Wednesday, June 29, 2016

On Anti-Intellectualism

Here is a short piece written by Dr. Alex Berezow The comments section is also worth reading.

My thoughts after reading his offering:

Dr. Berezow has been closeted in his own little world for too long. While I believe that his opinions are sincerely held, they are extremely shallow and are propped up by nothing more than the rhetoric of his ilk.

I too am a writer, a teacher, and a scientist, engaged in thoughts and ideas. My profession requires me to think outside of the box, to examine and reexamine, and to question everything. However, because my practice and the powers of my mind engage the real world, I am simply called a "nurse" rather than an "intellectual". As such, along with millions of other high functioning Americans, he feels I am not qualified to challenge his belief system. Imagine that. Where have we heard this trope before?

Anyone who says that "the science is settled" is not an intellectual, or a scientist, or a thinker. Is science EVER settled? No. New discoveries beget new questions, always.

While the definition of "intellectual" includes teachers and writers, I scoff at his assumption that it also includes journalists, and hence, himself. He may hang his hat on the intellectual peg as a teacher, but as a writer he is ordinary at best. He presents nothing but a tired regurgitation of the constant propaganda and indoctrination championed by the media and leftist social engineers. It's difficult to take someone seriously who writes at an eighth grade level and presents no original content.

The worst part is that he claims, and is seen to be by many on the left, a "conservative" libertarian. I offer this article as evidence that the "elites" on the left and the right have converged to the point of being unidentifiable in their smuggy smugness.

Men like Berezow bask in glow of their programmed brains, blissfully unaware of their own ordinariness, while the rest of us roll our eyes and pray that they all just...go away.  Pull their government funding, and we'll see who rises to the top, and where the science "settles".



4 comments:

  1. I noticed this comment:

    "No serious scientist questions anthropogenic climate change is an excellent example of anti intellectualism because any literate individual that has read disagreeing views knows there is much evidence to the contrary. The problem is when warmist decide they have to use Atty. Gen. and a gov. gun to try to intimidate and shut up those they disagree with as opposed to having a debate .

    -1 | Reply - Share "

    It was at -2 before I uprooted it to -1. Speaking the truth is a negative thing to do.

    I think when I was in the hospital waiting for my procedure in February I was looking at an issue of Psychology Today. I think it was a letter to the editor that said one of the signs about the lack of mental health of conservatives was their tendency to doubt the concept of man-made climate change.

    These people are not intellectuals,they are self-appointed gas bags who promote themselves and fellow travellers. As PT Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minutes. Berezow's problem is that they are now seeing the problems caused by people such as Berezow and are beginning to realize that the are not as stupid as they have been lead to believe.

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  2. it is far easier to attack the integrity of the messenger rather than the content of the message

    I don't actually disagree with him on this point - which is why the "experts" are losing so much credibility. When the response to hoi polloi questioning their "betters" (or even worse, doing their research and actually challenging them ala Mark Steyn and Michael Mann), the response is ALWAYS a personal attack - you're stupid, brainwashed, criminal, racist, hater... just fill in the insult of the day.

    The other problem he of which he seems to be completely unaware is the sad reality that we've been blatantly lied to so many times by those we thought we should be able to trust (scientists, government, teachers, journalists) that for many of us, the tendency is look out the window to check if one of them says that the sky is blue.

    The people are NOT stupid; the current uprising is a direct result of intellectual laziness and ideological rigidity. The internet has opened a whole new world of possibility for people to explore what is, and that has the current progs flailing. I think it's every bit as revolutionary for the dissemination of information as the invention of the printing press.

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    1. You would think that the progs would learn something from Brexit; that calling people stoopid is not a good strategy. But NO, they have to double-down, always.

      Just this morning a saw a bit on FB calling Trumpsters stoopid.

      Keep it up, progs. Every time you call a voter "stupid", Trump gains another supporter (or ten or ten thousand).

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