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.

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?"

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."

LanDroid wrote:What are some of the causes "for the resurgent anti-intellectualism of the past twenty years"?

"First and foremost among the vectors of anti-intellectualism are the mass media." p. 10

If we over-simplify intellectualism into reading lots of books, perhaps writing books, and debating all sides of an argument in a rational manner, then yes, passively absorbing infotainment is certainly at odds with that behavior.

I have not started reading yet...

I can see the Mass Media lending to an increase in anti-intellectualism in that it feeds the masses info, but info it chooses to highlight and in the terms beneficial to ratings. This assuages the everyday person's desire to 'know' what is happening in the world and thus may preclude them from really looking into the issues. Mass Media is a quick fix of parasitic sound bites that imparts a semblence of knowledge in the host organism.

This 'begs the question': What can we do about it? (Just a tongue in cheek comment there DWill!!)


Mr. P.

DWill wrote:

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

Vaclav Havel is President of Czechoslovakia.

Arpad Gonz is President of Hungary.

Andre Malraux was Minister of Culture in France from 1959 to 1969.


And in the US....?

DWill said I couldn't disagree with her in the second passage, though the connection with anti-intellectualism doesn't jump out at me...

I think you're referring to the quote that begins "The denigration of fairness.." above. Jacoby makes a good point that intellectuals must be reasonably open minded towards new information. In contrast, most "talking heads" that we see on TV are single minded, completely unable to entertain let alone respect a differing opinion. On the other hand, open mindedness can be taken too far.

I'm starting to think of a dynamic where the common man sees intellectuals as so open that they lack common sense on one end and the typical modern obdurate partisan on the other end. Jacoby would probably say both are anti-intellectual.

Mr. Pessimistic wrote:[I. Mass Media is a quick fix of parasitic sound bites that imparts a semblence of knowledge in the host organism.
This 'begs the question': What can we do about it?
Mr. P.

The easiest thing would be not to listen to/watch these organs! Read books, the NY Times, The Atlantic, etc., watch some of the PBS shows like Frontline. We get what we appear to demand, we are only pandered to if we respond to pandering.

Ophelia:
"Vaclav Havel is President of Czechoslovakia.
Arpad Gonz is President of Hungary.
Andre Malraux was Minister of Culture in France from 1959 to 1969. "

Good point!
Will

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?

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.

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

To add to the muddle, it seems that Americans are as ignorant and poorly educated about the particulars of religion as they are about science. A majority of adults, in what is supposedly the most religious nation in the developed world, cannot name the four Gospels or identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible. p. 25

We've seen statistics about the bizarre ideas that huge numbers of Americans believe, yet at the same time they're ignorant of where those ideas come from? Oh dear, that's depressing...

The news media tend to cover evolution with the same bogus objectivity that they apply to other "controversies" like the Armageddon scenario. p. 25

Objectivity is under attack. Liberals view intelligent design as not worthy of being discussed as a legitimate option as quoted above. I've noticed some conservatives push this concept further in claiming judgements are non-controversial. The attitude is something like "Your opinion on the Iraq war is Objectively Wrong, therefore I'm not going give it serious consideration, it's not worthy."

We could take this one step further and say both sides attack objectivity. Or we might say one side properly insists on objectivity regarding facts while the other attempts to stretch it by applying objectivity to subjective opinions. (Or perhaps both sides stretch this?) Am I onto anything here, or am I babbling?
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Please check out the quote by Bill Moyers on p 29 that starts with "One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. ... " Jacoby comments with "In the land of politicized anti-rationalism, facts are whatever folks choose to believe."
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Jacoby ends the chapter with two questions regarding our current "intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism".

"The question is why now."

"An equally puzzling question is why us."

Any thoughts on these two questions, or is it too early to deal with them?