Ch. 1 - The Way We Live Now: Just Us Folks

DWill · Senior Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 383 Gender:

Of course, JFK's most famous book, Profiles in Courage, was written not by him but ghosted, by Pierre Salinger, wasn't it? Perhaps you're right that being a politician effectively excludes one's also being an intellectual, but I have the impression that Jacoby expects the two to go together, ideally.

LanDroid · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:58 pm Post subject:

I picked out a few other "vectors of anti-intellectualism" that Jacoby doesn't enumerate specifically.

"...credentialed 'experts' who, especially after the Second World War, increasingly dominated business, government, and education, and were frequently viewed as enemies of the common sense that is supposedly the special virtue of ordinary people". p. xvi

"The denigration of fairness has infected both political and intellectual life and has now produced a culture in which disproportionate influence is exercized by the loud and relentless voices of single-minded men and women of one persuasion or another." p. xvi

"The perfect storm* over evolution is a perfect example of the new anti-intellectualism in action, because it owes its existence not only to a renewed fundamentalism but to the widespread failings of American public education and the scientific illiteracy of much of the media." p. 22

* Jacoby stumbles into someone else's pet peeve - I recall someone complaining about being so sick of "perfect storm this, perfect storm that, why is every controversy a perfect bloody storm?" Razz 2

DWill · Senior Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 383 Gender:

Good for you to "catch" her (all in good fun) in her own sort of mindless use of an impressive-sounding phrase. I do this too, I'm sure. A couple of my peeves, though, are "oxymoron" when the sense is simply that of contradiction, and "begs the question," when the speaker is trying to say that the question needs to be asked.

Sorry I don't have the book anymore. I can try to get it back. The context of the quotations would be important. I can't tell what her viewpoint is in the first quote: agreeing that the credentialed experts are anti-intellectual, or chiding the public for being so stuck on common sense.

I couldn't disagree with her in the second passage, though the connection with anti-intellectualism doesn't jump out at me, or with the third, certainly. Anti-evolution is anti-intellectual, clearly enough as I understand "intellectual."

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:55 pm Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject:

DWill wrote:

LanDroid · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:24 pm Post subject:

DWill · Senior Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 383 Gender:

LanDroid · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject:

I believe Woodrow Wilson could be considered a "modern" (or at least not a founding father) intellectual President . He was a professor, then the President of Princeton University. However, I just checked the index and Jacoby mentions Wilson only in passing. Dunno much about Wilson, I understand he had trouble getting things done as President because he had an arrogant attitude, he knew better than the rubes he had to negotiate with?

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:15 pm Post subject:

Jimmy Carter wrote-- I think it was after he retired from politics.
I tried one of his novels, and did not continue, so I didn't read enough to form an opinion.

LanDroid · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject:

The following passage hit home, made me feel the depth of our problem.


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