Post by Eugene 2.0 on May 2, 2021 18:05:38 GMT
Why to think that anti-intellectualism is some kind of a plague? Vice versa, it's a panacea for many troubles.
My argument is both transparent and strong, here it is: a) people have descended from trilobites, so why to worry about anything? b) even if the Sun blows and the stars fall after a time the world has been appeared again, and everything will be repeating.
And here's a piece of an article. (You can read it fully by the link below.)
...Senator Joseph R. McCarthy in 1947 prosecuted a panic-driven anti-intellectualism against left-wingers associated with the USSR and communism. The Red Scare was a tactic and ideology pursued by McCarthy for some five years, attempting to expose communists and other ‘left-wing loyalty risks’ within the US government. During the Cold War, any perceived disloyalty was reason enough bring the charge of treason against those perceived as ‘Reds.’ McCarthy whipped up a kind of national hysteria that led to attacks on university professors on members of the armed forces and even those holding government positions. The defining feature of McCarthyism—so-called second Red Scarce (1947–1956)—was the practice of making accusations against individuals or groups emphasizing treason, sedition or subversion without evidence.
Anti-intellectualism was at the heart of McCarthyism with its orchestrated attacks on scholars, intellectuals and writers where attacks took on an evangelical fervor that posed a popular crusader and exhorter and coincided with the religious revival of fundamentalism in the South that expected an unquestioning patriotism. Anti-intellectual fundamentalism held hands with McCathyism to pare back the forces of progressivism in American politics. The Right wing as Hofstadter, (2012) noted exhibited ‘a categorical folkish dislike of the educated classes and of anything respectable, established, pedigreed, or cultivated.’
Hofstadter’s (2012, p. 37) Anti-intellectualism in American Life records the tensions between access to education and excellence in education. Hofstadter argued that anti-intellectualism was a consequence of the democratization of knowledge. American anti-intellectualism was a result of a certain utilitarianism and the cult of the practical or self-made man.
There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. Filled with obscure and ill-directed grievances and frustrations, with elaborate hallucinations about secrets and conspiracies, groups of malcontents have found scapegoats at various times in Masons or abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, or Jews, Negroes or immigrants, the liquor interests or the international bankers. In the succession of scapegoats chosen by the followers of this tradition of Know-Nothingism, the intelligentsia have at last in our time found a place.
The 1950s was a crucible for the American intellectual, then came the 1960s and the flowering of the ‘organic intellectual’ (a concept adopted from Gramsci) and a range of social movements that promoted social change and democratization that led to free-speech, Civil Rights, and anti-war movements. These movements were often associated with intellectuals such as Herbert Marcuse and the so-called New Left. Indeed, Marcuse is a perfect example: a member of the Frankfurt School, he migrated to the US in 1934 and became a citizen in 1940. Through his works he attained a kind guru status in the 1960s student rebellions that took place around the world as part of the emerging counter-culture. His One-Dimensional Man (1964) that focused on the rise of social repression and the decline of the potential for revolution inspired a generation of students. His search for the radical or revolutionary subject was influenced strongly by Heidegger’s phenomenology and he thought only a radical subject could overcome the repressive structures of advanced industrial society. In Marcuse’s (2004) edited papers The New Left and the 1960s (vol. 3) Douglas Kellner explains ‘Marcuse embodied many of the defining political impulses of the New Left in his thought and politics - hence a younger generation of political activists looked up to him for theoretical and political guidance.’ Marcuse’s paper ‘On the New Left’ was an influential formation. Kellner (2004) explains the distinctive of Marcuse’s analysis and, in part, why he was adopted as the darling of the student movement worldwide:
For Marcuse, the New Left at its best united spontaneity with organization, combining strong anti-authoritarian and liberatory tendencies with the development of new forms of political struggle and organization. The New Left sought to join change of consciousness with the change of society, the personal with socio-political liberation. The New Left, in Marcuse’s view, provided important emphases on the subjective conditions of radical social change and sought new and more humane values, institutions, and ways of life. It embodied the best features of previous socialist and anarchist traditions that it concretized in social struggles such as the antiwar, feminist, ecological communal, and countercultural movements. For Marcuse, it was the demand for total change that distinguished the New Left and its championing of freedom, social justice, and democracy in every sphere of life (p. 2).1
Much earlier, Harry S. Broudy a prominent philosopher of education wrote an article called ‘An Analysis of anti-intellectualism’ published in Educational Theory.2 In 1954, he wrote: ‘Today the heresy is Communism, actual or suspected; tomorrow it may be Socialism or Economic Royalism; too few wives [Ed. really!] or too many; too many gods or too few. Of this alone we can be sure: so long as pot shots at the intellectual pay political dividends, we shall lack neither suitable heresies nor zealous accusers.’ He goes on to argue: ‘Intellectualism is not a theory or a philosophy in itself; it is rather a degree of emphasis placed on the powers of the human intellect to achieve truth and happiness’ (p. 187) Dewey is the counterpoint to the rationalist philosophers, Plato, Descartes, and Spinoza. In rejecting the search for certainty associated with rationalism and prioritizing action over thought, Dewey might be deemed ‘anti-intellectual’ yet for his faith in human intelligence. Broudy’s concern is for a philosophy of education that can deal with intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. There have been expressed concerns about anti-intellectualism as a social condition and also within the disciplines.
