[DMB]
Well, if we're talking about academic standards I'm not so sure that
"authority" is the right word. Charles Pierce, for example,
distinguished beliefs based on evidence from beliefs based on
authority and tenacity.
[Arlo]
True. Peirce's category of "authority" had to do with accepting
something someone says on no other basis that their authority status.
Most of us accept that the upper bounds of Jupiter's atmosphere
contains ammonia ice crystals not because we've experienced this or
done our own investigations, but because we accept this information
based on the authority of astrophysicists.
[DMB]
I mean, intellectual freedom and creativity does not happen in a
vacuum. Ignorance will kill creativity real fast. It's not a virtue.
But sometimes I get the impression that the code of art is invoked to
express anti-intellectual attitudes, to suggest that book learnin'
will spoil things. But actually it's about pushing the envelope. It's
about adding to the dialogue, opening up a new space.
[Arlo]
Yes, very true. There is no doubt a very strong anti-intellectual
current in America, and we are in the upswing of this pendulum at the
moment. Much of the current dialogue is actually an outright
championing of ignorance. And here there are some who see the
intellectual level as a veritable cancer infesting an otherwise
glorious MOQ, rather than as the MOQ's highest moral static level.
What you say above is what I meant by joining the historical dialogue
and placing oneself into that in a very particular place.
[DMB]
There is very strident anti-intellectual element in conservatism.
They tend to hate any kind of "expert", academic types most of all.
They feel, in fact, that most colleges and universities are radical
leftists institutions.
[Arlo]
This is a drum they've been beating at least since they tried to get
Pirsig fired for being a "radical professor". Its a sad, tired beat,
but don't expect it to ever end. But I am not entirely convinced its
all "anti-authority". Its a matter of "social authority" versus
"intellectual authority".
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