulthood.
The internet compounded the problem considerably. There are countless places to get news on the internet. There aren't limited options. People are in complete control of what they click and where they get their news. Not too surprisingly, people choose what they want, not what they need. "Senator Cindy Smith Releases Tax Plan." "Senator Cindy Smith Says Opponent Has Small Penis." Guess which one gets more clicks? Guess which kind of story is going to be emphasized for that reason?
I don't know how the genie gets put back in the bottle. People are able to get the news they want, not the news they need. It would involve tremendous violations of free speech to make it so people can only get the news they need. Somehow, I suppose there will have to be a way to figure out how to change what people want. Good luck with that.
posted by flarbuse at 2:41 PM on March 7, 2016 [36 favorites]
Years ago there were three television networks. For better or worse, those networks chose what news would be viewed by the public. Mostly, they felt an obligation to tell people what they needed to know. If they felt people needed to know about Vietnam or political candidates or foreign policy, they would run stories on it. People would watch it. People would generally believe it. This gave the networks a great deal of power, and they undoubtedly abused this power at times. However, they had a general belief between the three networks that they had a moral obligation to provide the public with information that was important. While I am sure they cared about their ratings, they didn't care nearly as much as they did about their prime time ratings. So they ran the news with a focus on the content that might have even been at the expense of the ratings. They gave the people what they needed, not what they wanted.
Then they started to run news programs in prime time like 20/20, Dateline, etc. These shows aired in prime time and the networks wanted to maximize their ratings. They soon found that sensational stories and programs outperformed the drier material in the ratings. They altered their prime time news programming to try to get better ratings. They began to give people what they wanted, not what they needed.
Then an entire news network was created to explicitly give the people what they wanted, not what they needed. This network wound up destroying all of the other news networks in the ratings. Everyone scrambled to give people what they want, not what they need. Not surprisingly, people are more interested in being entertained than they are in being educated. It was true in grammar school, and it remains true in adulthood.
The internet compounded the problem considerably. There are countless places to get news on the internet. There aren't limited options. People are in complete control of what they click and where they get their news. Not too surprisingly, people choose what they want, not what they need. "Senator Cindy Smith Releases Tax Plan." "Senator Cindy Smith Says Opponent Has Small Penis." Guess which one gets more clicks? Guess which kind of story is going to be emphasized for that reason?
I don't know how the genie gets put back in the bottle. People are able to get the news they want, not the news they need. It would involve tremendous violations of free speech to make it so people can only get the news they need. Somehow, I suppose there will have to be a way to figure out how to change what people want. Good luck with that.
posted by flarbuse at 2:41 PM on March 7, 2016 [36 favorites]
This was inane when Allan Bloom published a book about it and it's inane now.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:42 PM on March 7, 2016 [25 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:42 PM on March 7, 2016 [25 favorites]
Even among my college-educated peers, I have noticed over the years a mounting resistance to critical thinking, and a deterioration in the ability (or inclination) to distinguish opinions from facts. It's really annoying.
posted by STFUDonnie at 2:44 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by STFUDonnie at 2:44 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
Quote investigator
posted by Brian B. at 2:45 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Quote investigator
posted by Brian B. at 2:45 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh no, fewer people are reading novels or poetry? Yeah, that's YOUR generation's culture. Don't confuse generational differences with anti-intellectualism.
Um...no. That's been every generation's "culture" since damn near forever. It's only become property of the old generations since we now have a crowd that seems hellbent to contort themselves in knots in an attempt to not share anything with previous generations. Unless something can be re-purposed and re-packaged as authentic or artisanal, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:45 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
Um...no. That's been every generation's "culture" since damn near forever. It's only become property of the old generations since we now have a crowd that seems hellbent to contort themselves in knots in an attempt to not share anything with previous generations. Unless something can be re-purposed and re-packaged as authentic or artisanal, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:45 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
posted by mosk at 2:45 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by mosk at 2:45 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's only become property of the old generations since we now have a crowd that seems hellbent to contort themselves in knots in an attempt to not share anything with previous generations.
*extends copyright another century*
posted by Drinky Die at 2:48 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
*extends copyright another century*
posted by Drinky Die at 2:48 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
That's been every generation's "culture" since damn near forever.
The novel was considered "low culture" for a very long time. It's in its name! It's a novelty. Kind of like how it's hard for comic books to get taken seriously, partially because "Zap! Pow! Funny books not just for kids anymore!"
Only in the past few generations was the novel "elevated" to high culture. So it makes sense that the older generations wouldn't understand the rise of other media to higher culture.
posted by explosion at 2:50 PM on March 7, 2016 [29 favorites]
The novel was considered "low culture" for a very long time. It's in its name! It's a novelty. Kind of like how it's hard for comic books to get taken seriously, partially because "Zap! Pow! Funny books not just for kids anymore!"
Only in the past few generations was the novel "elevated" to high culture. So it makes sense that the older generations wouldn't understand the rise of other media to higher culture.
posted by explosion at 2:50 PM on March 7, 2016 [29 favorites]
Um...no. That's been every generation's "culture" since damn near forever.
Novels have been around in their modern sense for like 300 years. In the cultural scale of the world that is not damn near forever.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:51 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
Novels have been around in their modern sense for like 300 years. In the cultural scale of the world that is not damn near forever.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:51 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
As to this dumbing down business, I look to the ever darkening The Simpsons for updates. And yeah. Pretty much. The darkity is embiggening.
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:52 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:52 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
They gave the people what they needed, not what they wanted.
I think a more likely explanation is that after WW2 there was more of a feeling that perhaps journalism was very important, and these were important times. People wanted journalism to be more responsible, to have decorum because it felt like history was being made, technology was taking America to new places. People landed on the moon and journalism wore its Sunday best.
The world never really stopped being messy and complicated, but journalism has slid back down to its more natural level of irresponsibility.
posted by nom de poop at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
I think a more likely explanation is that after WW2 there was more of a feeling that perhaps journalism was very important, and these were important times. People wanted journalism to be more responsible, to have decorum because it felt like history was being made, technology was taking America to new places. People landed on the moon and journalism wore its Sunday best.
The world never really stopped being messy and complicated, but journalism has slid back down to its more natural level of irresponsibility.
posted by nom de poop at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
For a site crying out against the cult of ignorance, it seems odd to have this article as its bedfellow.
Also this.
And this.
The site also seems to have links in its politics section to Sputnik news. I love stands against anti-intellectualism as much as anyone, but this isn't the site for it.
posted by zabuni at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
Also this.
And this.
The site also seems to have links in its politics section to Sputnik news. I love stands against anti-intellectualism as much as anyone, but this isn't the site for it.
posted by zabuni at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
this has been noted some years ago:
Anti-intellectualism in American Life is a book by Richard Hofstadter published in 1963 that won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In this book, Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form.
posted by Postroad at 2:57 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
Anti-intellectualism in American Life is a book by Richard Hofstadter published in 1963 that won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In this book, Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form.
posted by Postroad at 2:57 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.
Pre WW2, we were 1/2 farmers. (My numberin' might be off a tad.)
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:59 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Pre WW2, we were 1/2 farmers. (My numberin' might be off a tad.)
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:59 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think it's fair for people to demand justification for any belief. The problem is, when justification is demanded for some things, authoritative sources start attacking the questioners instead of providing that justification. When justification is provided, it's predicated on other ideas which are treated as self-evident, when in fact those ideas have been taught to some (with underlying justification) and not taught, or at least not taught _well_, to others.
This is mainly about science, here, but it could be about religion too: to some, "going to heaven" or "because the Bible says so" are reason enough, but other people don't accept these things without reason.
I think it's reasonable for there to be a need for a good, clear, systematic, detailed explanation -- with stories and examples -- for why science is important.
The article seems to focus on issues of the 1970's - the exaltation of athleticism or other qualities over academic success. I think another issue is more current: the exaltation of education as job preparation over education as preparation for running our civilization.
Not everybody needs to know how to code -- there probably won't be enough jobs for that to matter to most people. However, everybody needs to know how to choose good leaders and to understand how to choose good education, judicial, and infrastructure policies, at least on a level that helps them choose leaders wisely.
posted by amtho at 3:00 PM on March 7, 2016 [21 favorites]
This is mainly about science, here, but it could be about religion too: to some, "going to heaven" or "because the Bible says so" are reason enough, but other people don't accept these things without reason.
I think it's reasonable for there to be a need for a good, clear, systematic, detailed explanation -- with stories and examples -- for why science is important.
The article seems to focus on issues of the 1970's - the exaltation of athleticism or other qualities over academic success. I think another issue is more current: the exaltation of education as job preparation over education as preparation for running our civilization.
Not everybody needs to know how to code -- there probably won't be enough jobs for that to matter to most people. However, everybody needs to know how to choose good leaders and to understand how to choose good education, judicial, and infrastructure policies, at least on a level that helps them choose leaders wisely.
posted by amtho at 3:00 PM on March 7, 2016 [21 favorites]
De-evolution. Self-execution. No solution.
I'm a potato, and I'm so hip.
posted by SansPoint at 3:01 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm a potato, and I'm so hip.
posted by SansPoint at 3:01 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I JUST WANTED A PEPSI MOM
I JUST WANTED A PEPSI
posted by Sebmojo at 3:03 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
I JUST WANTED A PEPSI
posted by Sebmojo at 3:03 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
> I don't know how the genie gets put back in the bottle.
The genie isn't going back into the bottle. Our society is a ratchet, and it only goes in the one direction. It's been going that one way since around 1980 and the trend has only accelerated; it's going to keep moving in that direction until it breaks and we get to pick up the pieces.
It's pretty disturbing how many people I know support Donald Trump on exactly that basis - the sooner we collapse and hit rock bottom, the more resources we'll have to try to recover.
I find that prospect viscerally repulsive but I have to say that I have yet to find a good intellectual argument to refute it. It's like a friend who's an alcoholic, where you keep hoping that he will dry out successfully this time, but you know in your heart he has to hit rock-bottom before he can start to really recover.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:03 PM on March 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
The genie isn't going back into the bottle. Our society is a ratchet, and it only goes in the one direction. It's been going that one way since around 1980 and the trend has only accelerated; it's going to keep moving in that direction until it breaks and we get to pick up the pieces.
It's pretty disturbing how many people I know support Donald Trump on exactly that basis - the sooner we collapse and hit rock bottom, the more resources we'll have to try to recover.
I find that prospect viscerally repulsive but I have to say that I have yet to find a good intellectual argument to refute it. It's like a friend who's an alcoholic, where you keep hoping that he will dry out successfully this time, but you know in your heart he has to hit rock-bottom before he can start to really recover.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:03 PM on March 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
this has been noted some years ago
The author cites Hofstadter, but it isn't clear that he read him.
Pre WW2, we were 1/2 farmers. (My numberin' might be off a tad.)
Before the 1920s, a good deal of my family appears to have been, at best, quasi-literate. I'm guessing they were far from alone in that among rural New Englanders.
Also, from Ray William's Psychology Today bio page:
Ray Williams is President of Ray Williams Associates, a firm based in Vancouver, providing executive coaching and professional speaking services. He is author of Eye of the Storm: How Mindful Leaders Transform Chaotic Workplaces, The Leadership Edge, Breaking Bad Habits, the novel Dragon Tamer, co-author of Systemic Change: Touchstones For the Future School, and Ready, Aim, Influence.
I can think of few more powerful forces for spreading, pervasive stupid than the inspirational business literature - so, you know, there's that, too.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:03 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
The author cites Hofstadter, but it isn't clear that he read him.
Pre WW2, we were 1/2 farmers. (My numberin' might be off a tad.)
Before the 1920s, a good deal of my family appears to have been, at best, quasi-literate. I'm guessing they were far from alone in that among rural New Englanders.
Also, from Ray William's Psychology Today bio page:
Ray Williams is President of Ray Williams Associates, a firm based in Vancouver, providing executive coaching and professional speaking services. He is author of Eye of the Storm: How Mindful Leaders Transform Chaotic Workplaces, The Leadership Edge, Breaking Bad Habits, the novel Dragon Tamer, co-author of Systemic Change: Touchstones For the Future School, and Ready, Aim, Influence.
I can think of few more powerful forces for spreading, pervasive stupid than the inspirational business literature - so, you know, there's that, too.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:03 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
I love the poorly educated!
posted by spilon at 3:08 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by spilon at 3:08 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
Our society is a ratchet,
I read this as Our society is ratchet, paused, and thought "well, yeah, that's fair."
posted by notquitemaryann at 3:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [39 favorites]
I read this as Our society is ratchet, paused, and thought "well, yeah, that's fair."
posted by notquitemaryann at 3:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [39 favorites]
I think as you start learning you get to a point where you are confronted with how little you actually know and how little you actually will learn in your lifetime. For some people they push on through that point but others retreat because ignorance can be vaguely reassuring.
