In both the quite dated book I recently read by philosopher Eric Hoffer and the recent US history book by Jill Lepore, intellectual is used as a pejorative term. How do you feel about the term? Do you see scholarly folk as being detached from reality?

I don't know about the older book but I have certainly noticed a very dangerous ant-intellectual trend in the last few years. Typical is a remark by (now) UK Government Minister Micheal Gove (a man who is an expert in nothing and therefore believes he is qualified to speak on anything) during the whole Brexit fiasco who said on TV “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

Nowadays Governments have - in my opinion, deliberately - created a climate where people are taught to mistrust experts. The pandemic shows why it's so dangerous. Who do you trust to have a valid opinion? Someone who has spent many years training in his field, studied and understood everything that had gone before and makes carefully considered pronouncements on his subject? Or, a random guy on the internet or (when we could still go to pubs) a drunk pontificating in a bar?

The trouble is the words "intellectual" and "expert" have been deliberately devalued to a point where half the population believe that everyone's opinion is equally valid, that the guy in the bar is just as qualified to talk about everything as the the guy who has made it his life's work.

I usually try to counter these arguments with "if your car breaks down, who will you ask to fix it - me or a mechanic?" and "if you want a haircut who will you go to the bloke next door who doesn't know a pair of scissors from pint of lager or a barber". But logic does no good in this kind of argument.

So, yes, "intellectual" now - for many people - caries a pejorative overtone and this is deliberate, dangerous and very unlikely to change.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I still think of intellectual as meaning someone who is intelligent - or as Dictionary.com says, "a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level."

But I see your point, Bob.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I still think of intellectual as meaning someone who is intelligent - or as Dictionary.com says, "a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level."

But I see your point, Bob.

Ah yes, but the people who see it as an insult would claim that you and I are just members of the so called "intellectual elite" who think they are better than everyone else just because they are more "intelligent". Remember these are people who think ignorance and stupidity are virtues.

Yes, that is definitely a perception by many on the right here in the U.S. too. I just don't concur with that view.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Yes, that is definitely a perception by many on the right here in the U.S. too. I just don't concur with that view.

Interesting. I don't see it as a right/left thing. Oddly, in the UK, the traditional parties of the working classes are left wing - shown by the fact that the main left wing party is the "Labour party".

The anti-intellectual tendency seems to be across parties in the Uk. I still thing this has been a deliberate strategy by Governments of both sides. An electorate that will buy uncritically into everything you say and vote strictly along partisan lines is what politicians crave.

As if to prove my point...

A FB group from my home town just had a meme posted that read "Remember just because you went to college doesn't mean you are smarter than anyone else. Common sense doesn't come with a degree."
It met with uniform approval from the people who commented.

I did feel like posting a sarcastic reply "Just because you studied your subject as an undergraduate for four years, as a post-graduate for one year, two years for a masters' degree and then worked for ten years as a professional doesn't mean that you know more about it than the drunk in the corner of the bar."

But I didn't want to get into an argument.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I wish you would have! It is disappointing how college now is being berated.

Perhaps they're using the term inapproriately. Maybe theorist vs pragmatist might better suffice?

Anybody here know how to contact Jill Lepore and ask her? She's on the NYT staff, and some of you have subscriptions. I can't do it because I have no subscription and I have about 2% Neanderthal DNA, so all I can do is grunt.

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Originally posted by Geoff:
Perhaps they're using the term inappropriately. Maybe theorist vs pragmatist might better suffice?

I still think this is a deliberate ploy. If, as a Government, you can undermine people's trust in experts then you can claim anything you like is true and if an expert says "no it isn't" you can say "well you're just some kind of 'intellectual' what do you know about anything?"

It gives you carte blanche for whatever crackpot policy you have whether its fiscal, educational, militaristic or whatever. If you have managed to convince the public that "intellectual" is a dirty wordy word then they won't trust the experts who contradict you. YOU don't need no STINKIN' INTELLECTUAL. You just need COMMON SENSE. The same common sense that tells you that if underpants don't stop a fart then masks don't stop a virus. The same common sense that says the sun revolves around the Earth. The same common sense that says Granddad smoked forty a day for seventy years and he NEVER got cancer or asks how there can be global warming if it's snowing outside. Half an hour reading internet comments on any topic will show you what "common sense" really is.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

quote:

Half an hour reading internet comments on any topic will show you what "common sense" really is.

As the saying goes, common sense is the least common kind.