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5 Responses to “I am an Intellectual and Proud of it.”

1. eclark1849 says:

   November 21, 2004 at 1:56 pm

   Truthfully, Kath? There’s nothing wrong with being an intellectual. I think what some people tend to do though is to become snobbish about it. People in general tend to hold elitists in disdain.

   It’s kind of like the girl you use to know in high school who just knew she was wonderful and something was wrong with you if you could see how wonderful she was.

2. Elayne Riggs says:

   November 22, 2004 at 9:33 am

   I think the problem arises whenever academic types start acting ivory-tower superior towards folks without as much book-larnin’. I see an awful lot of that even in the blogosphere, people talking about how those who don’t hold (for instance) the same political views that they do are “stupid.” Lack of civility only breeds more lack of civility. I get a kick out of thought, but I don’t lord it over other people who get a kick out of, for instance, action.

3. Bill Mulligan says:

   November 22, 2004 at 3:21 pm

   Part of the problem is that the word is sometimes used to describe a person who is well educated but not particularly smart–sort of like the difference between someone who is FUNNY and someone who can just repeat every sketch ever performed on Saturday Night Live.

   The anti-intellectual bias I see most often is among certain social groups. It’s far more acceptable for African-American females to get good grades than it is for males. Among whites it seems to be pretty much tied to social position–I’ve had a few kids talk about how their desire to go to college (Which would make them the first in their family to do so) has led to some family members saying that they are “taking on airs”, an expression I’d never heard before. My father was a manager at IBM and my mother is a college economics professor so there was never anyquestion about going to college–I can’t fathom the mindset of parents who are afraid of their children surpassing them. It’s my fondest wish.

4. Tom Galloway says:

   November 22, 2004 at 7:53 pm

   Heck, I could never understand as a kid why it was OK to brag about physical accomplishments such as hitting a baseball or throwing a football well or winning a race, but not OK to brag about reading a lot or scoring well on a test or the like.

   I think one reason “intellectuals” are slammed though is the tendancy of such to think that because they are an expert in X, they think this automatically carries over to unrelated fields Y and Z. Me, I try to be what I might call a “situational elitist”. I try to know what I actually am good and bad at; if you’re looking for comic book trivia, yeah, I’m dámņ good at it. But if you’re looking for political analysis of early 20th century Russia or auto repair, I’m aware that I’m not good or knowledgable about either, and gladly defer to experts in those fields. I don’t assume that because I’m an expert in certain areas (some much more “intellectual” than comic book trivia) that it automatically carries over to other areas.

5. Bill Mulligan says:

   November 22, 2004 at 9:08 pm

   Great point, Tom.