• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Anti-Intellectualism

Status
Not open for further replies.

basik

Member
"education is a poor substitute for intelligence"

I see alot of college educated useful idiots. Grammar and spelling does not indicate intelligence.
 

kumanoki

Member
basik said:
Grammar and spelling does not indicate intelligence.

Grammar and spelling are your smile and handshake on the internet. First impressions are extremely important in any social setting. I agree, grammar and spelling (as well as proper verb tense) do not indicate intelligence, but they certainly do make a lasting impression.

Tell me you don't see people who type shit like this:

OMG lyke I wuz sooo crzy mad at that boi LOLZ

...and don't immediately think, 'middle school'.

Just like when I see people with poor spelling, especially when I see 'definately', and I think 'high school'. First impressions are important.
 
basik said:
I'm brilliant..I'd say I'm a genius...but I really hate girls who get near me hoping to have lots of "intelligent conversation". I really dont care about sitting around debating or philosophizing. I'd rather be having sex, watching movies, or playing videogames where I kill anything that moves. So I guess you can say I am a 'anti-intellectual'.

Or a shut-in.
 

whytemyke

Honorary Canadian.
basik said:
I see alot of college educated useful idiots. Grammar and spelling does not indicate intelligence.

I often see this argument perpetuated by people who either never go to college or did poorly at college. I mean, to denegrate an entire educational process, and to minimize to simply grammar lessons is pretty horrible.

Let me put it this way... I see a whole lot more intelligent people with college degrees than I see intelligent people without them, at least in my own generation. While I agree that a good portion of college students think that they can merely procure a degree and pass themselves off as competent, the majority (at least here, as I can't speak for schools everywhere) understand that there's more than just a piece of paper to the mark of competency. The degree, the undergrad degree that is, is simply an indicator of possible intelligence, and really just helps weed people out in a business community.

The graduate degree, however, I believe is more of an accent to intelligence, than the definition of it.
 

basik

Member
Hey you can tell yourselves you're smart all you want. I know who I can manipulate easily and who I cant. Mr smarty pants with the college degree or mr street thug hustler who runs the streets?
 
basik said:
Hey you can tell yourselves you're smart all you want. I know who I can manipulate easily and who I cant. Mr smarty pants with the college degree or mr street thug hustler who runs the streets?

What about Mr Street thug college degree smarty pants hustler?!
 

fart

Savant
iapetus said:
Because you're not surrounded by girls who want your "intelligent conversation"?

:D
ooh, but
page 1 said:
need for intelligent conversation?
YOU GOT BEAT, BRIT

anyways, i have as much of a preoccupation with the street prophet, the insightful ne'er do well, as anyone else. on one level i think it's a cultural thing, very holden caulfield, and in that sense i think it's almost innocently idiomatic, not necessarily negative. like anything, it's when the incidentals of human society, in this case cultural artifacts and mythology, are used to manipulate the masses for the gain of the few that we should really be bothered, and in that sense we should generalize it not as anti-intellectualism but as a kind of weaponized play on cultural preconceptions to underhandedly refute some specific reasonable claims.
 
djtiesto said:
Like, the Terri Schiavo case - you had your rationals/pragmatists (the neurosurgeons who studied her brain), and your typical pro-lifers against each other.

Funny story.

I was in a motorcycle accident a few years ago. I broke bones in my foot and ankle. First doctor to see me said my foot had to go. 2nd said the same, so did the 3rd. I told em all to fuck off. Then the last one recommended surgery and I still have my foot today.

I suppose I should have been "rational" and let them amputate a perfectly good foot because some doctor said so.
 

Azih

Member
Oh that's all true, getting a 2nd, 3d, 4th and even 5th opinion is the smart thing to do. It's just that if you get to a thirteenth opinion saying the same thing then you really gotta give it up.
 

Musashi Wins!

FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
Hofstadter described three pillars of anti-intellectualism -- evangelical religion, practical-minded business, and the populist political style.

That rings true to me, and all 3 are extremely strong forces even now.

I think you could add the peculiar worship of youth that pervades our culture as well.


The problem is the modern coward, the intellectual afraid to believe. I just wished the people could elect someone with a sense of life and also a brain.

Me too.
 
etoliate said:
Clinton also had an anti-intellectualism charm to him. His 'every guy' sort of persona worked well.

True, true; to most everyone, he's "the guy that got head off the oval office and got away with it" rather than the Rhodes Scholar, (but it got him elected to governorship and the presidency twice each, didn't it?).


Kaijima said:
People tend to mock that which they're unsettled by or afraid of, because it gives them a sense of power over that thing. Which might be its own form of elitism - they're seeking to place themselves above it, to make a distinction of "kind" in which their kind is inherently better.

Yeah, parts of this article itself felt like rallying cries for the intellectural crowd against the anti-intellectualist movement.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom