Solving The Problem of Anti-Intellectualism

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Worse natural disasters and so many people don't even want to look at climate change and how its affecting us and the wildlife. Like the other week me and my boyfriend went to this wildlife lake area to check it out. We parked in the parking lot and were happy to see some ravens hanging about. well than this other vehicle pulled in and the whole parking area was open like tons of parking and the deliberately pulled in right where a group of ravens were scaring them off. Then after that they started down the trail with some of them making loud squaking noises and shrieks...seemed like a group of adults so not sure where all the child-like squaking came from. I suppose just one of their party just being super obnoxious. Like me and my boyfriend deliberately tried avoiding these noisy people to enjoy our walk. But yeah just so disrespectful trying to piratically run ravens down than jsut screaming and shrieking as if no one else in the park may have wanted to enjoy some of the wildlife before these inconsiderate people scared it away.

I mean I like to see people enjoying nature areas, but being super loud and obnoxious and even threatening towards the wildlife is not what I have in mind. I almost wanted to yell at them to be more considerate, but I didn't want any fall-out conflict. But seriously I was feeling like 'goddamnit why wont you as*holes respect nature?'

Its not that upper class intellectuals are bad people its just that they live in a bubble and dismiss the problems of the working class.

Bill Gates is a billionaire so is more mindful of how different his life is.

Someone like Richard Dawkins isn't super rich but has lived in a bubble where no one in his family or social circle has lived in a high crime area or been priced out of buying a home because of immigration etc.

I'm not sure there is an anti-intellectual zeitgeist. There is an anti-Left wing, anti-globalist zeitgeist, but that is a different thing.

No, intellectual also goes hand in hand with that. How many times I've been accused of being an 'intellectual' by the right tells me they are very much anti-knowledge. Invariably when their argument collapses under the sheer weight of logic they turn to taunts about brain power, like we're back in grade school, and like intelligence is a bad thing. When the right stops using 'intellectual' as a pejorative term, then I'll believe they aren't anti-intellectual, until then no, they're just knuckle draggers that don't understand half the crap going on in this world and their only response isn't the appropriate one (learning about it), it's to complain like a bunch of malcontents.

The right controls the U.K., U.S., Russia, all of central Europe (aside from Germany), most of Southeast Asia, half of South America, and all you guys can do is complain even though you have all the power. It's not so much a movement as a collection of complainers, wasters, and other anti-social elements. You have to be anti-intellectual for that happen because if you had even a minor response to logic and reason, you'd see how illogical and unreasonable that method is for producing results.

Your condescension towards "Average Joe" is the problem.

People aren't going to listen if you talk down to them.

Well, ok. Are Right-wing intellectuals treated the same way?

I've never met one. I've met several that can speak in jargon, but their intellectual abilities are limited to that, logic and reason (the important parts of intellect), tend to be tossed out the window. Jargon has the ability to make one 'sound' intelligent, but actual logic and reasoning ability are the true markers of intelligence. I'm not saying all right-wing 'intellectuals' are charlatans, just the vast majority now are. As for how they're treated by the right in general, as an abused housewife, that's how, and in fact here in the States most of them turned independent from 2006-2016-- when the Tea Party wanted it's purge most of the right leaning intellectuals gladly walked away, those that stayed may have intelligence, but not enough intelligence to walk away from a group that despises them, so how intelligent are they really?

I think you can have people who are center-right that are highly intelligent and argue in good faith but they're also the kinds of people who distance themselves as fast as possible from the extremes and they have more in common with the right kind of free-thinking center-left.

Most high quality free-thinkers are a rarity no matter where they are on the political spectrum. Rags, tabloid, and garbage seem to just cater to peoples biases and anti-intellectualism seems to follow whichever side starts getting more popular.

Did chuckle, thanks. You're probably right about the Republicans and the Tea Party, I can't speak to them. I fear we are spoiled in the UK with the likes of Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) and Douglas Murray. If you ever want to test your wits, start an argument with Peter on twitter.

I am anti-intellectual.

Like, George Carlin, "Ah! He's full of s**t".

My life experiences show me that most people are wrong, incompetent, or speak in generalities that are only generally truthful.

Like, "Global Warming", when I looked it at, I found out they don't publish their data, rather they publish statistical models of the data, what the actual measurement data is -- is unknown, not verifiable. The statistical methodology is unknowable to the lay person as well, so, as George Carlin would say, "Ah! They're full of s**t".

I mostly don't trust anyone, or anything they say. Most likely, I assume what they say is wrong.

Yeah, I'm probably more antagonistic towards you than I should be, I keep forgetting you're a different flavor of right than what we've had in the states the last decade. I guess what would be more appropriate, and accurate, is I did know intellectual right wingers, a decade ago, they all claim they're right leaning independents now. I can't find a one that claims they're right, Republican, or even conservative, they've all taken to the phrase 'right leaning', and a lot of that is because while they may agree in certain bedrock conservative principles, they're not gun-ho on elevating opinion to the levels of fact/evidence, and are not too keen on strongman hero worship.

You're absolutely right.

Right-wing intellectuals exist, but there are still many right-wingers who use the phrase "book learnin'" as a pejorative. There are also many Christian fundamentalists who seriously believe that non-Christians worship the Devil and seriously believe that Jesus spoke English. Even right-wingers should be concerned about that brand of extreme willful stupidity.

Also, cults are still very common in the modern West. Anti-intellectualism is the soil in which cults grow.

Well, I don't trust you when you say this.

Some people say "I don't trust anyone." but nobody actually means that. Nobody can handle that amount of nihilism.

I can't speak for why LoveNotHate doesn't trust people, that's her issue and hers alone, all I can say is I relate to it and here's why: I had a sh***y childhood, full of abuse, both physical and sexual, and to be honest I don't think a person can grow to adulthood under those circumstances without distrusting other humans to a certain degree. Unlike lessons in school the lessons I learned left scars, both physical and mental, thus it's etched into my psyche to distrust humans, more than book learning ever could be. I do great with animals though, they all love me even the predators. Let me put it this way, I've never been mauled by a bear, pounced on by a mountain lion, or bitten by a snake (all the dangerous animals in my area that I was taught to fear as a child), but I've been beaten repeatedly by a human twice my size, raped, sodomized, and completely shut down when I appealed for justice. So close your eyes for a second and really try and imagine that experience and then ask yourself, under those circumstances, who would you trust less: the 'dangerous' animals that have never actually hurt you or the humans and their groups that have repeatedly terrorized you? Complete distrust in other people isn't a form of elementary intellectual nihilism (which I still maintain is impossible because a belief in nothing is still a belief), rather it's learned behavior from human interaction, and in my experience a survival technique.