Anti intellectualism

[MONKMAN]

I fear this is another USAian import. It was during the Bush II administration I first heard "intellectual" used as an insult. Then in 2008, when John McCain chose the cretin Sarah Palin as his running-mate, the Republican propaganda machine went into overdrive to convince people that intelligence was overrated.

 

The intelligence (or lack of) of American politicians, specifically Republican, is frightening. These people come across as complete simpletons, yet more often than not they’ve graduated from Harvard or some other Ivy League establishment.

 

[Shotgun]

4 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:

 

The intelligence (or lack of) of American politicians, specifically Republican, is frightening. These people come across as complete simpletons, yet more often than not they’ve graduated from Harvard or some other Ivy League establishment.

 

It works for them though. "Look, we're dumb b*****ds just like you. Vote for us and you won't have to deal with all those smarty-pants liberals making you feel inferior just because you're a moron."

[ICTChris]

Intellectuals are often complete idiots. Most of the truly disastrous events in society can be traced back to intellectuals and their ideas. The subprime mortgage crisis wasn’t thought up by stupid people. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t the result of some stupid rednecks. Yet if you’d asked my housewife granny if giving unemployed people huge loans was a good idea she’d have told you. If you’d asked an illiterate goat herder in Tikrit if invading and occupying Iraq was a good idea then he’d have told you.

Many of the highly intelligent and qualified people who brought you this stuff are still touting basically the same sort of ideas.

[Jacksgranda]

8 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Seems to be a growing thing.

There are an alarmingly high number of folk who believe utter shit. Worse is that many of those folk think they know better than highly qualified people who have spent years studying their subject.

Some utter morons on Facebook who can't even spell correctly believe that a pishy video they saw online is proof of their terrible nonsense despite the overwhelming overwhelming* evidence that says otherwise.

An ironic thing about these fools is that they all buy in to the same pish and use the same arguments (often word for word) and have the nerve to call others sheep. They're all so alike and are very predictable in their 'arguments'.

They seem to think they're actually more intelligent than most folk. This is probably the biggest appeal of such dickhead movements. They believe that they're in some sort of exclusive club that has managed to somehow figure out a huge conspiracy. 

They ignore masses of evidence against the shite they believe and latch on to a single point that they think proves their garbage but usually does not.

This silly bollocks used to be fairly harmless and was often some daft p***ks crying that the world is flat. However, it's now become dangerous with the anti vaccination scum and, lately, the anti mask morons.

Sadly anti intellectualism seems to be growing. 

Like historians?

[Melanius Mullarkey]

Personally I blame Larry Tessler here.
 

He invented CTRL+C CTRL+V, allowing graphs, statistics and pictures to be randomly inserted into paper thin arguments with no context or understanding of the data source, reliability of the analysis or the credence of the authors (or any declaration of interests) and then wildly extrapolating to try and explain an already, quite frankly, minter of preconceived  agenda.

Spoiler

On the plus side Larry made it much easier for me to do this.

#RIPLarry

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Melanius Mullarkey

[Jacksgranda]

7 hours ago, tamthebam said:

There were plenty of arseholes around before the internet. The Sun is 50 years old and the Daily Mail over a century for example. It's just instead of writing letters in green ink to newspapers people just go on twitter.

Sometimes a little learning is indeed a dangerous thing. Everyone knows about the Battle of Britain. Not everyone knows that "The Few" comprised of Polish and Czech pilots as well as British.

I think there were "Empire" pilots in there as well. And 1 Yank?

I thought that was fairly common knowledge.

[Szamo's_Ammo]

7 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Can't think of who got banned recently for Ralstonite to suddenly return and start posting patter on these threads

It would take a 'saint' to work out who it might be imo.

[Newbornbairn]

37 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

I think there were "Empire" pilots in there as well. And 1 Yank?

I thought that was fairly common knowledge.

It was the Yank that won it. I watched a documentary that showed him winning the Battle of Britain then popping over to Pearl Harbour to see off the Japanese.

[Guest JTS98]

There's a line between over-deference and anti-intellectualism.

The point about military 'experts' raised above is a good one. Many people in such environments share a common background and share biases etc. This can often lead to perceived wisdom just being based around established bias and other voices being shut out and diminished by those with power. Those raising legitimate objections can be accused of going against The Experts.

There's also misplaced public deference. An example of this is the current view of something that is 'peer-reviewed' as being some kind of sacred text because many people assume peer-review is a stamp of absolute integrity and authority. In reality, the peer review system is deeply flawed. There is no standard for what qualifies as peer reviewed so the editor of a journal can fire off a study he likes to a couple of folk he knows who he knows share his biases and will sign off on it. Often this 'review' amounts to little more than a flick through and a 'looks ok to me'. But then that study is given the magical status of 'PEER-REVIEWED'. Sometimes reviewers will read the thing carefully, sometimes they'll skim it, sometimes they'll just sign off. But the public defers to this process because we assume it gives legitimacy.