When you operate exclusively on "common sense" and generational wisdom along the lines of "that's how we have always done it" combined with a god given set of morality life can be blissful in a way because you can discard anything that contradicts that world view. Unfortunately this world view becomes harder and harder to maintain unless you are zealous in defending it from external influences which is why so many people have become aggressively anti-intellectual.
posted by vuron at 3:11 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
When you operate exclusively on "common sense" and generational wisdom along the lines of "that's how we have always done it" combined with a god given set of morality life can be blissful in a way because you can discard anything that contradicts that world view. Unfortunately this world view becomes harder and harder to maintain unless you are zealous in defending it from external influences which is why so many people have become aggressively anti-intellectual.
posted by vuron at 3:11 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Poetry is nearly more popular than its ever been.
But most intellectuals refuse to engage with it.
And these days people call it 'rap'.
posted by el io at 3:12 PM on March 7, 2016 [72 favorites]
But most intellectuals refuse to engage with it.
And these days people call it 'rap'.
posted by el io at 3:12 PM on March 7, 2016 [72 favorites]
"Bukowski quote". Heh.
Speaking of intellectuals...
"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt"
- Bertrand Russell, "Christian Ethics" from "Marriage and Morals" (1950)
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
Speaking of intellectuals...
"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt"
- Bertrand Russell, "Christian Ethics" from "Marriage and Morals" (1950)
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
> I don't know how the genie gets put back in the bottle.
The genie denies the bottle's existence. There's no going back.
posted by davelog at 3:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
The genie denies the bottle's existence. There's no going back.
posted by davelog at 3:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Whereas the avant garde once defined themselves in opposition to mass culture, membership of the cultural elite is now framed by one's ability to performatively consume pop
In the Internet era, with global commerce, fast fashion, etc., what is completely avant-garde 6 months ago is mainstream today.
That and the fact that the social function of anti-mainstream snobbery has been all but erased. In the old days, having heard of The Smiths or Sonic Youth or someone while everybody else was listening to Bon Jovi or whatever served as a shibboleth of belonging in a cultural elite; it wasn't easy to fake. You had to have sources and exercise dilligence in following them, befriending the gatekeepers at independent record shops, sending out to mail-order labels for zines, and so on. And when you recognised someone else wearing a K Records badge, you knew that you had context in common.
The internet destroyed all that by reducing the amount of friction, and making it easy to jump on any bandwagon. Let's say the cool new thing is Chilean psych-rock from the late 1960s. All it takes is knowing that plus 15 minutes on YouTube and WIkipedia and you have all the shibboleths. There is no more cachet in knowing what krautrock or mutant disco is because everybody does, or can do so from their phones instantaneously. The old hierarchy, between the corporate-consumerist mainstream and the obscure underground, has been levelled.
Of course, the social function it fulfilled hasn't gone away. What filled the vacuum is no longer quasi-objective proofs of work, but instead localised secrets; in-jokes, as it were. Rather than finding out about that cool underground band/artist/scene, one has to be close enough to the action to know which well-known artists have cachet. It started about ten years ago (around the time of the Yacht Rock web-video series), when the once ubiquitous and cheesily smooth duo Hall & Oates became a hip cultural reference. Nowadays Taylor Swift fulfils some of that function (along with being a massive mainstream star).
posted by acb at 3:15 PM on March 7, 2016 [13 favorites]
In the Internet era, with global commerce, fast fashion, etc., what is completely avant-garde 6 months ago is mainstream today.
That and the fact that the social function of anti-mainstream snobbery has been all but erased. In the old days, having heard of The Smiths or Sonic Youth or someone while everybody else was listening to Bon Jovi or whatever served as a shibboleth of belonging in a cultural elite; it wasn't easy to fake. You had to have sources and exercise dilligence in following them, befriending the gatekeepers at independent record shops, sending out to mail-order labels for zines, and so on. And when you recognised someone else wearing a K Records badge, you knew that you had context in common.
The internet destroyed all that by reducing the amount of friction, and making it easy to jump on any bandwagon. Let's say the cool new thing is Chilean psych-rock from the late 1960s. All it takes is knowing that plus 15 minutes on YouTube and WIkipedia and you have all the shibboleths. There is no more cachet in knowing what krautrock or mutant disco is because everybody does, or can do so from their phones instantaneously. The old hierarchy, between the corporate-consumerist mainstream and the obscure underground, has been levelled.
Of course, the social function it fulfilled hasn't gone away. What filled the vacuum is no longer quasi-objective proofs of work, but instead localised secrets; in-jokes, as it were. Rather than finding out about that cool underground band/artist/scene, one has to be close enough to the action to know which well-known artists have cachet. It started about ten years ago (around the time of the Yacht Rock web-video series), when the once ubiquitous and cheesily smooth duo Hall & Oates became a hip cultural reference. Nowadays Taylor Swift fulfils some of that function (along with being a massive mainstream star).
posted by acb at 3:15 PM on March 7, 2016 [13 favorites]
I'd be interested in a good discussion about anti-intellectualism or an informative overview of our nation's history with it, but the linked article doesn't strike me as anything more than a cranky blog post. That might be because I immediately distrust anybody who uses "Kardashian" as a shorthand for irrelevancy; taking pot shots at women in pop culture is a terrible way to bolster your argument. Use your words.
posted by redsparkler at 3:15 PM on March 7, 2016 [43 favorites]
posted by redsparkler at 3:15 PM on March 7, 2016 [43 favorites]
The internet compounded the problem considerably. There are countless places to get news on the internet. There aren't limited options. People are in complete control of what they click and where they get their news. Not too surprisingly, people choose what they want, not what they need. "Senator Cindy Smith Releases Tax Plan." "Senator Cindy Smith Says Opponent Has Small Penis." Guess which one gets more clicks? Guess which kind of story is going to be emphasized for that reason?
The internet is not the problem. When there are daily protests over the police shooting of a black kid in a racially polarized city, you sure as hell aren't going to find all-night live coverage on CNN. The internet is easily the best source of news for people who are interested in news.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:19 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
The internet is not the problem. When there are daily protests over the police shooting of a black kid in a racially polarized city, you sure as hell aren't going to find all-night live coverage on CNN. The internet is easily the best source of news for people who are interested in news.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:19 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
The internet destroyed all that by reducing the amount of friction, and making it easy to jump on any bandwagon. Let's say the cool new thing is Chilean psych-rock from the late 1960s. All it takes is knowing that plus 15 minutes on YouTube and WIkipedia and you have all the shibboleths. There is no more cachet in knowing what krautrock or mutant disco is because everybody does, or can do so from their phones instantaneously. The old hierarchy, between the corporate-consumerist mainstream and the obscure underground, has been levelled.
This is a good point, but the 15 year old me that gazed up in wonder at a $50 Silver Apples LP that he'd never be able to hear - much less own - on a record store wall in 1987 would have done horrible things to have access to the effortless plenty of YouTube.
I miss the underground (which for me felt qualitatively different than the smug, ironic preening of the Yacht Rock thing, whatever it is), but I'm not entirely convinced that its demise and the ready access to huge slabs of previously nearly unobtainable cultural artifacts isn't a net positive.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:22 PM on March 7, 2016 [18 favorites]
This is a good point, but the 15 year old me that gazed up in wonder at a $50 Silver Apples LP that he'd never be able to hear - much less own - on a record store wall in 1987 would have done horrible things to have access to the effortless plenty of YouTube.
I miss the underground (which for me felt qualitatively different than the smug, ironic preening of the Yacht Rock thing, whatever it is), but I'm not entirely convinced that its demise and the ready access to huge slabs of previously nearly unobtainable cultural artifacts isn't a net positive.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:22 PM on March 7, 2016 [18 favorites]
If liking Jackass is wrong, I don't want to be right.
posted by delfin at 3:22 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by delfin at 3:22 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
you sure as hell aren't going to find all-night live coverage on CNN. The internet is easily the best source of news for people who are interested in news.
No kidding. When Ferguson was blowing up and when the Oregon thingy was winding down, I had like 18 tabs open with live streams and twitter and one of them was, you guessed it, metafilter. It beat anything cnn or fox or msnbc or any of those old school folks had going.
posted by valkane at 3:25 PM on March 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
No kidding. When Ferguson was blowing up and when the Oregon thingy was winding down, I had like 18 tabs open with live streams and twitter and one of them was, you guessed it, metafilter. It beat anything cnn or fox or msnbc or any of those old school folks had going.
posted by valkane at 3:25 PM on March 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
Pre WW2, we were 1/2 farmers. (My numberin' might be off a tad.)
my grandparents were a couple of those farmers - they were also college graduates in a time (1920s) where a college education actually represented real knowledge - (not to mention that running a successful farm required much knowledge too)
all 9 (!) of their kids went to college; only two of them failed to get a degree, and quite a few went on to graduate studies
don't blame farmers for that cult of ignorance
posted by pyramid termite at 3:28 PM on March 7, 2016 [13 favorites]
my grandparents were a couple of those farmers - they were also college graduates in a time (1920s) where a college education actually represented real knowledge - (not to mention that running a successful farm required much knowledge too)
all 9 (!) of their kids went to college; only two of them failed to get a degree, and quite a few went on to graduate studies
don't blame farmers for that cult of ignorance
posted by pyramid termite at 3:28 PM on March 7, 2016 [13 favorites]
In the new media age, everybody is an expert.
Indeed. One might, for example, blindly refer to a debunked study without bothering to actually cite it or look it up.
It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility
Uh huh.
posted by Candleman at 3:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [14 favorites]
Indeed. One might, for example, blindly refer to a debunked study without bothering to actually cite it or look it up.
It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility
Uh huh.
posted by Candleman at 3:35 PM on March 7, 2016 [14 favorites]
I thought the way to counter the 'we have to hit rock bottom - then they'll listen to us and we can rebuild!' line of argument was to point out that there's already been eight years of Bush Jr. and that certainly didn't work then.
Those still clinging to the argument are nearly always those least affected by this collapse they're trying to hasten: employed straight white men. It just makes them sound like Republicans talking about trickle-down economics; sure, it's never worked before ever, but if we just do it more and more and more, eventually it has to...
posted by gadge emeritus at 3:39 PM on March 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
Those still clinging to the argument are nearly always those least affected by this collapse they're trying to hasten: employed straight white men. It just makes them sound like Republicans talking about trickle-down economics; sure, it's never worked before ever, but if we just do it more and more and more, eventually it has to...
posted by gadge emeritus at 3:39 PM on March 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
don't blame farmers for that cult of ignorance
I'd say farmers and rural culture are definitely a big part of the problem with anti-intellectualism. But there are other components to it, especially economic ones. Your family's case is a very rare one. My own family background is that of fruit tramps, otherwise known as the Grapes of Wrath.
Hats off to your grandparents!
posted by uraniumwilly at 3:39 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'd say farmers and rural culture are definitely a big part of the problem with anti-intellectualism. But there are other components to it, especially economic ones. Your family's case is a very rare one. My own family background is that of fruit tramps, otherwise known as the Grapes of Wrath.
Hats off to your grandparents!
posted by uraniumwilly at 3:39 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture.
Which Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about. In 1835.
Beyond the eradication of old-world aristocracy, ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence, and these natural elites could not enjoy much share in political power as a result. Ordinary Americans enjoyed too much power, claimed too great a voice in the public sphere, to defer to intellectual superiors. This culture promoted a relatively pronounced equality, Tocqueville argued, but the same mores and opinions that ensured such equality also promoted mediocrity. Those who possessed true virtue and talent were left with limited choices.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:46 PM on March 7, 2016 [27 favorites]
Which Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about. In 1835.
Beyond the eradication of old-world aristocracy, ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence, and these natural elites could not enjoy much share in political power as a result. Ordinary Americans enjoyed too much power, claimed too great a voice in the public sphere, to defer to intellectual superiors. This culture promoted a relatively pronounced equality, Tocqueville argued, but the same mores and opinions that ensured such equality also promoted mediocrity. Those who possessed true virtue and talent were left with limited choices.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:46 PM on March 7, 2016 [27 favorites]
Prezident Cammacho gunna make it alrite u see
posted by 4ster at 3:48 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by 4ster at 3:48 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
I notice that the bullet point on schoolchildren not knowing Washington was the first president doesn't say what grade they were.
posted by ckape at 3:51 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ckape at 3:51 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Certainly not sushi-grade.
posted by Chitownfats at 3:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by Chitownfats at 3:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [18 favorites]
In the Internet era, with global commerce, fast fashion, etc., what is completely avant-garde 6 months ago is mainstream today.
This is one of those things that’s said on the internet that doesn’t seem to have any resemblance to the real world, like saying it makes it so. I am of the opinion that younger people just don’t understand how quickly fads and fashion changed in the last century, and how little they’ve changed in the last 20 years. Of course if you grew up with that that’s your frame of reference.
I’ve said all this before, and it’s hard to separate personal experience from wider trends of course. Parents and their kids listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and even dress the same in a lot of cases. That was unimaginable to me even 30 years ago. It’s hard to watch or listen to something from the last 15-20 years and pinpoint the year it was made without using the phones or computers as a reference. That can’t be said about any other time in the 1900’s.
There are micro trends today, but there always were, they just weren’t documented as well.
