British anti-intellectualism

[pengaleng]

I can't, currently.

get a hobby then.

 

[krtek a houby]

What a wonderful refutation of liberal anti-intellectualism.

And you smell.

 

[pengaleng]

ohhhhhhh this puerile shit IS your hobby, my bad

 

[belboid]

It's taking a new form, now, with the rise of identity politics. On these boards, we have liberals criticising those who disagree with them for a percieved over-use of logic! The idea that logic (and facts) are trumped by identity.

Sorry, but 'logic' has been a defining of bourgeois politics for decades, it is a bedrock of neo-liberalism. Logic tells us absolutely nothing, and is often used to deny working class experience. Logic is wholly dependent upon it's assumptions, it is simply a study of the form of arguments, with nothing to say about those arguments themselves.

 

[krtek a houby]

ohhhhhhh this puerile shit IS your hobby, my bad

Intellectualism

 

[killer b]

Hauling the thread back on topic, I think 'anti-intellectualism' is at least in part an entirely understandable reaction to the likes of this:

 

[killer b]

seriously. who wouldn't be against this cunt?

 

[Pickman's model]

Hauling the thread back on topic, I think 'anti-intellectualism' is at least in part an entirely understandable reaction to the likes of this:

sadly though not a briton

 

[pengaleng]

I think it's a bit wrong to assume that cus people vote for someone they dont understand the world, thats just crap

 

[killer b]

No. But I just saw it on twitter and thought it pertinent to the thread in spirit if not in specifics. Replace the trump stuff with brexit if you like.

 

[killer b]

in fact, the context I saw it in was this tweet:

 

[pengaleng]

I think an over saturation of media is an influence, most people just dont have the time to wade through 20 or so articles offering different viewpoints which all have agendas and biases to make up their mind, everything changes daily whether thats sources or opinions so you just have no one on the same page

 

[stethoscope]

in fact, the context I saw it in was this tweet:

"unashamedly liberal and progressive LibDem." according to his twitter profile

 

[Fozzie Bear]

seriously. who wouldn't be against this cunt?

Intellectual snobbery vs anti-intellectualism is a self perpetuating circle, isn't it?

I've been accused of anti-intellectualism when confronted with posh twats who drop names like Badiou all over the shop. It's wrong though - the best thing to do is to engage and show why they are talking bollocks.

 

[pengaleng]

oh god this is like that australian prime minister that was left wing but hated immigrants and natives init

 

[Pickman's model]

seriously. who wouldn't be against this cunt?

tbh i think there is something to what he says. but while he describes some symptoms, what he doesn't describe is the cause, and among the causes is that a lot of people suffer from information overload, while having no knowledge or experience of means by which this can be alleviated: for example, by means of complex internet searches or various means by which the authenticity and reliability of information can be ascertained; when combined with the way that effective models for the understanding of society and science simply aren't taught in many schools, so people have scant framework to build understanding upon, this means that what they do know, from personal experience, is extrapolated from. this does not always end with the right answers being given: or perhaps it ends with the wrong questions being asked.

 

[belboid]

in fact, the context I saw it in was this tweet:

a quick google brings up an interesting list, it's almost entirely from right wing sources, or some liberals furious over brexit (which, you might say, is the same thing)

I dont buy the idea that there is a particularly long standing tradition of british anti-intellectualism. Working class autodidacts have a long history here, from George Bernard Shaw to to Lisa McKenzie. There is a long standing objection to being told what to do by our 'betters' (often Oxbridge educated) but that's a quite different thing.

 

[krtek a houby]

a quick google brings up an interesting list, it's almost entirely from right wing sources, or some liberals furious over brexit (which, you might say, is the same thing)

I dont buy the idea that there is a particularly long standing tradition of british anti-intellectualism. Working class autodidacts have a long history here, from George Bernard Shaw to to Lisa McKenzie. There is a long standing objection to being told what to do by our 'betters' (often Oxbridge educated) but that's a quite different thing.

GBS was Irish, though, IIRC

 

[pengaleng]

tbh i think there is something to what he says. but while he describes some symptoms, what he doesn't describe is the cause, and among the causes is that a lot of people suffer from information overload, while having no knowledge or experience of means by which this can be alleviated: for example, by means of complex internet searches or various means by which the authenticity and reliability of information can be ascertained; when combined with the way that effective models for the understanding of society and science simply aren't taught in many schools, so people have scant framework to build understanding upon, this means that what they do know, from personal experience, is extrapolated from. this does not always end with the right answers being given: or perhaps it ends with the wrong questions being asked.

there is no reliable 'truth' to anything anymore unless you search for it and unravel a shit load of lies

 

[Athos]

Logic is wholly dependent upon it's assumptions, it is simply a study of the form of arguments, with nothing to say about those arguments themselves.

Yeah, and a better form than 'I think x, and I'm right because I have y identity', if you're talking about the substance of arguments!

 

[belboid]

GBS was Irish, though, IIRC

Fair point, replace him with John Clare

 

[belboid]

Yeah, and a better form than 'I think x, and I'm right because I have y identity', if you're talking about the substance of arguments!

hmm, not really, if X is based upon their lived human experience. And, even if it is true, it gets you absolutely nowhere.

 

[Athos]

hmm, not really, if X is based upon their lived human experience. And, even if it is true, it gets you absolutely nowhere.

Yes, of course of it's based on experience (although that has it weaknesses e.g. the gambler's fallacy). But that's not what I'm criticising. Experience and identity aren't interchangeable.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

hmm, not really, if X is based upon their lived human experience. And, even if it is true, it gets you absolutely nowhere.

It depends on whether identity is claimed as some sort of unassailable authority? If it isn't then its assumptions can be challenged in the same way that the assumptions underpinning faulty logic can.

 

[pengaleng]

I think people claiming they are right in their opinions because they are xyz is a bit self aggrandising

 

[belboid]

It depends on whether identity is claimed as some sort of unassailable authority? If it isn't then its assumptions can be challenged in the same way that the assumptions underpinning faulty logic can.

for sure. If your told you have no rightg to disagree with someone because they are (say) black and you are white, it's obviously nonsense. But if they are telling you about how they experience things as a black person, and it is contradiction with how you experience things, or how you think they experience things, then there is a perfectly fair argument to be had.

 

[pengaleng]

yeah an argument about two peoples experiences not the entire population

for that you'd need data

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It all depends on who decides what is "intellectual" doesn't it? That's not just a glib point; people are criticised for being anti-intellectual not because they don't want to think, but because they reject certain modes of thought, e.g. the scientific method. These are not decided a priori. You can have things like theology, which are considered highly intellectual but are extremely limited in what they can address, because it has a history of being a practice of the intellectual classes; you can be called "anti-intellectual" in the Guardian for refusing to debate fascists, rejecting the approved wisdom that the practice of debate is always useful/productive.

 

[Athos]

for sure. If your told you have no rightg to disagree with someone because they are (say) black and you are white, it's obviously nonsense. But if they are telling you about how they experience things as a black person, and it is contradiction with how you experience things, or how you think they experience things, then there is a perfectly fair argument to be had.

Of course, but that's not the same as experience contradicting logic, as someone suggested earlier.

And they never come out and say you have no right to disagree; the MO is rather to insinuate that you're a bigot if you do disagree.

 

[bimble]

I think it's nowhere near as much of an issue here as it is in America. Partly because this country is a lot less religious than the US. Also maybe to do with how the successful businessman hasn't quite been elevated in public imagination to the same position as there.
Our word 'boffin' is still kind of affectionate anyway, unlike egghead nerd and geek (ignoring the recent trendiness of the last two).