Ron (xacto) said to all:
When I do an internet search on anti intellectualism a whole host of topics
comes to the fore front. Topics like : anti intellectualism is taking over the
U.S. and anti intellectualism in Christianity are the top subjects of my
search. Anti intellectualism in education seemed to me to be the most troubling
hit on the list. [...] Is anti intellectualism considered in modern America as
a traditional American value, as “American” as apple pie and Mom?
dmb says:
If Pirsig is right (and I think he is), then anti-intellectualism is not just a
traditional value but more like a defense of traditional values in general.
Anti-intellectualism is hostile to intellectual values because they are seen as
a threat to traditional values. It goes way back to the colonial period and
beyond but anti-intellectualism became especially aggressive with the advent of
Darwinism, Nietzsche's announcement of the death of God and the collapse of
Victorian social conformity after World War One. This is what gave rise to
fascism, fundamentalism, and other reactionary movements, all of which are
essentially anti-intellectual and exhibit a muscular re-assertion of
traditional values, an aggressive insistence on the priority of social level
values.
The most common forms of anti-intellectualism around here and in public seem to
be based in religion or political ideology or both. I think John has a theistic
agenda and that's one of the central motives for his anti-intellectualism. He'd
like to alter the MOQ's levels and moral codes to accommodate his religion,
basically. And so it suits his purposes to portray the intellect as the problem
and the enemy. For him, it is the enemy. It is a problem and so this unholy
thing has to be destroyed or knocked down to some status below his religion. He
wants to smuggle his God into the MOQ and thinks his anti-intellectualism
clears the path for that operation.
"In his undergraduate days Phaedrus had given James very short shrift because
of the title of one of his [psychology] books: The Varieties of Religious
Experience. James was supposed to be a scientist, but what kind of scientist
would pick a title like that? With what instruments was James going to measure
these varieties of religious experience? How wold he empirically verify his
data? It smelled more like some Victorian religious propagandist trying to
smuggle God into the laboratory data. They used to do that to try to counteract
Darwin. Phaedrus had read early 19th century chemistry texts telling how the
exact combination of hydrogen and oxygen to produce water told of the wonderous
workings of the mind of God. This looked like more of the same." (LILA, chapter
26.)
"He wanted particularly to see how much actual evidence there was for the
statement that James' whole purpose was to 'unite science and religion.' That
claim had turned him against James years ago, and he didn't like it any better
now. When you start out with an axe like that to grind, it's almost guaranteed
that you will conclude with something false. The statement seemed more like
some philosophological simplification written by someone with a weak
understanding of what philosophy is for. To put philosophy in the service of
any social organization or any dogma is immoral. It's a lower form of evolution
trying to devour a higher one." (LILA, chapter 29.)
Ron asked some pointed questions:
...How does one make an intellectual appeal when the skill set has been bred
out? How does one make a rhetorically convincing case when the author himself
has failed to drive the point home?
dmb says:
I don't think it's fair to blame Pirsig. I think it would even be a little bit
obnoxious if he drove the point home any harder. The problem is that
anti-intellectuals don't really care about intellectual standards and so you
can put a mountain of textual evidence right in front of their eyes but it
simply carries no weight. We saw this very recently in John's attitude toward
the research data Arlo presented. He simply dismissed it all as some guy's
opinion. This is stance toward the MOQ's key terms, it's static hierarchy, and
toward textual evidence from Pirsig's books. He doesn't really care what Pirsig
or anyone else is saying, apparently. And how can we reason with people who
don't care about reasons? You can't. They're simply refusing to play the game,
like the guy who brings his tennis racket to the chess club and thinks he's won
by knock over all the kings with it. Sure, he's having fun but all the chess
players just think he's just an asshole who doesn't belong anywhere near a
chess club.
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org/md/archives.html