Most people can see a movie, hear a song, or even see a fashion picture from the last century and pinpoint it to within a 3-5 years period pretty easily. I don’t know that that’s been possible for a while. I played someone a song the other day and they thought it was new. It was a quarter of a century old.
posted by bongo_x at 3:58 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
This is one of those things that’s said on the internet that doesn’t seem to have any resemblance to the real world, like saying it makes it so. I am of the opinion that younger people just don’t understand how quickly fads and fashion changed in the last century, and how little they’ve changed in the last 20 years. Of course if you grew up with that that’s your frame of reference.
I’ve said all this before, and it’s hard to separate personal experience from wider trends of course. Parents and their kids listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and even dress the same in a lot of cases. That was unimaginable to me even 30 years ago. It’s hard to watch or listen to something from the last 15-20 years and pinpoint the year it was made without using the phones or computers as a reference. That can’t be said about any other time in the 1900’s.
There are micro trends today, but there always were, they just weren’t documented as well.
Most people can see a movie, hear a song, or even see a fashion picture from the last century and pinpoint it to within a 3-5 years period pretty easily. I don’t know that that’s been possible for a while. I played someone a song the other day and they thought it was new. It was a quarter of a century old.
posted by bongo_x at 3:58 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
There is no more cachet in knowing what krautrock or mutant disco is
You leave Dazzler out of this!!!
Seriously, though, there's a certain, shall we say, irony in the failure of a person complaining about the ignorance of our society to be familiar with classic (or at least well-known) texts raising the issue in prior centuries. The half-educated are always the most snobbish.
posted by praemunire at 4:13 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
You leave Dazzler out of this!!!
Seriously, though, there's a certain, shall we say, irony in the failure of a person complaining about the ignorance of our society to be familiar with classic (or at least well-known) texts raising the issue in prior centuries. The half-educated are always the most snobbish.
posted by praemunire at 4:13 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Surely I can't be the only person who looks at the kids on tumblr and recognizes how they're vastly more politically and socially informed (i.e. "woke") than I was at that age?
posted by modernserf at 4:18 PM on March 7, 2016 [56 favorites]
posted by modernserf at 4:18 PM on March 7, 2016 [56 favorites]
That article was of the old man yells at clouds type.
posted by jpe at 4:23 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by jpe at 4:23 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
It also should enlighten us in which phase gullibility establishes the appropriate abbreviated attire.
posted by clavdivs at 4:30 PM on March 7, 2016
posted by clavdivs at 4:30 PM on March 7, 2016
infini: Paul Fussell's Class approaches this sideways
Actually, Paul Fussell's Bad takes this head-on.
posted by dr_dank at 4:34 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Actually, Paul Fussell's Bad takes this head-on.
posted by dr_dank at 4:34 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as related to class. My family has been cleaning out my great-aunt's house in the wake of her death last July, and I ended up with a copy of Post Office that my dad must have left there when he lived with her in the '80s.
On the one hand, Bukowski had some seriously problematic beliefs, particularly about women. On the other, the book was a pretty self-aware account of what it felt like to be a smart working-class guy with few opportunities. My dad identified as working class, and at the time there didn't seem to be a huge contradiction between coming from a blue-collar background and being well read, keeping a journal, or going to college (even if it was a state school). A lot of my dad's heroes (Auster, Bukowski, Springsteen) were similarly bright and inquisitive, and none of them looked upon their intelligence and curiosity with anything resembling shame.
When I look at the media marketed towards working-class people, I wonder what my dad would think of what the world has become. There don't seem to be as many outlets for people of limited means who have that curiosity and self-awareness, and what we do see of the working classes in the media tends to other them as backwoods yokels who are too easily distracted. There don't seem to be as many people representing the working class as wanting to better themselves.
Obviously, my dad and his peers had to seek out the work they thought represented them, and they had access to education that doesn't exist in the same way today. (I've also seen people of my dad's cohort beam with pride at their poor vocabulary and lack of intelligence, and this article points to that problem.) I know there's been a shift, but what caused it, and can it be reversed?
posted by pxe2000 at 4:36 PM on March 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
On the one hand, Bukowski had some seriously problematic beliefs, particularly about women. On the other, the book was a pretty self-aware account of what it felt like to be a smart working-class guy with few opportunities. My dad identified as working class, and at the time there didn't seem to be a huge contradiction between coming from a blue-collar background and being well read, keeping a journal, or going to college (even if it was a state school). A lot of my dad's heroes (Auster, Bukowski, Springsteen) were similarly bright and inquisitive, and none of them looked upon their intelligence and curiosity with anything resembling shame.
When I look at the media marketed towards working-class people, I wonder what my dad would think of what the world has become. There don't seem to be as many outlets for people of limited means who have that curiosity and self-awareness, and what we do see of the working classes in the media tends to other them as backwoods yokels who are too easily distracted. There don't seem to be as many people representing the working class as wanting to better themselves.
Obviously, my dad and his peers had to seek out the work they thought represented them, and they had access to education that doesn't exist in the same way today. (I've also seen people of my dad's cohort beam with pride at their poor vocabulary and lack of intelligence, and this article points to that problem.) I know there's been a shift, but what caused it, and can it be reversed?
posted by pxe2000 at 4:36 PM on March 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
How on earth is the phrase 'anti-intellectual elitism' even possible?
posted by sapagan at 4:52 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sapagan at 4:52 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
It seems near-impossible to accurately evaluate the worth of the culture you're a part of, or predict how it will be viewed down the road once the future reveals itself.
posted by sallybrown at 4:54 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 4:54 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Whereas the avant garde once defined themselves in opposition to mass culture, membership of the cultural elite is now framed by one's ability to performatively consume pop.
I think I found a new tagline for FanFare!
posted by sylvanshine at 4:57 PM on March 7, 2016 [16 favorites]
I think I found a new tagline for FanFare!
posted by sylvanshine at 4:57 PM on March 7, 2016 [16 favorites]
Surely I can't be the only person who looks at the kids on tumblr and recognizes how they're vastly more politically and socially informed (i.e. "woke") than I was at that age?They're also, for better or worse, unlikely to ever reach any serious level of political power unless they are very rich.
Without an extensive, expensive PR machine, the vast majority of them are pretty much unelectable courtesy of their Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, etc. accounts. Every youthful indiscretion is documented therein. Nice and easy for muckraking.
Now of course that problem can go away with enough money or if you're willing to prostitute yourself to industry. But that means that you're pretty much not going to get any anti-establishment candidates...
And lest you think "oh, but their generation won't care about ____". Of course they will. Sure, they all do ______... but that doesn't mean that they won't use exposure of someone's private life as an opportunity to hop onto a high horse and excoriate one of their peers for doing the same thing. Case in point: would you elect a candidate who's cheated on their taxes? Probably not. Did you pay sales tax on every internet purchase this year? Probably not. How many ex-hippies shook their heads and voted against a candidate who admitted he inhaled because "that was the point"?
So yeah, they may be politically clued in, but I don't think that'll translate to much once they grow up. But then again, I'm a grumpy old man so what do I know? :)
posted by -1 at 4:59 PM on March 7, 2016
I'm a macro populist and a micro snob. These are unreconcilable but la la la la.
posted by echocollate at 5:00 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by echocollate at 5:00 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
There don't seem to be as many outlets for people of limited means who have that curiosity and self-awareness,
There's the entire Internet. From a purely technical point of view it has never been so easy for people to educate themselves. As a kid, I would've killed for the possibilities of plundering the riches of Western culture from my own bedroom that are available to all but the very poor now.
When I look at the media marketed towards working-class people
You should probably keep in mind that unless you have made archaeological expeditions of your own, you are unlikely to have actually seen much of the media marketed towards working-class people in prior generations, precisely because so much of it was unsophisticated and disposable. You're comparing what an ambitious and intelligent man selected for himself against the whole modern range.
posted by praemunire at 5:02 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
There's the entire Internet. From a purely technical point of view it has never been so easy for people to educate themselves. As a kid, I would've killed for the possibilities of plundering the riches of Western culture from my own bedroom that are available to all but the very poor now.
When I look at the media marketed towards working-class people
You should probably keep in mind that unless you have made archaeological expeditions of your own, you are unlikely to have actually seen much of the media marketed towards working-class people in prior generations, precisely because so much of it was unsophisticated and disposable. You're comparing what an ambitious and intelligent man selected for himself against the whole modern range.
posted by praemunire at 5:02 PM on March 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
How on earth is the phrase 'anti-intellectual elitism' even possible?
Anti intellectualism has been a marker of power in at least a couple of aristocracies (plutocracies, etc). If you're an owner, you don't have to be competent: competent people do your will for scraps from your table. Insouciance is a kind of conspicuous consumption.
posted by clew at 5:07 PM on March 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
Anti intellectualism has been a marker of power in at least a couple of aristocracies (plutocracies, etc). If you're an owner, you don't have to be competent: competent people do your will for scraps from your table. Insouciance is a kind of conspicuous consumption.
posted by clew at 5:07 PM on March 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
Re: Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind (mentioned by Pope Guilty), my favorite part was where he warns of the evils of rhythm-dominant music versus the Apollonian goodness of classical music. What a putz.
posted by Lyme Drop at 5:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 5:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
would you elect a candidate who's cheated on their taxes?
I'd bet real money that whether or not I know it I already have. And fwiw 20 bucks more that Trump is "aggressive" in his approach to taxes.
posted by Lyme Drop at 5:12 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd bet real money that whether or not I know it I already have. And fwiw 20 bucks more that Trump is "aggressive" in his approach to taxes.
posted by Lyme Drop at 5:12 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Growing??? we 'elected' W 16 yrs ago because Gore was too smart.
The problem is that news is no longer journalism, it's no longer the 4th estate, it's just part of the for-profit entertainment industry that takes the easiest path to riches by dumbing things down and pandering to idiots to get ratings.
We get what we deserve so long as we never hold the so-called news outlets accountable.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:13 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
The problem is that news is no longer journalism, it's no longer the 4th estate, it's just part of the for-profit entertainment industry that takes the easiest path to riches by dumbing things down and pandering to idiots to get ratings.
We get what we deserve so long as we never hold the so-called news outlets accountable.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:13 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
This hits on a few of my political pet peeves:
1. Ignorance and Misinformation are two different things. Misinformation is a serious policy issue because once a belief is solidified, it's extremely difficult to undo.
2. With information so plentiful, intelligence is not defined by memory recollection. Most people are too lazy to remember their Congressman during a moment when they are donating their precious free time for someone's poll. But they can recognize it from a list. This doesn't actually correlate into poor citizenry.
3. It's appallingly elitist to think that an uneducated person has less value to add to the ballot box. America would have been better off with the experiences of uneducated women, minorities, non-land owners being heard from the beginning. Someone who has the luxury and privilege to think deeply about the policy implications of legislation is probably better suited to actually crafting the legislation. But my education has bought me an amount of privilege that makes me discount the experience of those that need the voice of the ballot box more than me. I can try to be aware of that privilege, but it would be stupid to believe that I'm somehow immune to the effects of psychology.
posted by politikitty at 5:34 PM on March 7, 2016 [16 favorites]
1. Ignorance and Misinformation are two different things. Misinformation is a serious policy issue because once a belief is solidified, it's extremely difficult to undo.
2. With information so plentiful, intelligence is not defined by memory recollection. Most people are too lazy to remember their Congressman during a moment when they are donating their precious free time for someone's poll. But they can recognize it from a list. This doesn't actually correlate into poor citizenry.
3. It's appallingly elitist to think that an uneducated person has less value to add to the ballot box. America would have been better off with the experiences of uneducated women, minorities, non-land owners being heard from the beginning. Someone who has the luxury and privilege to think deeply about the policy implications of legislation is probably better suited to actually crafting the legislation. But my education has bought me an amount of privilege that makes me discount the experience of those that need the voice of the ballot box more than me. I can try to be aware of that privilege, but it would be stupid to believe that I'm somehow immune to the effects of psychology.
posted by politikitty at 5:34 PM on March 7, 2016 [16 favorites]
Without an extensive, expensive PR machine, the vast majority of them are pretty much unelectable courtesy of their Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, etc. accounts. Every youthful indiscretion is documented therein.
There *are* people who don't commit indiscretions. I'm not saying this should be an absolute prerequisite for election, but it's not a _terrible_ quality to have.
posted by amtho at 5:40 PM on March 7, 2016
There *are* people who don't commit indiscretions. I'm not saying this should be an absolute prerequisite for election, but it's not a _terrible_ quality to have.
posted by amtho at 5:40 PM on March 7, 2016
well, when I saw that the source was Psychology Today, my expectations were that it was going to be a really dumbass article. I was right.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:42 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by bluesky43 at 5:42 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
In re mutant disco, krautrock, etc: sure, everyone can read the definition and listen to a song, but most people don't. Trust me, if you're into something enough to build up any kind of depth of knowledge about it and you can talk about it in an interesting manner, people will be intrigued. They just won't be as intimidated as when there was more of a monopoly on mere fact.
The trouble with this kind of article is that it steers away from the questions it seems like it ought to pose:
What does being an informed citizen mean? Does it make a difference? If I believe in $15/hour really ardently and work to elect politicians to push that policy through, am I more effective than someone who sits around and reads the Atlantic and votes very carefully for local initiatives? Or not?
