What's with the right's crusade against intellectualism?
- Thread starter Jschmuck2
- Start date
people mistake elite for being an intellectual.
there's nothing wrong with being smart.
there might be something wrong with being so full of yourself and your own intelligence that you can't understand or empathize with the concerns of "normal" people.
there's nothing wrong with being smart.
there might be something wrong with being so full of yourself and your own intelligence that you can't understand or empathize with the concerns of "normal" people.
Acting like someone who's intelligent on TV doesn't actually make you intelligent.
Aside from my zinger, there are a lot of people who are not intelligent that think they are intelligent. People who think they are intelligent also think they should tell you how to run your life. If intelligent people just kept to themselves and had a big circle jerk at a MENSA club meeting or an Emmys afterparty, the right wouldn't care. But when someone who thinks they are intelligent like Clooney and Damon start patronizing people who can't act, they think they know what's best for society, that pisses off half the people in this country that disagree with them.
Originally posted by: Jschmuck2
Sure you don't want to meet me someplace for a drink? You can pick the place
I know what you look like. I don't want my ass beat. Literally and figuratively
Where do you get this generalization? I don't think I've ever heard any conservative say they were against being intelligent. Now when you act elitist that's where the rub is and it's that very attitude by people that aren't that intelligent to begin with that pisses people off.
I don't know many Republicans that aren't for "Intelligent Design" over Evolution.
That makes most Republicans against "intelligence", sorry.
Lemon law
Lifer
- Nov 6, 2005
- 20,984
- 3
- 0
While the OP is very vague about what he means by intellectualism, I tend to equate this with the GWB administration's war with science. And when the best scientific ideas conflict with GWB policy, we only see censorship and denial from GWB&co. That and the fact that politicians on both sides want to oversimplify complex ideas into a short sound byte slogan, we the American people collectively lose the truth.
That guy's not a famous liberal intellectual, he's some guy off in the middle of Colorado that the hysterical right jumped on to score political points. I don't list Ann Coulter as a famous conservative intellectual, so why label this guy as a famous liberal one?
How about Gore Vidal? Kurt Vonnegut? People like that. If you're letting small town university professors be the first thing that comes to your mind, you're just taking others' bait hook, line, and sinker.
Every response tends to be along the lines of, "We don't want any supposedly smart people telling us what to do." And yet every single politician with an "R" next to their name, will also tell you how smart they are, tell you what to do and how their ideas are what's best for this country.
As just one tiny example: the President's Faith Based Initiatives. Here's an entire governmental department devoted to taking our money and handing it over to churches so they can supposedly do good things in their communities with those funds. As if we can't or won't donate funds ourselves to the organizations that we feel do the most good in our community - no, instead President Bush is going to do it FOR US and TELL US which orgs to give that money to.
It's the ultimate hypocrisy.
As just one tiny example: the President's Faith Based Initiatives. Here's an entire governmental department devoted to taking our money and handing it over to churches so they can supposedly do good things in their communities with those funds. As if we can't or won't donate funds ourselves to the organizations that we feel do the most good in our community - no, instead President Bush is going to do it FOR US and TELL US which orgs to give that money to.
It's the ultimate hypocrisy.
Ah I see, all Democrats are dumb. Isn't that what the Republicans are always complaining about? "Oh, woe is us, the Democrats think we're all stupid. Poor us. Way to stereotype..."
Why? There has to be a logical reason. I bet it's that unbeknownst to they them don't like themselves and get pissed at the confirmation of seeming inferiority.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Smart people tend to become atheists and agnostics which goes against the word of Gawd, ya see? Then they start advocating things like children being taught to reason and think independently, they want to teach about evolution and birth control in the schools and they think abortion should be allowed and easily available.
They are not good God-fearing types, but heathen sinners and they must be eliminated from our society!
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
The perfect quote for this thread:
"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
- John Stuart Mill, 1866
"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
- John Stuart Mill, 1866
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
- 10,518
- 271
- 136
Well, it has been shown that righties have lower IQ's than lefties. That doesn't surprise most people, but at same time, I'm not sure it really represents reality.
Though, the uproar over being "elite" or "arrogant" is pretty intellectually stupid anyway; even if the president were an arrogant ass, it's a superior alternative to electing a complete dullard like Bush, simply because Bush is not perceived as "elite" due to personality (which is sort of false anyway since he's the very definition of silver-spoon ivy-league by upbringing).
Though, the uproar over being "elite" or "arrogant" is pretty intellectually stupid anyway; even if the president were an arrogant ass, it's a superior alternative to electing a complete dullard like Bush, simply because Bush is not perceived as "elite" due to personality (which is sort of false anyway since he's the very definition of silver-spoon ivy-league by upbringing).
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