Anti Intellectualism is Killing America

POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Monday, July 13, 2026 01:26
VIEWED: 26774
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1KIKI

Sunday, August 2, 2015 3:49 AM

"A very common idea. Try typing it and riting it by hand."

About as difficult as Polish

easier than Russian

far easier than Mandarin.

Completely doable.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Sunday, August 2, 2015 5:37 AM

And yet, there IS an aggregate response. That response is different from the aggregate response of other countries and peoples. Are you saying that the intellect can't make sense of aggregate phenomena? Are you saying that discussing aggregate phenomena is beyond rational reach?

And I have to say - there you are, AS USUAL, engaging in your anti-intellectual propaganda. Refusing to discuss the topic. Turning every discussion into an ad hominem attack. Making claims for which you provide no evidence, or reason.

You are the poster child for that article.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

JO753

Sunday, August 2, 2015 7:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by G:

It's anti-intellectualism to think of a nation of 300 million as a single entity with a single agenda or personality or purpose.
It's anti-inellectualism to take that obvious puff piece seriously.

No. This iz you not understanding wut the word meanz and applying it shot gun style to everything you disagree with.

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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

JO753

Sunday, August 2, 2015 7:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
And yet, there IS an aggregate response. That response is different from the aggregate response of other countries and peoples.

The danjer uv democrasy iz that dummyz outnumber smartyz, therefor we rely on apathy and ignorans to avoid calamity.

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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

1KIKI

Sunday, August 2, 2015 9:05 AM

You mean the US is on the path of avoiding calamity due to its abundant ignorance and apathy - while our overlord corporations tend to our future with their wisdom?! Surely you jest.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

JO753

Sunday, August 2, 2015 4:29 PM

Surely you misinterpret.

We got to see wut happenz wen men uv only averaj intellijens get to run the show. (Bush Jr)

Certainly you can argue that its kuz he had no real talent for the job, but then you need to consider wut woud happen if sumwun with that talent but below averaj intellijens coud end up doing. The money grabbing portion uv our society alwayz takes advantaj uv the gubmint and idiots in office make it eazy for them.

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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

SECOND

Sunday, August 2, 2015 7:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by G:

You/the article take only certain bits of behavior from a handful of 300 million people and from that paste together a single Frankenstein monster and hold it up and say it shows the purpose and intentions of the 300 million, all which amazingly "proves" your held negative beliefs. Gee, what are the odds? Do you not see that the writer uses this ploy to attract readers such as yourself and Magons, and uses you just to sell ads? Are you not intelligent enough to realize that everyone can make their own Frankenstein in the same way, with their own slant, choosing their own parts and say it equally or even better represents the 300 million? Why does such an obvious and simple concept seem to be beyond your intellect?

Here is a short piece about a very specific example of American anti-intellectualism. I did not run an opinion survey of all 321,362,789 Americans alive this Sunday morning, but all Texans I asked (5) are wrong about the facts, yet will not change their minds.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/inflation-paranoia-as-a-tr
ibal-marker/
Inflation Paranoia as a Tribal Marker

Derp — views that just keep being repeated in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence — has always been with us, but the derp quotient has really soared since the crisis of 2008, which made nonsense of doctrines too dearly held to be reconsidered. This is especially true of inflation derp: has any prominent figure who warned of runaway inflation from the Fed’s efforts admitted having learned anything from being wrong year after year?

It seems increasingly clear to me that what we’re looking at here has nothing to do with intellectual discourse as we normally understand it. It is, instead, about tribal identities: there’s a certain kind of person who rails against policies that debase the dollar, and that kind of person admires others who do the same no matter how wrong their predictions and disastrous their financial advice. As I said in a brief note on Ron Paul, it’s a form of Madoff-style affinity fraud, even if the perpetrator of the scam believes his own derp. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/the-old-man-and-the-cpi/

As you might guess, I’ve received some mail from Ron Paul admirers deeply angered by the suggestion that they are not engaged in deep intellectual argument. By and large the mail reads like this:

Dear shmak, Paul Krugman!
Stop insulting Ron Paul!
You are low level Socialist/Liberal who should be jailed for Life
your insulting writing style.
Ron Paul is Real Man with Capital M
and you are nobody!

But the thing is, it’s not just the libertarians who do this sort of thing. Awesomely, Richard Fisher, now retiring as president of the Dallas Fed, is apparently regarded as an intellectual giant — he “rose to the status of being a deity in Texas” — despite a track record of being wrong again and again. www.newrepublic.com/article/118870/five-times-richard-fisher-has-wrong
ly-warned-inflation-2011

A brief aside: the WSJ engages in a fairly common practice when describing inflationistas, namely that of whitewashing what they have actually spent year after year warning against. No, Fisher didn’t warn against “frothy financial markets”. He warned against inflation — inflation that kept not happening. www.wsj.com/articles/dallas-fed-struggles-to-fill-fishers-big-shoes-14
38281953?mg=id-wsj

Why all the respect for what would ordinarily be considered a record of repeated bad judgment coupled with a lamentable unwillingness to learn from experience? The answer, surely, is that within the conservative tribe issuing dire warnings against inflation is considered virtuous whether or not they are right; it’s a way of showing that you’re their kind of guy, that you belong to the tribe.

Of course, saying things like that means that I should be jailed for life.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Sunday, August 2, 2015 8:55 PM

JO753

Quote:
The danjer uv democrasy iz that dummyz outnumber smartyz, therefor we rely on apathy and ignorans to avoid calamity.-JO

You mean the US is on the path of avoiding calamity due to its abundant ignorance and apathy - while our overlord corporations tend to our future with their wisdom?! Surely you jest.-KIKI

Surely you misinterpret.We got to see wut happenz wen men uv only averaj intellijens get to run the show. (Bush Jr)- JO

You've made two critical errors.