What is the difference between reading extended work and lots of short stuff? Does it matter that I don't have the concentration that I used to, given that I also know a lot more facts and history about a lot more stuff? Is a lot of shallow understanding as good as a little deeper understanding? Good for what?
What's the downside of revering teachers and intellectualism? What's the upside of distrusting so-called expertise? It does not seem to me that Japan is the very model of the earthly paradise - no offense, not that it's any worse than the US - so it seems like merely paying teachers well and taking school seriously doesn't fix things.
What, for that matter, do we even mean by "intellectual"?
The trouble with this type of article is that it always has this curdled quality to it, all this ressentiment. This mess of confusing being popular with being stupid, and being smart with being an intellectual, and both with being responsible. You needed be especially clever to be a decent person with solid political views; it's not rocket science. Lots of clever people are pretty horrible. Phillip Larkin was very smart, and he was awful.
In terms of working class stuff: I found The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes very interesting. The guy has a huge axe to grind about feminism and I assume there's some giant critique of his work anyway, but on a pure "here is some factual information about working class self-education stuff" level, it seems pretty good to me. Sort of a contradiction both to the "working class culture was shoddy and ephemeral" and the Bukowski business - it seems like a lot of people worked very hard to produce various kinds of working class cultural and educational opportunities.
posted by Frowner at 6:16 PM on March 7, 2016 [17 favorites]
The trouble with this kind of article is that it steers away from the questions it seems like it ought to pose:
What does being an informed citizen mean? Does it make a difference? If I believe in $15/hour really ardently and work to elect politicians to push that policy through, am I more effective than someone who sits around and reads the Atlantic and votes very carefully for local initiatives? Or not?
What is the difference between reading extended work and lots of short stuff? Does it matter that I don't have the concentration that I used to, given that I also know a lot more facts and history about a lot more stuff? Is a lot of shallow understanding as good as a little deeper understanding? Good for what?
What's the downside of revering teachers and intellectualism? What's the upside of distrusting so-called expertise? It does not seem to me that Japan is the very model of the earthly paradise - no offense, not that it's any worse than the US - so it seems like merely paying teachers well and taking school seriously doesn't fix things.
What, for that matter, do we even mean by "intellectual"?
The trouble with this type of article is that it always has this curdled quality to it, all this ressentiment. This mess of confusing being popular with being stupid, and being smart with being an intellectual, and both with being responsible. You needed be especially clever to be a decent person with solid political views; it's not rocket science. Lots of clever people are pretty horrible. Phillip Larkin was very smart, and he was awful.
In terms of working class stuff: I found The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes very interesting. The guy has a huge axe to grind about feminism and I assume there's some giant critique of his work anyway, but on a pure "here is some factual information about working class self-education stuff" level, it seems pretty good to me. Sort of a contradiction both to the "working class culture was shoddy and ephemeral" and the Bukowski business - it seems like a lot of people worked very hard to produce various kinds of working class cultural and educational opportunities.
posted by Frowner at 6:16 PM on March 7, 2016 [17 favorites]
That article seems to me to be conflating a lot of very different problems and phenomena.
Boy is it ever. Lots of people have already observed this but ironically this article makes it's point better as an example than in the arguments it's trying to make.
For a site crying out against the cult of ignorance, it seems odd to have this article as its bedfellow.
I don't know what sott.net is but it's some kind of aggregator. This one seems to be grabbed from Psychology Today which is itself... a bit uneven shall we say.
posted by atoxyl at 6:27 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Boy is it ever. Lots of people have already observed this but ironically this article makes it's point better as an example than in the arguments it's trying to make.
For a site crying out against the cult of ignorance, it seems odd to have this article as its bedfellow.
I don't know what sott.net is but it's some kind of aggregator. This one seems to be grabbed from Psychology Today which is itself... a bit uneven shall we say.
posted by atoxyl at 6:27 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's a bit hard to imagine, but maybe at some point people will stop caring about who you fucked or that you committed a misdemeanor when you were young (or ever, actually, unless it's in office and affects your ability to do the job).
When I think of ignorance, I think of someone asking, say, a presidential candidate about, say, "god" at a debate when whatever they believe has nothing to do with the job and actively keeps the rest of us from learning about actually substantive reasons to vote for or against them. Or people blindly voting or supporting (or fighting) an issue based on soundbites. Or dismissing an endeavor or enthusiasm out-of-hand, based on assumptions or prejudice. Or
"that's just the way things are..."
"we've always done it that way..."
"everyone knows..."
"those people..."
"traditionally, ..."
posted by maxwelton at 6:36 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
When I think of ignorance, I think of someone asking, say, a presidential candidate about, say, "god" at a debate when whatever they believe has nothing to do with the job and actively keeps the rest of us from learning about actually substantive reasons to vote for or against them. Or people blindly voting or supporting (or fighting) an issue based on soundbites. Or dismissing an endeavor or enthusiasm out-of-hand, based on assumptions or prejudice. Or
"that's just the way things are..."
"we've always done it that way..."
"everyone knows..."
"those people..."
"traditionally, ..."
posted by maxwelton at 6:36 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
The big problem with this kind of thinking is that it acts like intelligence is one metric, or that things that count as "intelligence" are the only things one can contribute to a vote or society. Further, it's really demeaning to people who are born mentally handicapped or even just slightly below average, and acts like their very being is a moral failing.
There are a lot of smart people who compartmentalize to hell and make certain decisions, including voting, purely on emotional biases. In the worst cases, they'll then rationalize those decisions as correct because they, a smart person, wouldn't make a dumb choice.
See the cases of engineers who find an area of science or philosophy completely askew to their work, and convince themselves they disproved the whole thing in an afternoon of casual study.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:44 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
There are a lot of smart people who compartmentalize to hell and make certain decisions, including voting, purely on emotional biases. In the worst cases, they'll then rationalize those decisions as correct because they, a smart person, wouldn't make a dumb choice.
See the cases of engineers who find an area of science or philosophy completely askew to their work, and convince themselves they disproved the whole thing in an afternoon of casual study.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:44 PM on March 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
This whole thing stinks of "PC millennials = anti-intellectual". Did The Atlantic run a new article about how colleges are making kids soft because a few people protested some right-wingers speaking engagement?
posted by gucci mane at 6:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gucci mane at 6:55 PM on March 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ahh here we go, at the bottom, a comment from someone:
"We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like "critical thinking," "diversity," "ways of knowing," "social justice," and "cultural competence."
The Internet and college courses giving women and POC and queer people more visibility ("diversity") is anti-intellectual to these people. It's fucking disgusting. This entire article stinks of low-key dog whistling about this shit.
posted by gucci mane at 6:59 PM on March 7, 2016 [19 favorites]
"We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like "critical thinking," "diversity," "ways of knowing," "social justice," and "cultural competence."
The Internet and college courses giving women and POC and queer people more visibility ("diversity") is anti-intellectual to these people. It's fucking disgusting. This entire article stinks of low-key dog whistling about this shit.
posted by gucci mane at 6:59 PM on March 7, 2016 [19 favorites]
In American schools, the culture exalts the athlete and good-looking cheerleader. Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs," "dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the more popular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect.
This reads like somebody stole their understanding of youth culture from 1980s John Hughes movies. Dweebs? That word was completely out of use when I was in high school over 10 years ago. Geeks have become socially accepted. Computer programming is cool and means you're on your way to being rich. They don't even mention gamers, probably the biggest revolution in youth culture since I left it. Being a gamer is very popular and very accepted, as is having nerdy/weird hobbies.
They seemed so sure of themselves that I double-checked with my teenage sister just to make sure. Given that they couldn't be bothered to understand even the basics of the culture they're critiquing, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is actually a hilarious example of the ignorance they're pillorying. I'm surprised people haven't already torn this article to shreds.
posted by zug at 7:00 PM on March 7, 2016 [24 favorites]
This reads like somebody stole their understanding of youth culture from 1980s John Hughes movies. Dweebs? That word was completely out of use when I was in high school over 10 years ago. Geeks have become socially accepted. Computer programming is cool and means you're on your way to being rich. They don't even mention gamers, probably the biggest revolution in youth culture since I left it. Being a gamer is very popular and very accepted, as is having nerdy/weird hobbies.
They seemed so sure of themselves that I double-checked with my teenage sister just to make sure. Given that they couldn't be bothered to understand even the basics of the culture they're critiquing, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is actually a hilarious example of the ignorance they're pillorying. I'm surprised people haven't already torn this article to shreds.
posted by zug at 7:00 PM on March 7, 2016 [24 favorites]
Perhaps the best thing is for intellectuals to accept their minority status, and make themselves into a coherent community.
posted by No Robots at 7:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 7:14 PM on March 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I find that prospect viscerally repulsive but I have to say that I have yet to find a good intellectual argument to refute it.
Because hitting rock bottom is a fucking myth perpetuated by people who don't want to do actual work. The sooner you address an addiction the easier it is to stop. This is not folklore or tautology but proven fact. It's the same fucking bullshit this whole entire topic is about and right here, people who want to know better can't help but be seduced by opinions over fact!
posted by Talez at 7:18 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Because hitting rock bottom is a fucking myth perpetuated by people who don't want to do actual work. The sooner you address an addiction the easier it is to stop. This is not folklore or tautology but proven fact. It's the same fucking bullshit this whole entire topic is about and right here, people who want to know better can't help but be seduced by opinions over fact!
posted by Talez at 7:18 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
From a purely technical point of view it has never been so easy for people to educate themselves.
That is, assuming that they own a computer.
And also assuming they've been taught how to assess information so they can distinguish "useful web page" from "bullshit loonybird web page".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:26 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
That is, assuming that they own a computer.
And also assuming they've been taught how to assess information so they can distinguish "useful web page" from "bullshit loonybird web page".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:26 PM on March 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
"would you elect a candidate who's cheated on their hand?"
posted by Oyéah at 7:30 PM on March 7, 2016
posted by Oyéah at 7:30 PM on March 7, 2016
I'd be more convinced if this weren't so intellectually lazy, to say nothing of the oozing contempt and condescension. I mean, they're using cultural products as some kind of measure of overall intelligence, which is just absurd and offensive. I mean, gasp, respect for athletes! Gossip about celebrities! Heaven knows no civilization in history has ever been into that sort of thing.
The stats on education would be useful if they were at all compiled in a useful way, but some of the more shocking ones are curiously free of citations.
So I looked up a couple of the more shocking ones. That Gallup poll about the Earth revolving around the Sun? It looks like Americans' responses were comparable to European and Chinese responses on similar (but older) polls - but we'll assume they just forgot the link. Oh, it looks like Fivethirtyeight wrote about that study that said a bunch of kids didn't know who George Washington was: Are Oklahoma Students Really This Dumb? Or Is Strategic Vision Really This Stupid?
And why the hell did they throw in that statistic on Republican senators along with a bunch of education stats? Just right in the middle there?
(Also, while 42% of American believe God created humans, there's actually an increase in the percentage of people who believe in Evolution, or that God wasn't directly involved - which sort of goes against the trend they're describing, but shoot, we'll give them that one because at least it's technically not wrong.)
OK, but that's not my point. My point is that what they do with this - what they choose to do - is to dehumanize the people they're talking about. Why all the talk about pop culture? Why the labeling of people as without "obligations or devotions?" Why all the talk about education, if the problem is that some people can shout louder than others?
There are real problems with education in this country, and there's corporate influence on our everyday lives - but that's not what this is about. I can't see a conclusion that isn't elitist, exclusionary, and most of all deeply hateful for a general public they know nothing about and clearly have no interest in knowing beyond gross stereotypes and prejudices: at least we're not one of them.
posted by teponaztli at 7:38 PM on March 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
The stats on education would be useful if they were at all compiled in a useful way, but some of the more shocking ones are curiously free of citations.
So I looked up a couple of the more shocking ones. That Gallup poll about the Earth revolving around the Sun? It looks like Americans' responses were comparable to European and Chinese responses on similar (but older) polls - but we'll assume they just forgot the link. Oh, it looks like Fivethirtyeight wrote about that study that said a bunch of kids didn't know who George Washington was: Are Oklahoma Students Really This Dumb? Or Is Strategic Vision Really This Stupid?
And why the hell did they throw in that statistic on Republican senators along with a bunch of education stats? Just right in the middle there?
(Also, while 42% of American believe God created humans, there's actually an increase in the percentage of people who believe in Evolution, or that God wasn't directly involved - which sort of goes against the trend they're describing, but shoot, we'll give them that one because at least it's technically not wrong.)
OK, but that's not my point. My point is that what they do with this - what they choose to do - is to dehumanize the people they're talking about. Why all the talk about pop culture? Why the labeling of people as without "obligations or devotions?" Why all the talk about education, if the problem is that some people can shout louder than others?
There are real problems with education in this country, and there's corporate influence on our everyday lives - but that's not what this is about. I can't see a conclusion that isn't elitist, exclusionary, and most of all deeply hateful for a general public they know nothing about and clearly have no interest in knowing beyond gross stereotypes and prejudices: at least we're not one of them.
posted by teponaztli at 7:38 PM on March 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
This reads like somebody stole their understanding of youth culture from 1980s John Hughes movies. Dweebs?
