Are Americans hostile toward knowledge?

Touche.

But you're also proving the point of this thread: why is "knowledge" such a negative for most people? I don't understand why some people would rather choose to be ignorant of the rest of the world, just because they're "not interested".

 

I look at this alleged loss of intelligence as another by-product of our loss of collectiveness. And it's not all bad to be honest.

The example cited about 1930s education is a good point. Back then it was pretty rigid, you learned the Greek classics, you learned about good-government history (as in ... whatever popular culture deemed was acceptable and nothing else), you learned math to the point of trig, you learned what we would consider basic science. Only you hammered all of those basics home in detail that isn't done now.

Why? Because our curriculum has widened, we've accepted truths that were taboo in the 30s, we've accepted that history is more than just battle dates and what good government tells us, that history is about the stories of minorities and that there's two or more sides to every part of history, not just how popular culture drives it.

We accept things like psychology, advanced science, women's studies, sexual studies, computer science, etc., that weren't considered relevant or didn't exist in the 30s. We've also tapped out learning about esoteric Greek or Roman verse that has little relevance to today. Literature and the arts have widened to a scope unheard of during my grandparents' generation.

In a way I agree with Pallister, even if I wish more people had intellectual curiosities as I do to learn about, oh, the Balkans or something. The fall of collectivism makes education, like a lot of other things, all things to all people.

Yes, you might be fucked if you go more than a block away from your house without an in-car navigator, but you might also know the intracacies of getting some ridiculous-ass Trojan virus off your computer. Who's to say either version of intelligence is more important than the other?

I know which one I feel is more important to understanding the world, but then, I'm a snobbish asshole.

 

more than slight
a PHd is also less about what you know and more about how you think

 

This is from an email a friend sent to me this past week. She went to go see Huckabee speak- not as a supporter, but out of curiosity.

"He's made me pretty curious about intellect in a President. Also, wondering about limited world experience. I mean he was hilarious and charming, but I'm not sure that he's really all that well-educated. I'm not sure if that makes me snob or not because I feel like he can't be president because he's a bit of a bumpkin."

I reassured her that she's not a snob and that the President should be both educated and informed. I suppressed my desire to say WTF?!

 

This is an interesting discussion and I already know I'm not smart enough to add anything to it. Just that I find it depressing that intelligent people (by any measure of intelligence, it seems) are viewed with skepticism and that Charlie Pierce touched on it a couple years back.

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0207GREETINGS

 

I think hostility toward knowledge is too broad. I don't think people nowadays are hostile toward knowledge as much as they are hostile toward the time it takes to become really knowledgeable about something and appreciate its long-term significance (and not just it's short term impact). We want everything we need to know compacted into short, simple, easy to understand soundbytes that (seemingly) don't require a lot of time to think about and consider.

We don't want an explanation about how cutting taxes will either reduce the services that government can provide or rack up a debt that will cost even more to pay off down the road. We greatly prefer the simple statement that tax cuts mean we save money right now. We don't want to consider the merits or demerits of the stances politicians take on foreign policy, we just want to know if they're hard or soft on terrorists. We don't care how well-informed political candidates are on the issues of the world, we just want them to sound warm and likeable.

 

I don't view intelligence with skepticism, but I am skeptical of those who think themselves intelligent based on their narrowly-defined definition of the term. To put it less intelligently, I'd rather be called an asshole than an intellectual.

 

Well, you've defined the problem, then.

 

See, there's the problem right there. If you can't get punctuation right in a sentence...

 

Oh Pall, don't worry.

You're both.

 

That is proper punctuation according to SportsJournalists.com style, dammit!

 

No, Zeke, I consider myself pretty intelligent, but I don't consider myself so intelligent that I look down upon people who don't fit into the "intellectual" view of intelligence. As I explained earlier, there are many people who don't fit that definition, or conform to the standard of "intellectual curiosity," but are very intelligent in their own right.

And I just find people who use words like "metatextual" stunningly pompous.

EDIT: Thanks, BYH, I figured I'd already haven't gotten three or four "You're an asshole" responses.