‘Intellectuals’ (Thomas Sowell)

Jewish World Review ^ | November 11, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending "the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life."

He cited Adlai Stevenson, the suave and debonair governor of Illinois, who twice ran for president against Eisenhower in the 1950s, as an example of an intellectual in politics.

Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are "interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity," people who "read the classics."

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture.

Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson "could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book." But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance.

What is more telling, form was enough to impress the intellectuals, not only then but even now, years after the facts have been revealed, though apparently not to Mr. Kristof.

That is one of many reasons why intellectuals are not taken as seriously by others as they take themselves.

[Texas Eagle]

Funny how the media jumps at the chance to paint Sarah Palin as a dunce when some "anonymous" source says she didn't know that Africa is a continent but then we have direct video evidence of Barack Obama stating that there are 57 states in the U.S. and he is portrayed as one of the smartest people who ever trod the earth.

And then theres Biden's comments about how FDR went on national television in response the the great stock market crash of 1929.

[Old Professer]

Some tails are just too long to be ignored.

[Old Professer]

Pogo meets Hoffer at the wharf...

The quiet observer can awaken the sleeping mind.

[JrsyJack]

Intellectuals are not held accountable to their results, it's their intentions that matter.

Examples: Millions of Africans have needlessly died of Malaria since DDT was banned as a mosquito control. Tens of thousands of Americans have been killed in automobile accidents as a result of Congress' imposed CAFE mileage standards which forced automakers to produce less protective, lighweight vehicles.

[TigersEye]

See? I was right. Intellectuals don’t actually exist.

[jazusamo]

You’re correct. The story about Sarah Palin has been debunked but there’s no way the comments of the two geniuses can be, as you say it’s on video. It doesn’t even give pause to the RAT pols and pundits though.

Biden has been making those blunders for years but you’d think the Dem pres nominee would be a little smarter. Sadly it made no difference, the RATS prevailed and the majority bought it.

[george76]

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/11/military_air_rescue_110708w/

[PhilDragoo]

Adlai Stevenson could talk through his nose pretty good, but Ike won World War II.

Kennedy was such a fine intellectual he convinced Nikita Khruschev he could get away with all sorts of mischief.

Now comes the new Camelot, Scamelot, and Hussein's such a brainiac all his records are sealed.

He won the Pak-Smack Chair at Columbia, got to Harvard on the Al-Mansour/Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Scholarship, was a star in shoveling other peoples' money into radical black holes--and still had time to insult Clarence Thomas as not intelligent enough.

This guy's a poseur--didn't write his own book, can't write his own speeches, obviously can't set his alarm clock to get to Senate hearings.

His idea of the Great Books are a shelf on Malcolm X, a Cone, Das Kapital, the Koran and a PDR.

Hussein does have a narcissus complex creating a Zone of Submission around his person which has now expanded to several thousand miles.

Jesse Jackson once described Bill Clinton as having no principles, that at his core there was nothing but an appetite.

And Michelle grew up in Jesse's house, and would know an appetite when she sees one.

Behold, in the spirit of those products of Ayers' Acme Radical Factory comes the rough beast slouching toward Washington so unlettered he cannot locate the certificate of his birth but must have facsimiles forged weekly to satisfy growing curiosity.

He is no mechanic of intellect, only an operator putting three shells into play, palming the pea.

History and mythology abound with cures for such hubris, melted wings, an eternal boulder, a hook in a Roman square.

Change is not a policy--unless you are a Marxist-jihadist with a lethal race hatred, and a puppet of the enemies of the nation.

[listenhillary]

This one is a keeper. Print copies of this one and leave it where the intellectuals will find it. Reading it will infuriate them.

[epow]

Excellent column by Dr. Sowell, the man who should have been our first Afro American president instead of the pseudo-intellectual lightweight who will be. I believe the great majority of the voters who elected Obama along with what appears to be a filibuster proof Senate will be sorry that they did by this time next year, but by then the damage will have been done. And believe me there will be damage aplenty.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I may not be all that smart, but I’m smart enough to know that anything Dr. Sowell has to say, you can take to the bank! :)

B. Hussein Obama is going to fail and fail miserably, no matter how hard the MSM tries to prop him up.

[Ramius]

Doctor Sowell nails it yet again:

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable— or even expert— within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.

I work in a Ph.D.-rich environment at my company. I observe this groupthink every day. They are no doubt brilliant people and they are world-class experts in their chosen fields. But they can be some of the dumbest most helpless fools outside of their narrow field.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I found that core, and I still find it lacking. It is pretty much the standard, and rather dated. It’s strength is in fact its standardization, not its brilliance.

My cynicism comes from some top academics who shared with me principals not taught, or not widely taught in the US, such as qualitative philosophy, history and religion, and military history. For only through this do you see the context, errors and intellectual failings that haunt our society to this day in this prized curriculum.

This is why there is such conformity in the neosocs, from Rousseau to Emerson, to George Fitzhugh, Al Gore and Dave Foreman. This is why they endlessly try to force their failed beliefs on everyone else, and why we have Obama as our president.

It is also where you see the foundations of classical philosophy in Abraham Lincoln, and the other people who have stood against the neosoc philosophy.

Do not confuse this standardized curriculum with western civilization. It is just one side of civilization, and one that has always failed where tried, yet continues to crank out new adherents. From that perspective, it is almost anti-intellectual, an exercise in the insanity of endlessly repeating a task that you know will fail.

[PapaBear3625]

A better term, I think coined by Sowell, is “the chattering class” — people who are more impressed by someone being articulate than by his actually having good ideas. They are more impressed by people who are skilled in getting in a cutting phrase, than by somebody who actually gets useful things done.

[PapaBear3625]

Thomas Sowell should be required reading.

I have most of his books. The man is brilliant. I recommend "Conquest and Cultures" and "The Vision of the Anointed".

[AmericanVictory]

When Hayek was in America the last time before he passed on, at an appearance in Washington, he was asked afterward what he thought America’s biggest problem was. His answer was one word: “intellectuals.”

[RipSawyer]

Ha, maybe you should have and learned him something. :)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

U cain’t lern peepel lak at dare nuthin, thay ain’t a wantin tuh lern nuthin, thay thank thay awl reddy no everthang. Hit ain’t all them thangs a man dawn’t no thit makes him stoopid hit’s all them thangs he nos dam well what ain’t so, dawn’t ye see.

[epow]

Yeah, because if President Teleprompter isn’t an ‘intellectual’ i don’t know what is.

In my 71 years on this planet I have found that many of those people who try to impress others with their intellectual prowess only impress me with the amount of unjustified pride that they have in their doubtful status as intellectuals. Real intellectuals can usually be recognized without them having to ostentatiously show off their superior intellect, it just shows naturally.

[RipSawyer]

And thus, the attraction of socialism and other paper enterprises to academia. On paper, it appears comprehensible and logical;
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Only because it is obscured by “intellectual” language, when stripped to its core and expressed in no nonsense terms a third grader will instantly reject socialism and see exactly why it cannot work.
But then I must remember that I have my own special problem, all my life it has seemed that the things that are supposed to be very complex often seem as simple as one, two, three to me while other things that are supposed to be simple and self-evident quite often leave me baffled.

[MrB]

It doesn’t matter what a demonstrably dumbass Buttock 0bama is -

the left will still tout him as a genius, just because he’s a leftist.

The further left, the more intelligent, according to their “thought” patterns.