The whole article kind of reads like it’s 25 years old, not that I don’t think there are some truths in there. But when I think of young people today I think they are very…well behaved I guess? I haven’t really been able to put a name to my impression, not without it sounding bad and I’m not sure that it is a bad thing. It is sometimes disconcerting though.
posted by bongo_x at 8:05 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
The whole article kind of reads like it’s 25 years old, not that I don’t think there are some truths in there. But when I think of young people today I think they are very…well behaved I guess? I haven’t really been able to put a name to my impression, not without it sounding bad and I’m not sure that it is a bad thing. It is sometimes disconcerting though.
posted by bongo_x at 8:05 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
That people today are, in general, the most intellectually informed and aware than any time in human history should illustrate just how bad things were not even that long ago.
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:10 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:10 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is a badly written, poorly thought-out article from a publication whose front page features an article supporting Assad's regime in Syria and a section called "Puppet Masters" which seems pretty interested in the problem of "Jewish Power" -- oh, and would you like some anti-vax with that?
Yeah, no, I'll get my fretting about the state of American intellectualism elsewhere.
posted by escabeche at 8:11 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
Yeah, no, I'll get my fretting about the state of American intellectualism elsewhere.
posted by escabeche at 8:11 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 8:29 PM on March 7, 2016
Bogus. Smart is in. Jocks are quickly losing their cool points if they're not "out" already, while in middle schools and high schools across America it's the techy kids and the 'dweebs' who are the ones that are cool. Setting yourself up to succeed in the quickly sunsetting Silicon Valley is what the kids in the know are doing. Even as Silicon Valley's importance wanes and this tech bubble begins to pop, the kids idolizing the crafty tech entrepreneur will be well positioned to make the world a better place than the one they entered. Irony is all but dead in terms of what's en vogue. Sincerity is in. The future is bright.
I concur with the previous sentiments that this is is a recurring cry from those of each past generation who have become disconnected from reality and want the kids to get off their lawn. The generations growing up now will be the smartest and most driven we've seen yet.
posted by auggy at 8:36 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
I concur with the previous sentiments that this is is a recurring cry from those of each past generation who have become disconnected from reality and want the kids to get off their lawn. The generations growing up now will be the smartest and most driven we've seen yet.
posted by auggy at 8:36 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
Which Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about. In 1835.
On Wikipedia, no less! He really was ahead of his time.
posted by RogerB at 8:47 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
On Wikipedia, no less! He really was ahead of his time.
posted by RogerB at 8:47 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Hip hop ain't poetry? And has cinema ever been more diverse or the technical resources for making refined art for a global market more widespread or less expensive?
I'm with the cynical view. Every single generation believes the next one is getting dumber and that probably is as old as human culture. We didn't start from some collective high point long ago and slowly descend to gesunkenes kulturgut vestigiality. "Western civilization" so beloved of conservatives never really existed except in a few privileged enclaves dependent on slavery and genocide for their wealth. Poor people always made better art than rich people anyway in the sense of having something to actually say when they diverted productive labor toward making it. The avant-garde is a fancy name for white male privilege. And high art still occupies a hegemonic place in socially and publicly subsidized institutions, to wit the persistent domination of American school music curricula by European classical music idioms that were radical or fresh when the transcontinental railroad was being laid.
I buy some of the dumbing down stuff, but always wonder: from what? When was the US at least ever an enlightenment utopia except for its most privileged class and race and gender?
Alternative hypothesis: decline of the coherence or relevance of the nation state.
posted by spitbull at 8:58 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
I'm with the cynical view. Every single generation believes the next one is getting dumber and that probably is as old as human culture. We didn't start from some collective high point long ago and slowly descend to gesunkenes kulturgut vestigiality. "Western civilization" so beloved of conservatives never really existed except in a few privileged enclaves dependent on slavery and genocide for their wealth. Poor people always made better art than rich people anyway in the sense of having something to actually say when they diverted productive labor toward making it. The avant-garde is a fancy name for white male privilege. And high art still occupies a hegemonic place in socially and publicly subsidized institutions, to wit the persistent domination of American school music curricula by European classical music idioms that were radical or fresh when the transcontinental railroad was being laid.
I buy some of the dumbing down stuff, but always wonder: from what? When was the US at least ever an enlightenment utopia except for its most privileged class and race and gender?
Alternative hypothesis: decline of the coherence or relevance of the nation state.
posted by spitbull at 8:58 PM on March 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
Perhaps the best thing is for intellectuals to accept their minority status, and make themselves into a coherent community.
Right! They could isolate themselves, say, on something like an island! A flying island! And they could have servants to make sure they don't walk off the edge!
posted by happyroach at 9:11 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Right! They could isolate themselves, say, on something like an island! A flying island! And they could have servants to make sure they don't walk off the edge!
posted by happyroach at 9:11 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
As someone who deals with confidentially ignorant, FOX news obsessed, belligerently wrong 60 and 70 year olds every day, I find myself thinking the previous generation is getting dumber.
posted by maxsparber at 9:54 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 9:54 PM on March 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
Well, every generation has to not only know everything in the present, but also be able to filter and at least have a familiarity of everything that came before. In addition, the rate of new information has just been increasing because there's more data collected/stored and more people interpreting it.
So, I don't think people are getting dumber. It's just that there's just so much stuff to learn and know and each generation is gonna know more than the last, but know less of the sum total of all knowledge out there.
posted by FJT at 10:07 PM on March 7, 2016
So, I don't think people are getting dumber. It's just that there's just so much stuff to learn and know and each generation is gonna know more than the last, but know less of the sum total of all knowledge out there.
posted by FJT at 10:07 PM on March 7, 2016
Here's a paraphrase of a facebook conversation between a distant cousin and her friend the day after super Tuesday:
Cousin: Um, do we know who the president is now?
Friend: No, this was just the practice election
It seems like the Tennessee education system went out of its way to not educate my cousin and her friend.
posted by double block and bleed at 10:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Cousin: Um, do we know who the president is now?
Friend: No, this was just the practice election
It seems like the Tennessee education system went out of its way to not educate my cousin and her friend.
posted by double block and bleed at 10:09 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
membership of the cultural elite is now framed by one's ability to performatively consume pop
No word has seen such smarmy abuse lately as "performative".
"I enjoy the (good) things that I like genuinely, but of course they only enjoy the (bad) things that they like performatively!"
Ugh.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:31 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
No word has seen such smarmy abuse lately as "performative".
"I enjoy the (good) things that I like genuinely, but of course they only enjoy the (bad) things that they like performatively!"
Ugh.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:31 PM on March 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"
Plato, 4th Century BC
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 10:56 PM on March 7, 2016
Plato, 4th Century BC
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 10:56 PM on March 7, 2016
A "Plato, 4th Century BC" quotation fabricated ca. 1968 in America is definitely useful evidence in a discussion of American anti-intellectualism, but I'm not sure it's evidence of what you think it is.
posted by RogerB at 11:20 PM on March 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by RogerB at 11:20 PM on March 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
In America, the young are always willing to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
Oscar Wilde
posted by y2karl at 12:07 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oscar Wilde
posted by y2karl at 12:07 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Regarding farmers and ignorance: If there's one occupation where ignorance comes back to bite you hard, it's farming. Don't underestimate the farmers' devotion to knowledge.
posted by Harald74 at 12:49 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Harald74 at 12:49 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
I heard from a Canadian friend who worries about the situation 'down south' - three generations of increasing budget cuts from education leading to an increasingly ignorant population with little knowledge of the wider world, and due to politics, science, Darwin and all that stuff.
On the other hand, about a decade ago, when I first left my fulltime university administrator job and went off to discover myself, I voraciously self educated myself (asian engineering edu doesn't explore much "thinking") with a variety of books, including all of these and Tocqueville's tome.
Today, reading through the thread, I wonder if there really is a dumbing down, or, is it that those writing have been cushioned in privileged ivory towers and thus their shock at stepping out into what has always been there.
Yes, in some ways, the average person might not be as globally politically aware as those who fill the chai shops in India (the "intelligentsia") or the cafes in Paris. But on the other, like many have spoken before me in this thread, the young, especially on Tumblr where I have a reasonably visible presence in POC communities, are truly demonstrating that there's a slice of them who are aware, intelligent, driven to effect change in their communities.
The internet and its low barriers don't need a PC, your phone will do. And yes, while there are issues distinguishing BS from value that newbies face, there's a growing slice of the formerly marginalized and underprivileged who are discovering knowledge, their own voices, and thus, their opinions on the wider world around them and its inequalities.
Think of young WoC, PoC, and youth in Africa and Asia etc having the world's depository of unpaywalled knowledge at their fingertips. You talk about farmers? Look at MkulimaYoung - its not just another showcase piece by Ivy League coeds winning awards but the creation of an out of work agricultural extension worker who sought to share his knowledge through the channels available to people now.
Maybe, and don't get me wrong, this is just an observation from the outside, what is really happening is that the water level of global knowledge is now becoming visible on the global communications platforms, and this then is what is shining a spotlight on the disparity of general awareness and education. What was formerly hidden, thus this elite the author refers to had their illusion that they were the smartest, is now visible, and evidencing that there are pockets of smartness across the world, emerging from the most unlikely places.
That is, while "our" youth still continue to consume what our culture has always consumed, there are youths emerging visibly on the social media platforms of our age, who are grabbing all the knowledge and information and opportunities out there and showing up and making change.
The caveat is that these are probably only a minority in their own locations, but during this particular transitional time in the global zeitgeist, they are the obvious tall poppies speaking out and rejecting the bullshit narratives imposed on them.
We live, as the Chinese may never have actually said, in interesting times.
posted by infini at 2:34 AM on March 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
On the other hand, about a decade ago, when I first left my fulltime university administrator job and went off to discover myself, I voraciously self educated myself (asian engineering edu doesn't explore much "thinking") with a variety of books, including all of these and Tocqueville's tome.
Today, reading through the thread, I wonder if there really is a dumbing down, or, is it that those writing have been cushioned in privileged ivory towers and thus their shock at stepping out into what has always been there.
Yes, in some ways, the average person might not be as globally politically aware as those who fill the chai shops in India (the "intelligentsia") or the cafes in Paris. But on the other, like many have spoken before me in this thread, the young, especially on Tumblr where I have a reasonably visible presence in POC communities, are truly demonstrating that there's a slice of them who are aware, intelligent, driven to effect change in their communities.
The internet and its low barriers don't need a PC, your phone will do. And yes, while there are issues distinguishing BS from value that newbies face, there's a growing slice of the formerly marginalized and underprivileged who are discovering knowledge, their own voices, and thus, their opinions on the wider world around them and its inequalities.
Think of young WoC, PoC, and youth in Africa and Asia etc having the world's depository of unpaywalled knowledge at their fingertips. You talk about farmers? Look at MkulimaYoung - its not just another showcase piece by Ivy League coeds winning awards but the creation of an out of work agricultural extension worker who sought to share his knowledge through the channels available to people now.
Maybe, and don't get me wrong, this is just an observation from the outside, what is really happening is that the water level of global knowledge is now becoming visible on the global communications platforms, and this then is what is shining a spotlight on the disparity of general awareness and education. What was formerly hidden, thus this elite the author refers to had their illusion that they were the smartest, is now visible, and evidencing that there are pockets of smartness across the world, emerging from the most unlikely places.
That is, while "our" youth still continue to consume what our culture has always consumed, there are youths emerging visibly on the social media platforms of our age, who are grabbing all the knowledge and information and opportunities out there and showing up and making change.
The caveat is that these are probably only a minority in their own locations, but during this particular transitional time in the global zeitgeist, they are the obvious tall poppies speaking out and rejecting the bullshit narratives imposed on them.
We live, as the Chinese may never have actually said, in interesting times.
posted by infini at 2:34 AM on March 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
Perhaps the best thing is for intellectuals to accept their minority status, and make themselves into a coherent community.
I believe in aristocracy, though - if that is the right word, andposted by infini at 2:37 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon
rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the con-
siderate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all
nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret
understanding between them when they meet. They represent
the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer
race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in
obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others
as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being
fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and
they can take a joke.
I give no examples - it is risky to do that -
but the reader may as well consider whether this is the type of
person he would like to meet and to be, and whether (going
further with me) he would prefer that this type should not be an
ascetic one. I am against asceticism myself. I am with the old
Scotsman who wanted less chastity and more delicacy. I do not
feel that my aristocrats are a real aristocracy if they thwart their
bodies, since bodies are the instruments through which we
register and enjoy the world. Still, I do not insist. This is not a
major point. It is clearly possible to be sensitive, considerate and
plucky and yet be an ascetic too, and if anyone possesses the first
three qualities I will let him in!
On they go - an invincible army,
yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen,
the Best People - all the words that describe them are false, and
all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority,
seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the
Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese
Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy
stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door
is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of
them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart's affections, and their
kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
The Internet and college courses giving women and POC and queer people more visibility ("diversity") is anti-intellectual to these people. It's fucking disgusting. This entire article stinks of low-key dog whistling about this shit.
