Rachael,

I found your most recent post quite interesting. It is, I think, a good-faith effort to address an issue that has long bedevilled our politics. I offer this reply in the same spirit.

For starters, you seem to believe that an intellectual is someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. (Thus your decision to treat "intellectual" and "elite" as synonyms.) Certainly there are intellectuals who believe this, though experience has taught me there are quite a few non-intellectuals who believe the same thing about themselves. More to the point, I think this imputation takes us away from the common usage of the word and introduces important confusions into the argument. Surely "intellectual," in everyday speech, simply describes a person with a passionate devotion to ideas--- someone who values them for their own sake and puts them at the center of his or her life. Now anyone who genuinely engages with ideas knows how resistant they are, how truly difficult it is to work through the logic of anything complex enough to be worth thinking about. Real intellectual effort should, and usually does, make for humility, not arrogance. Socrates was right: the more you know, the more impressed you are by all the things you don't know. It follows that those too "consumed by everyday concerns" to snuggle up with Principia Mathematica are not properly described as anti-intellectuals. They are simply people who have devoted their lives to other things. This doesn't make them hostile to ideas, any more than a classical pianist has to be hostile to baseball.

Why, then, is there suspicion on the part of so many--- a suspicion exploited by certain politicians, mainly on the right--- that "intellectuals" look down on them and constitute some kind of cultural fifth column? I think there are mainly two reasons. The first is the genuine differences between intellectuals and non-intellectuals in modes of life, in habits and behavior. Intellectuals spend a lot of time reading long, abstruse books, then sit around thinking about what they read. They may write about it, too. And they put a premium on discussion and debate--- on exposing their beliefs to the criticism of others. These are all things that non-intellectuals devote relatively less time to. In a country such as ours, where ethnic, racial, and religious diversity are so pervasive, these kinds of cultural signifiers are importantly connected with basic questions of identity.

The second consideration is this: many intellectuals see their form of life as largely optional in most cases--- as a matter of personal inclination or interest. Reading, argument, and reflection are great if they turn you on, but most of life can be gainfully navigated without them. It remains true, however, that in certain subjects these practices greatly enhance our ability to form reliable views. The sciences are the most obvious example, but many intellectuals would insist that politics belongs here as well. In other words, they would argue that getting our ideas right is an important part of getting our politics right. This doesn't mean that any intellectual, right now, has the right ideas, and it certainly doesn't mean that non-intellectuals lack worthwhile ideas. But it does mean that intellectuals are inclined to be sceptical of political notions that are obviously ingenuous or unconsidered. And this makes for a certain tension.

I've said that intellectuals are persons with a certain connection to ideas, and that most non-intellectuals are not anti-intellectuals. What, then, is anti-intellectualism? Well, given our definition above, an anti-intellectual is someone who explicitly rejects the value of ideas and critical thought--- someone who thinks a life built around these things is simply quixotic, absurd. Such persons will also reject the notion that getting ideas right is essential to getting other things right--- politics, for example. They will not emphasize, or even accept, the value of testing our beliefs against the opposing views of others. They will tend to think that beliefs are justified in other ways--- through instinct or intuition or insight, or through a steadfast confidence in a particular vision of the world. Faith, in other words--- whether ideological or religious.

It is this constellation of attitudes that Bush and Palin so obviously share. So, apparently, does a significant, if strictly delimited, number of their supporters. We know that Bush lives in a bubble of certitude, that he is impatient with argument and dissent, that he sees doubt as weakness and nuance as confusion. We know that his political life is as faith-based as his spiritual life. From every visible evidence, the same is true of Palin. This is why we are justified in describing them as "anti-intellectuals," and why so many people, intellectuals and non-intellectuals alike, are properly terrified at the prospect of another presidency infected by this delusion.

I'd give this TWO recommendations if it was possible.

Very elegantly and congently put.

I don't know if Malone is a woman, but I think I would pay for him/her to be a regular contributor to the XX Factor. Astonishingly well written post.

Anti-intellectualism is more than the belief that a life built around ideas and critical thought is quixotic or absurd or paralyzed by indecision. It is that such a life is dangerous to society because it causes people to doubt received opinions, reject traditional authority, and act in new and unaccustomed ways. Many people find that lack of certainty to be profoundly frightening, especially when times are troubled.

The Athenian democracy killed Socrates for corrupting the morals of the young after it had lost the Pelopennisian War and suffered a short lived but murderous regime of aristocratic Spartan collaborators. Both Alcibiades, who turned traitor, and Critias, head of the Thirty Tyrants, had been his pupils, and Plato rejected the democracy root and branch.

First of all..bravo!! Well said sir/ma'am.

And on the topic of whether intellectuals, or lets call them pro-thinking people are mean..

Sometimes, yes.

But please allow for the personal and societal frustration induced when a well thought out point, or even an obvious fact is greeted by anti- intellectuals, I'll call them anti-reasoners (yep I'm being a bit mean.) with responses like..

"Shut up, you F-ing commie!"

"Uh-uh!"

"Whatever! You're stupid!"

and of course the ever popular..

"But he's a muslim terrorist!"

I really can't speak for any other pro-thinkers...but it makes me want to run them over with a car for stealing my precious supply of oxygen to be wasted fueling their not-connected-to-a-brain vocal cords.

Great OP. Well written and well thought out.

Extremely well put.

>

This one sentence is worth more than the entire original discussion.

LMoE

I, too, would give the OP two recommendations if I could. Excellent, excellent post! Similar to a post I made in another thread, but much more articulate than I probably could ever be.