The Source
My argument is both transparent and strong, here it is: a) people have descended from trilobites, so why to worry about anything? b) even if the Sun blows and the stars fall after a time the world has been appeared again, and everything will be repeating.
And here's a piece of an article. (You can read it fully by the link below.)
...Senator Joseph R. McCarthy in 1947 prosecuted a panic-driven anti-intellectualism against left-wingers associated with the USSR and communism. The Red Scare was a tactic and ideology pursued by McCarthy for some five years, attempting to expose communists and other ‘left-wing loyalty risks’ within the US government. During the Cold War, any perceived disloyalty was reason enough bring the charge of treason against those perceived as ‘Reds.’ McCarthy whipped up a kind of national hysteria that led to attacks on university professors on members of the armed forces and even those holding government positions. The defining feature of McCarthyism—so-called second Red Scarce (1947–1956)—was the practice of making accusations against individuals or groups emphasizing treason, sedition or subversion without evidence.
Anti-intellectualism was at the heart of McCarthyism with its orchestrated attacks on scholars, intellectuals and writers where attacks took on an evangelical fervor that posed a popular crusader and exhorter and coincided with the religious revival of fundamentalism in the South that expected an unquestioning patriotism. Anti-intellectual fundamentalism held hands with McCathyism to pare back the forces of progressivism in American politics. The Right wing as Hofstadter, (2012) noted exhibited ‘a categorical folkish dislike of the educated classes and of anything respectable, established, pedigreed, or cultivated.’
Hofstadter’s (2012, p. 37) Anti-intellectualism in American Life records the tensions between access to education and excellence in education. Hofstadter argued that anti-intellectualism was a consequence of the democratization of knowledge. American anti-intellectualism was a result of a certain utilitarianism and the cult of the practical or self-made man.
There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. Filled with obscure and ill-directed grievances and frustrations, with elaborate hallucinations about secrets and conspiracies, groups of malcontents have found scapegoats at various times in Masons or abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, or Jews, Negroes or immigrants, the liquor interests or the international bankers. In the succession of scapegoats chosen by the followers of this tradition of Know-Nothingism, the intelligentsia have at last in our time found a place.
The 1950s was a crucible for the American intellectual, then came the 1960s and the flowering of the ‘organic intellectual’ (a concept adopted from Gramsci) and a range of social movements that promoted social change and democratization that led to free-speech, Civil Rights, and anti-war movements. These movements were often associated with intellectuals such as Herbert Marcuse and the so-called New Left. Indeed, Marcuse is a perfect example: a member of the Frankfurt School, he migrated to the US in 1934 and became a citizen in 1940. Through his works he attained a kind guru status in the 1960s student rebellions that took place around the world as part of the emerging counter-culture. His One-Dimensional Man (1964) that focused on the rise of social repression and the decline of the potential for revolution inspired a generation of students. His search for the radical or revolutionary subject was influenced strongly by Heidegger’s phenomenology and he thought only a radical subject could overcome the repressive structures of advanced industrial society. In Marcuse’s (2004) edited papers The New Left and the 1960s (vol. 3) Douglas Kellner explains ‘Marcuse embodied many of the defining political impulses of the New Left in his thought and politics - hence a younger generation of political activists looked up to him for theoretical and political guidance.’ Marcuse’s paper ‘On the New Left’ was an influential formation. Kellner (2004) explains the distinctive of Marcuse’s analysis and, in part, why he was adopted as the darling of the student movement worldwide:
For Marcuse, the New Left at its best united spontaneity with organization, combining strong anti-authoritarian and liberatory tendencies with the development of new forms of political struggle and organization. The New Left sought to join change of consciousness with the change of society, the personal with socio-political liberation. The New Left, in Marcuse’s view, provided important emphases on the subjective conditions of radical social change and sought new and more humane values, institutions, and ways of life. It embodied the best features of previous socialist and anarchist traditions that it concretized in social struggles such as the antiwar, feminist, ecological communal, and countercultural movements. For Marcuse, it was the demand for total change that distinguished the New Left and its championing of freedom, social justice, and democracy in every sphere of life (p. 2).1
Much earlier, Harry S. Broudy a prominent philosopher of education wrote an article called ‘An Analysis of anti-intellectualism’ published in Educational Theory.2 In 1954, he wrote: ‘Today the heresy is Communism, actual or suspected; tomorrow it may be Socialism or Economic Royalism; too few wives [Ed. really!] or too many; too many gods or too few. Of this alone we can be sure: so long as pot shots at the intellectual pay political dividends, we shall lack neither suitable heresies nor zealous accusers.’ He goes on to argue: ‘Intellectualism is not a theory or a philosophy in itself; it is rather a degree of emphasis placed on the powers of the human intellect to achieve truth and happiness’ (p. 187) Dewey is the counterpoint to the rationalist philosophers, Plato, Descartes, and Spinoza. In rejecting the search for certainty associated with rationalism and prioritizing action over thought, Dewey might be deemed ‘anti-intellectual’ yet for his faith in human intelligence. Broudy’s concern is for a philosophy of education that can deal with intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. There have been expressed concerns about anti-intellectualism as a social condition and also within the disciplines.
The Source