I mean - maybe a little bit? That's one thing the author seems to be on about but also all the other things, from intelligent design to jocks bullying dweebs. This is such a mash of mish that I really can't say it's wrong about everything but I can say it's not well-argued even by the standards of contemporary punditry.
posted by atoxyl at 2:50 AM on March 8, 2016
I mean - maybe a little bit? That's one thing the author seems to be on about but also all the other things, from intelligent design to jocks bullying dweebs. This is such a mash of mish that I really can't say it's wrong about everything but I can say it's not well-argued even by the standards of contemporary punditry.
posted by atoxyl at 2:50 AM on March 8, 2016
This was inane when Allan Bloom published a book about it and it's inane now.
Wondering when someone was going to mention that. I find Bloom's book fairly weak with a few years' hindsight, but is the issue really inane when much of the rest of the world doesn't seem to have the same problem? (and when it keeps coming up every few decades for a century and a half?)
posted by iffthen at 3:49 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wondering when someone was going to mention that. I find Bloom's book fairly weak with a few years' hindsight, but is the issue really inane when much of the rest of the world doesn't seem to have the same problem? (and when it keeps coming up every few decades for a century and a half?)
posted by iffthen at 3:49 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Funny, I just saw a Bukowski quote today: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
- Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1599
posted by Acey at 4:15 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
Are full of passionate intensity."
--W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming", 1919. Yep, cyclical.
- Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1599
posted by Acey at 4:15 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
I stopped here and began wondering which decade this was written in:
In American schools, the culture exalts the athlete and good-looking cheerleader. Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs," "dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the more popular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect. ... most TV shows or movies such as The Big Bang Theory depict intellectuals as being geeks if not effeminate.
No one has used the word "dweeb" seriously for 30 years. And if "effeminate" is necessarily an inaccurate and undesirable description of intellectuals, then the author considers all true intellectuals to be men — and men of a specific type and sexuality.
posted by sadmadglad at 4:59 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
In American schools, the culture exalts the athlete and good-looking cheerleader. Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs," "dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the more popular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect. ... most TV shows or movies such as The Big Bang Theory depict intellectuals as being geeks if not effeminate.
No one has used the word "dweeb" seriously for 30 years. And if "effeminate" is necessarily an inaccurate and undesirable description of intellectuals, then the author considers all true intellectuals to be men — and men of a specific type and sexuality.
posted by sadmadglad at 4:59 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs," "dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the more popular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect
My daughter's high school literally has robot jocks.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:27 AM on March 8, 2016
My daughter's high school literally has robot jocks.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:27 AM on March 8, 2016
It mostly just doesn't ring true to me. I don't have recent experience of high school students, but I do work with first-year college students at a not-very-selective college, and my sense is that their ideal is to be both smart and athletic. There's not a sense that those things are contradictory, and there's not a sense that it's embarrassing to get good grades. I am sometimes frustrated with how invested they are in seeing education as a means to very concrete ends, but I don't think that they live in a work in which jocks lord it over nerds or whatever.
(And I am not sure that dork or dweeb were ever insults used to put down smart people. Nerds and geeks were smart. Dorks and dweebs were just uncool.)
There are very real, longstanding problems with anti-intellectualism in American life. These are getting worse in some ways and better in others, and it would take a much more nuanced analysis to figure out how that is happening and why.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:28 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
(And I am not sure that dork or dweeb were ever insults used to put down smart people. Nerds and geeks were smart. Dorks and dweebs were just uncool.)
There are very real, longstanding problems with anti-intellectualism in American life. These are getting worse in some ways and better in others, and it would take a much more nuanced analysis to figure out how that is happening and why.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:28 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's pretty disturbing how many people I know support Donald Trump on exactly that basis - the sooner we collapse and hit rock bottom, the more resources we'll have to try to recover.
I find that prospect viscerally repulsive but I have to say that I have yet to find a good intellectual argument to refute it.
Do you realize that's an argument for being WWII Germany or Japan?
posted by srboisvert at 6:25 AM on March 8, 2016
I find that prospect viscerally repulsive but I have to say that I have yet to find a good intellectual argument to refute it.
Do you realize that's an argument for being WWII Germany or Japan?
posted by srboisvert at 6:25 AM on March 8, 2016
Some thoughts:
1. Some of the people who brought the political changes dearest to my heart weren't intellectuals or even especially educated. Some of them were pretty intellectual and probably could have done scholarly work given the education; others were probably just perceptive and caring. The many workers who went on strike for the eight hour day, soldiers who organized after the Great War, early IWWs, landless peasant activists, the Zapatistas generally, the people who did the on the ground civil rights work - probably a lot of those people thought/think the sun goes round the earth and maybe could not name too many important political figures.
2. Some of the people who are the worst, the most disgusting enemies of social change are expensively educated, well-informed technocrats and members of the elite. Winston Churchill, for instance, was actively engaged in crushing the 1926 general strike precisely because he saw it as an opportunity to shut down working class organizing.
3. Being policy-smart doesn't mean shit if all it leads you to is "well, ordinary people can never have nice things because of this giant pile of facts". Educated and well-informed people have been saying that since the year dot, and yet lo, we have seen evidence that ordinary people can have nice things if the elites get out of the way.
To change tracks:
1. Culture, age and class make things really uneven. In any kind of large society you can have both areas of sorta-intellectualism (fetishizing of Steve Jobs and "science!" or whatever) and contempt for knowledge.
2. Class. Class class class. Okay, who gets kicked around? Working class people generally - and we are invisible. We are invisible even on metafilter. Secretaries, check-out clerks, truck drivers, janitors, hotel cleaners, security people - even those of us on metafilter tend to be exceptions in some way, or else pass through working class jobs on our way to something else. Working class people get kicked around by technocrats, and we have very little recourse.
That's part of the distrust of pointy-headed intellectuals - the pointy-headed intellectuals who have been counting your keystrokes and tracking your hours and predicting your crimes via algorithm and testing your children to destruction and making grand pronouncements to try to take away the few pleasures of your life because they make you a bad worker. Pointy-headed intellectuals creating policies that make working class life really, really hard but never impact elites - the kinds of registration and paperwork and documentation and processes that either don't happen to elites (because they don't get tangled up in law enforcement) or don't bother elites (because they pay someone else to take care of stuff, or pay for getting things expedited, etc.).
Even the kids who are instrumentalizing learning in our great community colleges, etc - they're the kids who are going to college. 65% of 25-29 year olds, apparently, have "some college", but only 31% have an actual BA. To even want to instrumentalize knowledge means to see yourself as being able to get somewhere with it.
Of mefites who have college degrees - how many people do you know well (ie, they visit you at your house, you actually hang out) who do not have either a degree or most of a degree? I bet that for most of us with degrees, most of our friends have degrees. And I bet that if you have a PhD or some other advanced qualification, quite a few of your friends do as well, BUT that if you are (like me) a working class person with a BA, your friends don't mostly have advanced degrees. (I'm the "pity friend" for a couple of PhDs but I don't know a lot of professional class people socially, and I don't ever see that changing because we don't have a lot in common.)
Our experience of the world is so intensely class-bound that I think it's easy to underestimate the diversity of experience of education and how people think about "knowledge"./
posted by Frowner at 6:37 AM on March 8, 2016 [16 favorites]
1. Some of the people who brought the political changes dearest to my heart weren't intellectuals or even especially educated. Some of them were pretty intellectual and probably could have done scholarly work given the education; others were probably just perceptive and caring. The many workers who went on strike for the eight hour day, soldiers who organized after the Great War, early IWWs, landless peasant activists, the Zapatistas generally, the people who did the on the ground civil rights work - probably a lot of those people thought/think the sun goes round the earth and maybe could not name too many important political figures.
2. Some of the people who are the worst, the most disgusting enemies of social change are expensively educated, well-informed technocrats and members of the elite. Winston Churchill, for instance, was actively engaged in crushing the 1926 general strike precisely because he saw it as an opportunity to shut down working class organizing.
3. Being policy-smart doesn't mean shit if all it leads you to is "well, ordinary people can never have nice things because of this giant pile of facts". Educated and well-informed people have been saying that since the year dot, and yet lo, we have seen evidence that ordinary people can have nice things if the elites get out of the way.
To change tracks:
1. Culture, age and class make things really uneven. In any kind of large society you can have both areas of sorta-intellectualism (fetishizing of Steve Jobs and "science!" or whatever) and contempt for knowledge.
2. Class. Class class class. Okay, who gets kicked around? Working class people generally - and we are invisible. We are invisible even on metafilter. Secretaries, check-out clerks, truck drivers, janitors, hotel cleaners, security people - even those of us on metafilter tend to be exceptions in some way, or else pass through working class jobs on our way to something else. Working class people get kicked around by technocrats, and we have very little recourse.
That's part of the distrust of pointy-headed intellectuals - the pointy-headed intellectuals who have been counting your keystrokes and tracking your hours and predicting your crimes via algorithm and testing your children to destruction and making grand pronouncements to try to take away the few pleasures of your life because they make you a bad worker. Pointy-headed intellectuals creating policies that make working class life really, really hard but never impact elites - the kinds of registration and paperwork and documentation and processes that either don't happen to elites (because they don't get tangled up in law enforcement) or don't bother elites (because they pay someone else to take care of stuff, or pay for getting things expedited, etc.).
Even the kids who are instrumentalizing learning in our great community colleges, etc - they're the kids who are going to college. 65% of 25-29 year olds, apparently, have "some college", but only 31% have an actual BA. To even want to instrumentalize knowledge means to see yourself as being able to get somewhere with it.
Of mefites who have college degrees - how many people do you know well (ie, they visit you at your house, you actually hang out) who do not have either a degree or most of a degree? I bet that for most of us with degrees, most of our friends have degrees. And I bet that if you have a PhD or some other advanced qualification, quite a few of your friends do as well, BUT that if you are (like me) a working class person with a BA, your friends don't mostly have advanced degrees. (I'm the "pity friend" for a couple of PhDs but I don't know a lot of professional class people socially, and I don't ever see that changing because we don't have a lot in common.)
Our experience of the world is so intensely class-bound that I think it's easy to underestimate the diversity of experience of education and how people think about "knowledge"./
posted by Frowner at 6:37 AM on March 8, 2016 [16 favorites]
I find that prospect viscerally repulsive but I have to say that I have yet to find a good intellectual argument to refute it.
Can I "refute" that argument? Not precisely, but my response would be "so when has this happened, and how does that situation compare to the present day US?"
Even if you somehow say that, like, seventies-onward Germany is pretty sweet (and you really have to take into account the intense upheaval and political work of the sixties - as I understand it, a lot of the rebellion/"sixties stuff" (and seventies stuff) was driven by the fact that a whole generation had just refused to talk about the Nazi period and that a lot of ex-Nazis and collaborators were in positions of great power in industry and media)....well, that was a pretty rough thirty years to get there, eh? Not entirely sure it was worth it.
I guess you could say that Iceland is an all-right example, in that they pretty much let their economy go to shit and came through it - but Iceland is tiny, has a strong left-wing and egalitarian tradition (a sort of anarchism has strong roots there) and the issue wasn't so much "going fascist" as debt.
But who else? Russia? Nope. Argentina? Not a good example, really. Italy? China, either the collapse of the imperial system or the long civil war? Not really, either.
And who is "we"? And how will these "resources" be administered?
It's just silly. Silly thinking, unless maybe they're a bright young teenager, in which case it's probably part of a learning process and good on them for trying to think in historical terms.
posted by Frowner at 6:44 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Can I "refute" that argument? Not precisely, but my response would be "so when has this happened, and how does that situation compare to the present day US?"
Even if you somehow say that, like, seventies-onward Germany is pretty sweet (and you really have to take into account the intense upheaval and political work of the sixties - as I understand it, a lot of the rebellion/"sixties stuff" (and seventies stuff) was driven by the fact that a whole generation had just refused to talk about the Nazi period and that a lot of ex-Nazis and collaborators were in positions of great power in industry and media)....well, that was a pretty rough thirty years to get there, eh? Not entirely sure it was worth it.
I guess you could say that Iceland is an all-right example, in that they pretty much let their economy go to shit and came through it - but Iceland is tiny, has a strong left-wing and egalitarian tradition (a sort of anarchism has strong roots there) and the issue wasn't so much "going fascist" as debt.
But who else? Russia? Nope. Argentina? Not a good example, really. Italy? China, either the collapse of the imperial system or the long civil war? Not really, either.
And who is "we"? And how will these "resources" be administered?
It's just silly. Silly thinking, unless maybe they're a bright young teenager, in which case it's probably part of a learning process and good on them for trying to think in historical terms.
posted by Frowner at 6:44 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
SOTT.NET Ugh. OK, there is a long-identified culture of anti-intellectualism in the U.S., but I can't bring myself to read an article on a publication that hosts anti-vax nutters.
posted by Dodecadermaldenticles at 6:58 AM on March 8, 2016
posted by Dodecadermaldenticles at 6:58 AM on March 8, 2016
From a purely technical point of view it has never been so easy for people to educate themselves.
