The Academic Left Thinks We're Stupid

There’s an irony surrounding the academic discipline of anthropology, at least in its contemporary form: it’s a subject devoted to the study of man, yet it is profoundly misanthropic. In recent years, anthropologists (and sociologists) have learned to caricature every human impulse (even – or rather, especially – the benevolent and charitable) as imperialist, paternalist, or worse. Efforts to curtail female genital mutilation, for example, are cast as colonialist, as is Doctors Without Borders, an organization that has done much to improve the lives of the downtrodden.

It has been instructive, therefore, to observe the Academic Left’s response to President Obama and the Democratic Congress’ efforts to expand healthcare access. While it has generally supported the laudable attempts to insure all Americans, certain scribes have still managed to convey their contempt for the American people. It almost makes one wonder why they profess such compassion for people that they clearly despise.

"Essig does not even bother to hide her contempt for those who would benefit – ya know, Americans."

Their contempt is for anyone who would dare disagree with them. Were in the power of the modern American left, particularly the strangely vicious and malevolent academic left we would be the new Kampuchea. They manifest a totalitarian impulse (in the guise of altruism, egalitarianism and beneficence) that's genuinely scary.

This is an absolutely fascinating article, albeit very short.

The Left’s contempt for ignorance and stupidity is, of course, narrowly focused. Surely those who seek to benefit from “Obama’s stash” don’t fall in the same category of ignorant rube as the Fox News watchers.

The Left is misanthropic for the same reason that any political activist is misanthropic. “The people have spoken, the bastards.” Those on the right are a bit more sanguine about these things, preferring to persuade rather than to abandon popular governance altogether. The Left has had almost a century of unpopular ideas and so they are far more invested in tricking or circumventing the people.

As to the author’s lament of academia, I am amused that he takes the social sciences (and humanities) seriously. They have become a joke and exist almost solely for the purpose of providing easy majors for lazy and dim students to get a university degree. Most of these courses are, at best, little more than a tuition-funded book club.

As far as the faculty, if they ever had any genuine passion or interest in the subject, it is likely lost. Why have a dispassionate study of humanity when you can shape it? Of course, insulting potential allies and voters is not exactly the most successful strategy (see Carnegie, Dale) but she is not exactly an expert in politics. Her reasoning that the populace should be clamoring for national health care after the flu pandemic rather than drawing the conclusion that government is ill-equipped even for a narrow task rather than taking over all of health care but she is not exactly an expert in logic.

I see the author’s observations as a kind of awakening. A liberal being mugged, as it were. As an conservative, I have substantial issues with the humanities, social sciences and politicized sciences because of their overwhelming one-sided bias. As an academic, I am troubled by the humanities, social sciences and soft sciences because of their intellectual lightness and susceptibility to manipulation via politics or other means.

Many people ARE too stupid to make decisions about their lives. Half the population is under average intelligence.
Look at NO before, during, and after Katrina. A large number of people sat around waiting for someone else to do something, and made no personal plans for survival at all. A lot of people may be too broke to buy food, but they can afford tattoos.
I’ll sum the intelligence level of much of the population in one word: Detroit.

Weather one is stupid or smart depends on where one lays their head at night...

I'd like someone to do this experiment: Take one real smart leftist professor and one good old red neck country boy.

Give them each a box of waterproof matches, some rope, some string and a good old knife.

Drop them both in the middle of a wilderness area and see who come's out alive and who dies within a week.

I think the stupid one will be the leftist professor.

Since the professor doesn't smoke, he'd throw away the matches, rope would be useless as he doesn't even know how to make a knot, couldn't use the string to make a snare for food, and if he did see a rabbit, wouldn't know how to kill it to eat so the knife would also be useless...

That old professor is a dead end dummy..

Does this make sense to anyone or am I just spitting into the wind..

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