Your first error is in thinking that Bush Jr was running the show. GWB was a sock puppet, Cheney was the hand. The nation was being run by Cheney. Cabinet members say that Bush often appeared glazed, dazed, and confused during Cabinet-level discussions, and would only emerge with a "decision" after he's disappeared behind closed doors with Cheney. That's why Bush Jr refused to appear before the 9-11 Commission unless Cheney could hold his hand.

Do you recall who selected Cheney as the VP candidate? Cheney was put in charge of the selection committee. After an exhaustive search, he found the only person who was really qualified was- himself! It was Cheney who haunted the Old Executive Building in the run-up to the Iraq destruction, pressing the analysts for ANY evidence of Saddam's WMD, and "stove-piping" (sending it directly) to Bush without further analysis. Cheney was the one who vetted the appointment of Rumsfeld (a middle east neocon) and Rumsfeld was the one who brought other neconons into the Bush admin. In total, the important in the Bush admin were Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, and Paul Bremer. NOT brought in by Bush.

Your second mistake is that you think that Clinton and Obama administrations are any better than the Bush administration. Yes, Bush was in office when the financial system collapsed.

But it was CLINTON who signed many of the bills that made the collapse of the financial system possible.

Why do you suppose that your hard-earned bank account was at risk in 2008? Those deposits were at one time required by law to be invested (by the bank) ONLY in "safe" investments. Suddenly, regulators found out that banks had poured their cash deposits into mortgage tranches and Credit Default Swaps (CDSs). That's because Clinton signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act, which had previously separated your hard-earned bank deposits from those kinds of risky investments.

Why do you suppose so many jobs fled to Mexico and Haiti? That's because Clinton pushed for - and got- the "free trade" agreements of NAFTA and CAFTA. That "giant sucking sound" of jobs that Ross Perot predicted?? It happened.

Why do you suppose that Enron occurred, and that Credit Default Swaps played such a large role in the financial collapse of 2008? That's because Clinton signed the Commodity Futures Trading Act, which "modernized" futures trading to legalize those risky investing practices.

Why do you suppose that gays had such a hard time getting the right to marry? That's because Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

Why do you suppose that Microsoft and Apple have been able to establish and maintain near-monopolies in their respective areas? That's because Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which virtually eliminated the "fair use" provisions formerly granted to hardcopy content.

I could go on and on about what Clinton did that was awful. I voted for him once- but not more than that.

OBAMA IS NO BETTER. Obama is pushing for MORE "free trade" acts ... TPP (trans-Pacific) and TTIP (trans-Atlantic). While Bush has Iraq and Afghanistan notched in his belt, Obama has Libya, Ukraine, and Syria. The surveillance that Bush started? It used to include a few million people under Bush, now - under Obama- it's virtually everyone. The bank bailout that Bush started? Doubled-down ... by Obama. Obamacare? A big w

SIGNYM

Sunday, August 2, 2015 9:23 PM

Quote:
It's anti-intellectualism to think of a nation of 300 million as a single entity with a single agenda or personality or purpose. It's anti-inellectualism to take that obvious puff piece seriously- GSTRING

I refuse to take YOU seriously. Nobody is saying that "all" Americans are anti-intellectual. However, when confronted with a serious problem, there IS an aggregate response: Does the nation as a whole address the problem and move to solve it in a realistic way?

Quote:
It's pretty basic: it shows a lack of intelligence to not question that article. It's anti-intelligent to not see through it's purpose and go with it's weak premise. I am definitely saying you and others here have shown you are not up to understanding "aggregate phenomena."

No, YOU are the one who doesn't understand aggregate phenomena. There are aggregate phenomena, and what it consists of is what a nation chooses to do in response to a problem.

So, what was our aggregate response to 9-11?

To pass an authorization bill which allowed Bush to militarily engage anyone, anywhere. To authorize widespread constitutional breaches. To invade Afghanistan and then Iraq. To spend a trillion dollars to destroy a WMD threat that didn't exist. "Because terrorism". THAT was our "aggregate" response, despite the fact that individuals disagreed with it. That's what "aggregate" means.

I DID question the article. I questioned the definition of the word "anti-intellectualism". I questioned the specific examples. I questioned whether or not America was specifically subject to the phenomena, or whether it was pretty worldwide.

Now, I'm questioning you.

Quote:
You/the article take only certain bits of behavior from a handful of 300 million people and from that paste together a single Frankenstein monster and hold it up and say it shows the purpose and intentions of the 300 million, all which amazingly "proves" your held negative beliefs.

Polls show that the majority of Republicans don't think evolution occurred, and don't think that global warming is happening. It's more than "just a handful". If people were UNIFORMLY thoughtful and engaged, we would not have the clusterfuck that we currently have. If we were more often than not thoughtful and engaged, we would be seriously talking about how to solve our problems, not plugging our ears and going "Nyah nyah nyah! I can't hear you!". You seem pretty intent on telling us that everything is A-OK, because you can't stand to admit that the USA has any problems whatsoever. But if it makes you feel any better, it's not just the USA. IMHO, it's a worldwide phenomenon.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

JO753

Monday, August 3, 2015 4:49 AM

Sig.

I wuz trying to avoid a long post, so simplified my point down to Bush Jr.

Thingz are way the hell more complicated than just a particular guy, administration, or time period. If you want to learn how thingz got so unfair, Les Leopold'z The Looting uv America iz a good start. But really, it goez back all the way.

Still,you know way more detail about the resent events than I do, so thanks, good stuff.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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