It's also never been easier for people to be taken in by ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth because you can literally find sources on the internet making directly opposite, contradictory claims on nearly any topic. If you don't dig down really deep into the sourcing of the content and the methodologies used in the research, you can find authoritative seeming sources to support whatever POV seems to best confirm your pre-existing expectations and whole communities of other people committed to championing those preferred interpretations of fact.
The more concerning thing is the very evident social pressure to deliberately avoid being too circumspect, thoughtful, critical, or nuanced in thinking and to just go with the flow and be decisive or be labeled as weak. The cultural coding of thoughtfulness and introspection as weakness and negativity is more important a problem than people grousing about adults watching cartoons and the like. Some of those cartoons--like Futurama, say--are full of serious intellectual content. Others make a kind of ironic joke out of being self-consciously dumb. But it's the more fundamental culturally negative attitudes toward accepting uncertainty, complexity, and the possibility of error/failure as necessary to the process of learning that are most harmful/hurtful.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:06 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's also never been easier for people to be taken in by ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth because you can literally find sources on the internet making directly opposite, contradictory claims on nearly any topic. If you don't dig down really deep into the sourcing of the content and the methodologies used in the research, you can find authoritative seeming sources to support whatever POV seems to best confirm your pre-existing expectations and whole communities of other people committed to championing those preferred interpretations of fact.
The more concerning thing is the very evident social pressure to deliberately avoid being too circumspect, thoughtful, critical, or nuanced in thinking and to just go with the flow and be decisive or be labeled as weak. The cultural coding of thoughtfulness and introspection as weakness and negativity is more important a problem than people grousing about adults watching cartoons and the like. Some of those cartoons--like Futurama, say--are full of serious intellectual content. Others make a kind of ironic joke out of being self-consciously dumb. But it's the more fundamental culturally negative attitudes toward accepting uncertainty, complexity, and the possibility of error/failure as necessary to the process of learning that are most harmful/hurtful.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:06 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
And who is "we"? And how will these "resources" be administered?
Almost certainly "white dudes" and "by us".
posted by Rock Steady at 7:16 AM on March 8, 2016
Almost certainly "white dudes" and "by us".
posted by Rock Steady at 7:16 AM on March 8, 2016
*looks worshipfully at saulgoodman*
Since being back in the US for several years now, I've noticed that flexibility and tolerance don't always translate as strong points in American life. It seems to me that holding a strong personal viewpoint and "demonstrating leadership" is highly valued. A person's forceful thinking and handling of a situation garners kudos. Observation in particular seems to be underrated. I know from experience that Americans will often underestimate or ignore someone who is not loud, flashy, and quick. Many cultures point out that we have two eyes, two ears and only one mouth. . . for good reason. source
posted by infini at 7:19 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Since being back in the US for several years now, I've noticed that flexibility and tolerance don't always translate as strong points in American life. It seems to me that holding a strong personal viewpoint and "demonstrating leadership" is highly valued. A person's forceful thinking and handling of a situation garners kudos. Observation in particular seems to be underrated. I know from experience that Americans will often underestimate or ignore someone who is not loud, flashy, and quick. Many cultures point out that we have two eyes, two ears and only one mouth. . . for good reason. source
posted by infini at 7:19 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
The more concerning thing is the very evident social pressure
I find myself wondering about the norming power of internet communities.
Positive side: I have a community that gives me confidence that it's normal and acceptable to be visibly queer (for instance) even if there are few other visibly queer people around me, and that gives me confidence in myself when confronted with hostile people. I have intellectual companionship - even if the people in my immediate life are hostile, for instance, to Black Lives Matter, I know lots of people through the internet who are not. Ideas that were incredibly freakish where I was growing up (racism still exists and is a problem! social inequality is bad! the US is an imperialist power!) seem far more normal due to the internet. (Even if you consider previous communities formed via magazines, correspondence, etc, those weren't nearly as powerful; you kind of had to, like, pack up and move to New York.)
Also positive: Pressure to think more carefully. When I was a teenager, I was all "feminism is important! it is!" and that was as far as my thinking could get, because all I had was my belief and a handful of rather dated books. Now I get pushed to examine my own thinking much more, and - for instance - root out dumb ideas I didn't even realize I had.
Possibly negative: Intellectual norming can be more powerful. I do feel this. Whereas when I was a bit more isolated, I could think things through and maybe have more original ideas; now, I feel like consensus can develop very quickly and harden into a rule in ways that aren't always helpful. I think it's very easy now to see who isn't completely in line with consensus, and it's hard not to be in line. There are definitely times that I've said or agreed with things about which I had doubts because I assumed that my own ideas were stupid or unformed. Now, sometimes I was right, but in those cases I also didn't work ideas out for myself. And sometimes I feel like I was wrong, and just went along with consensus because I lacked confidence and social power. Again, I think this is more powerful in the age of the internet because of speed and pervasiveness even though it's something that has always happened as long as there have been these kinds of circles.
On balance, probably more and better thinking being done; but also some changes to the way the individual experiences themselves as a thinker.
posted by Frowner at 7:19 AM on March 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
I find myself wondering about the norming power of internet communities.
Positive side: I have a community that gives me confidence that it's normal and acceptable to be visibly queer (for instance) even if there are few other visibly queer people around me, and that gives me confidence in myself when confronted with hostile people. I have intellectual companionship - even if the people in my immediate life are hostile, for instance, to Black Lives Matter, I know lots of people through the internet who are not. Ideas that were incredibly freakish where I was growing up (racism still exists and is a problem! social inequality is bad! the US is an imperialist power!) seem far more normal due to the internet. (Even if you consider previous communities formed via magazines, correspondence, etc, those weren't nearly as powerful; you kind of had to, like, pack up and move to New York.)
Also positive: Pressure to think more carefully. When I was a teenager, I was all "feminism is important! it is!" and that was as far as my thinking could get, because all I had was my belief and a handful of rather dated books. Now I get pushed to examine my own thinking much more, and - for instance - root out dumb ideas I didn't even realize I had.
Possibly negative: Intellectual norming can be more powerful. I do feel this. Whereas when I was a bit more isolated, I could think things through and maybe have more original ideas; now, I feel like consensus can develop very quickly and harden into a rule in ways that aren't always helpful. I think it's very easy now to see who isn't completely in line with consensus, and it's hard not to be in line. There are definitely times that I've said or agreed with things about which I had doubts because I assumed that my own ideas were stupid or unformed. Now, sometimes I was right, but in those cases I also didn't work ideas out for myself. And sometimes I feel like I was wrong, and just went along with consensus because I lacked confidence and social power. Again, I think this is more powerful in the age of the internet because of speed and pervasiveness even though it's something that has always happened as long as there have been these kinds of circles.
On balance, probably more and better thinking being done; but also some changes to the way the individual experiences themselves as a thinker.
posted by Frowner at 7:19 AM on March 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
In terms of working class stuff: I found The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes very interesting. The guy has a huge axe to grind about feminism and I assume there's some giant critique of his work anyway, but on a pure "here is some factual information about working class self-education stuff" level, it seems pretty good to me. Sort of a contradiction both to the "working class culture was shoddy and ephemeral" and the Bukowski business - it seems like a lot of people worked very hard to produce various kinds of working class cultural and educational opportunities.Yeah. I think Rose is very pertinent to this discussion, as he was responding to a number of the assumptions people are trotting out here about "high culture" and non-elite audiences, except in the context of the "canon wars" of the 1980s. Rose's point, and I agree with him on this, is that there's actually a withering form of elite condescension at work in academics' belief that working-class or marginalised communities didn't and don't value high culture or complex literature; that such things are necessarily the province of, say, "white privilege" or western knowledge systems or the rich. What this actually says is that such texts are "ours" (i.e. the elites') and nothing to do with you (you people out there who don't come to my lectures). There's also an ancillary assumption that "working-class" or non-elite entertainment is necessarily ephemeral, populist, and lacking in complexity; that the market can supply these needs efficiently; and that non-elites love this stuff because they are in some way qualitatively different from the rest of us. So there's an element of academic popular culture fandom that actually ends up functioning as a really pernicious form of intellectual snobbery. It simply erases the women, people of colour, and members of marginalised and working-class communities that did and do value the "avant garde," or serious literature, or other forms of cultural expression that are ostensibly not for "them."
Rose interrogated these assumptions by showing that (as Frowner points out) there have historically been large working-class audiences for "elite" and high-cultural literary artifacts. The desire for self-improvement through reading and listening to (say) classical music was a thing and not everyone was happy to stay in their little class- or identity-defined aesthetic boxes.
I'm not sure there's a "giant critique" of Rose out there because he's assembled a great deal of primary evidence to support his arguments, much of which is now being taken up by other historians of reading and popular culture. And I don't think it's fair to present him as "anti-feminist" either: it's really not a major component of his work. There are critiques of Rose (Leah Price and Daniel Allington have produced the most cogent ones), but they relate more to methodology than factual accuracy. Rose relies heavily on a self-selecting sample working-class memoirists strongly committed to the ideal of self-improvement so he perhaps overplays that aspect of working-class culture. But it was a significant strain in that culture nevertheless and deserves to be recognised.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:23 AM on March 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
(In re Rose - what I noticed in my edition was a lot of off-hand little swipes at feminists and feminist historians. It was very off-putting and made me distrust the book (because it seemed so petty and weird) , even though I enjoyed quite a lot of it. But yeah, it's a great book for the primary sources - if you like Howard Zinn, for example, IME you'll love Rose.)
posted by Frowner at 7:29 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Frowner at 7:29 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
But it's the more fundamental culturally negative attitudes toward accepting uncertainty, complexity, and the possibility of error/failure as necessary to the process of learning that are most harmful/hurtful.
This is what "design thinking" - packaged and commodified by innovation sausage factories - attempted to over turn. Ironically, rather than effecting genuine change, which design is capable of, in its many tangible forms, it became the very thing that it was seeking to dislodge - an easy 12 step silver bullet you could buy off the designer shelves.
posted by infini at 7:42 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is what "design thinking" - packaged and commodified by innovation sausage factories - attempted to over turn. Ironically, rather than effecting genuine change, which design is capable of, in its many tangible forms, it became the very thing that it was seeking to dislodge - an easy 12 step silver bullet you could buy off the designer shelves.
posted by infini at 7:42 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
And just in case anyone who is interested in this stuff is reading, two other "if you like Zinn you'll love..." books:
The People: The Rise and Fall of the British Working Class, which is reviewed here by David Kynaston, author of the very large Austerity Britain.
The People is a very fast and easy read if you have a general sense of the history and issues in play, but (like People's History) it seems like a great book to get a general outline from. It really brought home how spotty my modern British history is* and is full of demoralizing little asides about people one other wise respected (Vera Brittain, frex.) Also, lots of great photos.
Austerity Britain is really large. You will enjoy carrying it around because it will astonish friends and strangers alike. You might think "aha, an enormous and fiddly history full of primary sources about Austerity, it will be so boring". But it's not! I have been almost missing bus and train stops when reading it because it's so absorbing. That said, I'm not done yet - but I feel confident that I'll finish it and then get the other ones.
*Okay, yes, for no very good reason I, an American, am really interested in modern British history. I really put it down to going on an enormous Orwell's-nonfiction kick in high school. But anyway, I have no authentic or interior knowledge of the subject.
posted by Frowner at 7:45 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
The People: The Rise and Fall of the British Working Class, which is reviewed here by David Kynaston, author of the very large Austerity Britain.
The People is a very fast and easy read if you have a general sense of the history and issues in play, but (like People's History) it seems like a great book to get a general outline from. It really brought home how spotty my modern British history is* and is full of demoralizing little asides about people one other wise respected (Vera Brittain, frex.) Also, lots of great photos.
Austerity Britain is really large. You will enjoy carrying it around because it will astonish friends and strangers alike. You might think "aha, an enormous and fiddly history full of primary sources about Austerity, it will be so boring". But it's not! I have been almost missing bus and train stops when reading it because it's so absorbing. That said, I'm not done yet - but I feel confident that I'll finish it and then get the other ones.
*Okay, yes, for no very good reason I, an American, am really interested in modern British history. I really put it down to going on an enormous Orwell's-nonfiction kick in high school. But anyway, I have no authentic or interior knowledge of the subject.
posted by Frowner at 7:45 AM on March 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
I had a poorly advised, um, engagement with a Dolan supporter on Facebook yesterday. He said some things, and then I said some things. His response to my comment was "I don't understand half of your fancy words," and then went on about how very wrong I was about what I had said. After he admitted he didn't understand what I said.
That instinct to plow headlong through the minefield of ignorance has nothing to do with The Youngs, The Poors, or any other subsection this article winks toward. That is the instinct of the Jackass, and he is eternal.
posted by Tevin at 7:48 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
That instinct to plow headlong through the minefield of ignorance has nothing to do with The Youngs, The Poors, or any other subsection this article winks toward. That is the instinct of the Jackass, and he is eternal.
posted by Tevin at 7:48 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Obama won me over in the 2008 campaign with his response to the tire pressure gauge mini-kerfuffle: "It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."
posted by whuppy at 7:59 AM on March 8, 2016
posted by whuppy at 7:59 AM on March 8, 2016
There is plenty of anti-intellectualism among the elites. Look at attacks on philosophy by leading scientists. Perhaps these elites don't want an alliance between intellectuals and common folk.
posted by No Robots at 8:08 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by No Robots at 8:08 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's also never been easier for people to be taken in by ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth because you can literally find sources on the internet making directly opposite, contradictory claims on nearly any topic.