But there's then the Sarah Palin and Michael Gove-level stuff which is just writing off people who know better because the findings of those with actual expertise are inconvenient for you. The trick is knowing which is which, and that's not always easy.

[Jacksgranda]

35 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

It was the Yank that won it. I watched a documentary that showed him winning the Battle of Britain then popping over to Pearl Harbour to see off the Japanese.

And they were the only ones at D Day, of course.

[Ralstonite]

8 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

 

 

Please take your boring trolling shit elsewhere you bag of shite.

 

Sorry, pal! I was steaming last night, and it seemed funny at the time. I didn't mean to come across that way. Honestly some of what I wrote was sincere, like many a truthful word spoken in jest, etc. If it's any consolation I am going to have a sore head all day. 

Haven't logged into this place for ages, an aw. 

[Fullerene]

1 hour ago, NewBornBairn said:

It was the Yank that won it. I watched a documentary that showed him winning the Battle of Britain then popping over to Pearl Harbour to see off the Japanese.

I saw the same "documentary" starring Ben Affleck in that role.  Tora, Tora, Tora was better.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Intellectuals are often complete idiots. Most of the truly disastrous events in society can be traced back to intellectuals and their ideas. The subprime mortgage crisis wasn’t thought up by stupid people. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t the result of some stupid rednecks. Yet if you’d asked my housewife granny if giving unemployed people huge loans was a good idea she’d have told you. If you’d asked an illiterate goat herder in Tikrit if invading and occupying Iraq was a good idea then he’d have told you.

Many of the highly intelligent and qualified people who brought you this stuff are still touting basically the same sort of ideas.

I agree, the thing about all of this is its not ‘fed up of experts’ its the rise of the far right, people like Murdoch, Gove, Johnson etc deciding ‘which’ experts, or taking the ideas of moon unit thinkers and presenting them as some kind of ‘anti-establishment’ thinking. You’ve got to hand it to them though, they’ve played a blinder and the mouth breathers really think they will win out of things like brexit and austerity. 

[tongue_tied_danny]

1 hour ago, Jacksgranda said:

And they were the only ones at D Day, of course.

Nah mate, the Germans were there as well.

[Detournement]

53 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

I agree, the thing about all of this is its not ‘fed up of experts’ its the rise of the far right, people like Murdoch, Gove, Johnson etc deciding ‘which’ experts, or taking the ideas of moon unit thinkers and presenting them as some kind of ‘anti-establishment’ thinking. You’ve got to hand it to them though, they’ve played a blinder and the mouth breathers really think they will win out of things like brexit and austerity. 

I don't think the vast majority of people who voted Brexit actually expect anything tangible though. In their own way they realise that they get none of the benefits from growth so they might as well get a libidinal buzz from politically trolling the people who piss them off most. 

[BFTD]

3 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Intellectuals are often complete idiots. Most of the truly disastrous events in society can be traced back to intellectuals and their ideas. The subprime mortgage crisis wasn’t thought up by stupid people. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t the result of some stupid rednecks. Yet if you’d asked my housewife granny if giving unemployed people huge loans was a good idea she’d have told you. If you’d asked an illiterate goat herder in Tikrit if invading and occupying Iraq was a good idea then he’d have told you.

Many of the highly intelligent and qualified people who brought you this stuff are still touting basically the same sort of ideas.

The people behind those events got what they wanted though, didn't they?

I didn't get the impression that anything went wrong with either of those things.

[Detournement]

Experts just generally don't seem so convincing as they used to. 60 years ago intellectuals wore Tweed and knew Latin. They gave off the impression of having put in the intellectual labour to deserve gravitas. 

Now we have Jason Leitch who looks like the kind of guy who would pass out in a pub on a shite stag do. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Detournement

[Detournement]

8 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

The people behind those events got what they wanted though, didn't they?

I didn't get the impression that anything went wrong with either of those things.

The people who pulled the levers of power did. But you never see them in public. 

The politicians and media people who sold it to the public lost their credibility.

[vikingTON]

3 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Intellectuals are often complete idiots. Most of the truly disastrous events in society can be traced back to intellectuals and their ideas. The subprime mortgage crisis wasn’t thought up by stupid people. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t the result of some stupid rednecks. Yet if you’d asked my housewife granny if giving unemployed people huge loans was a good idea she’d have told you. If you’d asked an illiterate goat herder in Tikrit if invading and occupying Iraq was a good idea then he’d have told you.

Many of the highly intelligent and qualified people who brought you this stuff are still touting basically the same sort of ideas.

The bankers in the financial services sector who created sub-prime mortgages weren't 'intellectuals' by any credible definition of the term. 

[Detournement]

Just now, virginton said:

The bankers in the financial services sector who created sub-prime mortgages weren't 'intellectuals' by any credible definition of the term. 

There are plenty of Physics, Computing Science and Math PhDs working for big banks. 

Obviously not intellectuals in the traditional sense but definitely experts.