I don't know how Moira Redmond (in Fraywatch) came to the conclusion that those agreeing with you are mostly those who agree with you politically -- indeed, your only explicitly political statement is that you think Bush & Palin are anti-intellectuals, surely something a conservative OR liberal COULD think, so either MR did some advance research or is making an 'ass' out of herself and 'umption' -- but either way, I commend you. I think even those who disagree with you mildly or stridently would have to (if being intellectually honest) admit at least that you make a reasoned and well-thought-out case.

Like many have suggested -- is there any way we can get YOU writing for XXFactor? Or Slate? What you wrote far surpasses anything I've read by paid Slate authors in days, if not weeks.

First of all, I'd like to thank all of you who responded so favorably to this post. I'm very gratified that you found it interesting, and I appreciate all of the kind words.

Secondly, as the question was raised several times, let me confess that I am an XYer, not an XXer--- though I like to think that I am in close contact with my feminine side.

Thirdly, I'm very flattered that anyone would think I'm qualified to write for Slate. I love this site and many of the writers who post here--- Fred Kaplan, Dana Stevens, and John Dickerson being special favorites of mine. (And of the course the magisterial Michael Kinsley.) I can't hold a candle to these folks, BUT--- I'm always willing to entertain any offers that the Slate editors might want to make. (I won't hold my breath.)

To respond to a few points raised in your replies:

Jack Cerf: Your claim that anti-intellectuals are often motivated by a belief in the dangers of intellectuality is certainly correct. One imagines that this argument goes back at least as far as Aristophanes, who pilloried Socrates in "The Clouds," then finds its canonical expression in Burke's attacks on the philosophes. In our own time, Lionel Trilling's notion of the "adversary culture" has been put to just such a use by the cruder minds in the neoconservative cult. (A use Trilling would surely have deplored.) But I didn't think it appropriate to embed this idea in the definition of "anti-intellectual" because it isn't a universal feature of the tribe. While many anti-intellectuals endorse it, just as many (in my humble opinion) don't; their anti-intellectualism derives more from a sense of the sheer absurdity of intellectual life. They are more inclined to see it as impractical and irrelevant than dangerous. (As my former mother-in-law once put it to me, "Why would you spend your time doing that???") Because it's connection with anti-intellectualism is a contingent one, I thought it proper not to bless it with definitional status. As the logicians say, it's more denotative than connotative.

Hopefulcynic: I too was a bit surprised by Ms. Redmond's implication that my post was overtly political. I tried very hard to avoid this, but perhaps I didn't try hard enough.

And now..... back to The Fray!!!

The problem is that many "intellectuals" resond the same way to those blue collar people they hate. Take the immigration debate. There is a a lot of crime along the border and the people living with it were asking for help. The intellectual response was "you are a bigot" No they had a very real problem with crime and their safey was at stake. You dismissed them. Why should they trust or respect you?

question?:

The problem is that many "intellectuals" resond the same way to those blue collar people they hate. Take the immigration debate. There is a a lot of crime along the border and the people living with it were asking for help. The intellectual response was "you are a bigot" No they had a very real problem with crime and their safey was at stake. You dismissed them. Why should they trust or respect you?

What's up with the phrase "you" responded?

You have no idea how "I" responded to that.

But once again, the anti-intellectual tendency to "conflate" idea, or to "pigeonhole" people seems to rear its ugly head.

Intellectuals generally have fairly informed and reasoned opinions on things, we rather pride ourselves on looking at things from more than one point of view and weighing the evidence etc.

BUT OUR OPINIONS DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH EACH OTHER'S.

Trying to get any 6 "intellectuals" to agree on something is like herding three legged cats on ice. Generally any group of 6 intellectuals has 9 different opinions on almost anything.

About the immigration issue....my actual opinion was that they should much better arm local law enforcement..and do a damn thorough background check to make sure that the police officers were above reproach on the grounds of racism, drugs, and fraud.

yes there is crime along the border. Getting rid of undocumented residents won't change that, because most of that crime is associated with drug-running. Conflating the two is exactly what the anti-intellectual (and blue collar folks can be intellectuals) approach would be.

The Athenian democracy killed Socrates for corrupting the morals of the young....

And it should be noted that the last librarian of Alexandria Hypatia was murdered by a mob of fundamentalist Christians. It is ironic that modern science has revealed that Archimedes developed calculus fifteen hundred years before Newton and Leibniz. That evidence was found on paper that had been bleached in the 10th Century to allow for its "better use" as a Bible.

There is no dishonor in being a non-intellectual, but anti-intellectualism is a horrible thing. Those who would impose an orthodoxy on thought, particularly those who find such orthodoxy in supposedly divine ancient writings, are activists for ignorance. They should be scorned for the destructive influences they are. Human progress has been most often limited and restrained by only one human characteristic--self-righteous­, self-serving anti-intellectualism.

Let's call them what they are--Luddites.

YOU THINK intellectuals responded that way. It is YOUR projection on intellectuals that is bigotry.

If somebody, intellectual or not, dismissed the border problems by reducing it to a matter of prejudice they were they were, at the time, engaging in an anti-intellectual process which requires acquisition of facts and application of the human capacity of reason to it.

However, this is not to say that some of the immigration debate wasn't driven by unvarnished bigotry. You could hear it in the activists and politicians who defined America is bigoted ways.

I think you should give intellectuals a break. Idiots dismissing the issue as wholly bigotry should open their eyes to the facts. All of us should notice the bigotry that was present in the immigration debate. All of it distracts from a reasoned approach to a policy solution.

Policy shouldn't be determined by a tug-of-war between groups that engage in contests of mutual hate. Reason ought to guide.

By the way, you don't have to be white collar to be an intellectual.