If "ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth" is what your community teaches and you don't have access to alternative ways of thinking, you are even more thoroughly trapped. "Ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth" has been the prevailing atmosphere in most parts of the world, including America, for most of history. And there was never some golden age where you could just walk into the library in your town where no one understood or believed in evolution or vaccination or the world going around the sun and find only sound books on all possible topics of inquiry to counter that ignorance with. The auto-didact having difficulty sorting good sources from bad is an essentially constant phenomenon. The Internet at least opens up the universe of sources. Especially primary sources. I am just old enough that when I was in college and took an art history class, if the art in question didn't happen to be in Janson, the only real way to look at it outside of lecture was to go to the art history building and look at reproductions pinned to a wall. (A number of the great American art collections built in the nineteenth century were constructed on the strength of low-quality photographs of the originals!) Now finding any well-known image is essentially a trivial problem.
It's better to hold reasonable positions about the world by the chance of having been born into a community that happens to believe reasonable things than not to hold reasonable positions, but that's still just chance. It's still better for educational purposes to have access to far more sources than to fewer.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
If "ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth" is what your community teaches and you don't have access to alternative ways of thinking, you are even more thoroughly trapped. "Ignorance dressed up as revelation or truth" has been the prevailing atmosphere in most parts of the world, including America, for most of history. And there was never some golden age where you could just walk into the library in your town where no one understood or believed in evolution or vaccination or the world going around the sun and find only sound books on all possible topics of inquiry to counter that ignorance with. The auto-didact having difficulty sorting good sources from bad is an essentially constant phenomenon. The Internet at least opens up the universe of sources. Especially primary sources. I am just old enough that when I was in college and took an art history class, if the art in question didn't happen to be in Janson, the only real way to look at it outside of lecture was to go to the art history building and look at reproductions pinned to a wall. (A number of the great American art collections built in the nineteenth century were constructed on the strength of low-quality photographs of the originals!) Now finding any well-known image is essentially a trivial problem.
It's better to hold reasonable positions about the world by the chance of having been born into a community that happens to believe reasonable things than not to hold reasonable positions, but that's still just chance. It's still better for educational purposes to have access to far more sources than to fewer.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on March 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
There's the entire Internet. From a purely technical point of view it has never been so easy for people to educate themselves.
They don't though. Sometimes it's a useful tactic, like the guy who shows up in every climate change discussion saying, "Don't give me sources, I just want you to explain in your own words, the science behind climate change. No? Told you."
Also, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." Shakespeare wrote a play about the Dunning-Kruger effect!?!
posted by sneebler at 8:50 AM on March 8, 2016
They don't though. Sometimes it's a useful tactic, like the guy who shows up in every climate change discussion saying, "Don't give me sources, I just want you to explain in your own words, the science behind climate change. No? Told you."
Also, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." Shakespeare wrote a play about the Dunning-Kruger effect!?!
posted by sneebler at 8:50 AM on March 8, 2016
They don't though.
Yeah, there's a bigger and more intractable problem there (actually a whole nesting doll series of intractable problems). But if we're talking about opportunities...
posted by praemunire at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2016
Yeah, there's a bigger and more intractable problem there (actually a whole nesting doll series of intractable problems). But if we're talking about opportunities...
posted by praemunire at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2016
Just reading the comments here is enough to make me look at my pre conceived notions, but I think some of the self isolation of some of our more fundamentalist population (some of my friends from my schooldays are these people) may be feeding this view, but perhaps this was always a "thing". If I remember correctly the dead sea scrolls were written by such a group.
On a lighter note I have found the relevant Monty Python sketch for this thread.
posted by boilermonster at 9:21 AM on March 8, 2016
On a lighter note I have found the relevant Monty Python sketch for this thread.
posted by boilermonster at 9:21 AM on March 8, 2016
Obama won me over in the 2008 campaign with his response to the tire pressure gauge mini-kerfuffle: "It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."
Actually, that....may have some "American identity" historic basis, which is leading my brain down some interesting paths right now.
Okay: so, in the early 1800's, American culture went through a kind of identity crisis of the same kind you go through in your late teens and early 20's - you know, the kind where you kind declare that you are nothing like your parents because old people are squares and they're backward and know nothing amirite. Socially, and particularly culturally, early Americans were trying to come up with some kind of definitive "American identity" they could point to and say "this is us and how we are."
And often, that took the form of "American identity" being plainspoken, honest, and no-nonsense. "European" manners and style were shunned as being overly fussy and all about pretense; American manners and style were all about straightforwardness, honesty, and being "real", for lack of a better word. Some of the earlier American plays especially emphasized this - one, Fashion, was an 1845 smash hit about a New York couple where the wife was a full-on Hyacinth-Bucket "Keeping Up Appearances" type of poser, falling for the most ridiculous of notions because "it's the way they do things in France and that makes it fashionable", except it leads to much hilarious disasters and they actually bring in a guy in a buckskin cap named "Mr. Trueman" to call bullshit on everyone. Another play - one of the first written in the U.S. - was a fanciful retelling of "King Philip's War", a colonial conflict with the Pequots and Wampanoags of the 1600's, which spins it so the chief of the Wampanoags is a really over-the-top "noble savage" type and the English settlers are sharply split up into honest and true types who sympathize with him and mean guys who want to kick his ass. And sure enough, the mean guys are all stuck-up fops, while the honest-and-true sympathizers are plainspoken and modest.
So that kind of identity - that "American-ness" is about being plainspoken rather than using artificially inflated talk, and is about being simple and forthright rather than being elitist - was something that people have been trying to get into the national character from the very beginning. However - all too often, simplicity of speech can get confused with simplicity of thought, and people may not always realize that there's a difference between knowing much but being able to state it clearly, and not knowing much.
The national character has always prided itself on being the sort to speak simply. But a lot of people confuse that for thinking simply.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:47 AM on March 8, 2016 [7 favorites]
Actually, that....may have some "American identity" historic basis, which is leading my brain down some interesting paths right now.
Okay: so, in the early 1800's, American culture went through a kind of identity crisis of the same kind you go through in your late teens and early 20's - you know, the kind where you kind declare that you are nothing like your parents because old people are squares and they're backward and know nothing amirite. Socially, and particularly culturally, early Americans were trying to come up with some kind of definitive "American identity" they could point to and say "this is us and how we are."
And often, that took the form of "American identity" being plainspoken, honest, and no-nonsense. "European" manners and style were shunned as being overly fussy and all about pretense; American manners and style were all about straightforwardness, honesty, and being "real", for lack of a better word. Some of the earlier American plays especially emphasized this - one, Fashion, was an 1845 smash hit about a New York couple where the wife was a full-on Hyacinth-Bucket "Keeping Up Appearances" type of poser, falling for the most ridiculous of notions because "it's the way they do things in France and that makes it fashionable", except it leads to much hilarious disasters and they actually bring in a guy in a buckskin cap named "Mr. Trueman" to call bullshit on everyone. Another play - one of the first written in the U.S. - was a fanciful retelling of "King Philip's War", a colonial conflict with the Pequots and Wampanoags of the 1600's, which spins it so the chief of the Wampanoags is a really over-the-top "noble savage" type and the English settlers are sharply split up into honest and true types who sympathize with him and mean guys who want to kick his ass. And sure enough, the mean guys are all stuck-up fops, while the honest-and-true sympathizers are plainspoken and modest.
So that kind of identity - that "American-ness" is about being plainspoken rather than using artificially inflated talk, and is about being simple and forthright rather than being elitist - was something that people have been trying to get into the national character from the very beginning. However - all too often, simplicity of speech can get confused with simplicity of thought, and people may not always realize that there's a difference between knowing much but being able to state it clearly, and not knowing much.
The national character has always prided itself on being the sort to speak simply. But a lot of people confuse that for thinking simply.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:47 AM on March 8, 2016 [7 favorites]
James Baldwin: “Not a thousand years ago, it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Not a thousand years ago, the Supreme Court decided that separate could not be equal. And today, as we sit here, no one is learning anything in this country. You see a nation which is the leader of the rest of the world, that had to pay the price of that ticket, and the price of that ticket is we're sitting in the most illiterate nation in the world. THE MOST ILLITERATE NATION IN THE WORLD. A monument to illiteracy. And if you doubt me, all you have to do is spend a day in Washington. I am serious as a heart attack.”
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:04 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:04 AM on March 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
See, that's part of the problem. Lot of folks dont see the same leadership that's been so carefully crafted internally.
posted by infini at 10:54 AM on March 8, 2016
posted by infini at 10:54 AM on March 8, 2016
Anyhoo, I came in here to sniffle over this one:
I am just old enough that when I was in college and took an art history class, if the art in question didn't happen to be in Janson, the only real way to look at it outside of lecture was to go to the art history building and look at reproductions pinned to a wall.
It wasn't until I was in my very late 30s that I finally got to stand in front of an original. At the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, I found my eyes filling with tears in front Monet's Haystacks in different seasons. OMFG I was standing here in front of an original. And look, a huge Seurat... wow, is that an original Van Gogh... and so on.
Imagine studying design before the internets (and computers, tbh, all letraset and cutterboards) and never having seen a single original Old Master ever. Sheer luck. I ended up splurging on my 40th a year or so later and spent the day in teh Louvre.
Funny, it didn't take me long to take it for granted - waltzed through the Night Watch a couple of years ago in the Rijksmuseum as though it was nothing.
posted by infini at 10:59 AM on March 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
I am just old enough that when I was in college and took an art history class, if the art in question didn't happen to be in Janson, the only real way to look at it outside of lecture was to go to the art history building and look at reproductions pinned to a wall.
It wasn't until I was in my very late 30s that I finally got to stand in front of an original. At the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, I found my eyes filling with tears in front Monet's Haystacks in different seasons. OMFG I was standing here in front of an original. And look, a huge Seurat... wow, is that an original Van Gogh... and so on.
Imagine studying design before the internets (and computers, tbh, all letraset and cutterboards) and never having seen a single original Old Master ever. Sheer luck. I ended up splurging on my 40th a year or so later and spent the day in teh Louvre.
Funny, it didn't take me long to take it for granted - waltzed through the Night Watch a couple of years ago in the Rijksmuseum as though it was nothing.
posted by infini at 10:59 AM on March 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
I am just old enough that when I was in college and took an art history class, if the art in question didn't happen to be in Janson, the only real way to look at it outside of lecture was to go to the art history building and look at reproductions pinned to a wall.
Honour and Fleming or gtfo. I worked in my Art History department's Slide Library in college, an institution that I am surprised to see still appears to exist. Professors would pull photographic slides (or send their TAs or grad students to do it, more likely) for upcoming lectures and students could (but generally didn't) come in to study for exams or do research for papers. It was really cool to see the different types of slide technology through the years, from thin glass sheets taped together at the edges to cardboard and eventually plastic windows. Mark Harden's Artchive had just gone online around then (also surprisingly extant), but the images available online were small and of pretty poor quality, if you could find what you needed at all. We would also, for some of the older professors, be required to buy along with our texts these little "boxed sets" of several dozen/hundred 5" x 7" reproductions, particularly for architectural history classes.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:23 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Honour and Fleming or gtfo. I worked in my Art History department's Slide Library in college, an institution that I am surprised to see still appears to exist. Professors would pull photographic slides (or send their TAs or grad students to do it, more likely) for upcoming lectures and students could (but generally didn't) come in to study for exams or do research for papers. It was really cool to see the different types of slide technology through the years, from thin glass sheets taped together at the edges to cardboard and eventually plastic windows. Mark Harden's Artchive had just gone online around then (also surprisingly extant), but the images available online were small and of pretty poor quality, if you could find what you needed at all. We would also, for some of the older professors, be required to buy along with our texts these little "boxed sets" of several dozen/hundred 5" x 7" reproductions, particularly for architectural history classes.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:23 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
I see your Banister Fletcher, and raise you a Spiro Kostof.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:40 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Rock Steady at 11:40 AM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Interesting that this topic has emerged again publically after more than a decade. Its cyclical.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- Wayne Gretsky
posted by cj_ at 9:05 PM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- Wayne Gretsky
posted by cj_ at 9:05 PM on March 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
To be honest, I wonder how much of this can be traced through the history of authoritarianism in the US (recent Vox article), assuming that ignorance/intellectualism are markers of authority.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:44 AM on March 9, 2016
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:44 AM on March 9, 2016
Texas’ war on reality: State’s next likely school board member believes Obama was a drug-addicted gay prostitute. Mary Lou Bruner thinks Marx invented climate change, and she's likely to sit on the Texas state school board
posted by homunculus at 2:25 PM on March 12, 2016
posted by homunculus at 2:25 PM on March 12, 2016
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