This is a question I’ve pondered for a few years. Why is intelligence popularly recognized as a bad thing? How did “elite” become infused with pejorative undertones? Why is simplicity of thought (not to be confused with simplicity of explanation) vaunted? Why is academia assigned negative connotations?
The context of these questions is that of the American Public. By American, I mean human being deriving significant social experience in (or from) the United States of America. For those who bristle at my usage of that term, I’ll address the relevant etymological considerations later.
I don’t want to get too deep in the analysis of the magnitude of this attitude. Ultimately, that even one solitary individual would assign negative value to education, understanding, or rational thought would give me pause and a wrinkled brow. Whatever the current, precise scope and level of this feeling works out to, it’s significant. Perhaps what piques my curiosity is the huge influence technological development has played in the economic development of the country. Somewhere along the way, a popular shift has taken place. Most people can just feel it. Sometimes it’s overt, but at low levels, it’s even pervasive. Okay, enough of my feeble attempts to define the sentiment.
The question isn’t whether or not such a sentiment exists. The question is why.
First off, I don’t think I have a comprehensive answer. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below.
There seems to be a confluence of social current aligning and providing coalescence and mutual compliance driving this. It would be easy to pass this off on religion. Education leads to the application of skepticism, analysis, and scientific principles to every possible target. Over time, every religious belief that’s fallen under this scrutiny has eventually fallen. This is not to say that everything has been unequivocally disproved, but the probabilities have been diminished below the threshold of likeliness.
The addition of conservatism to the flow has provided a secular ally. By definition, conservatism assumes the heavy lifting of inquiry has already been done. In essence, principles wouldn’t continue to exist today if they hadn’t already been discovered to be effective in the past. This ideological (the thinking of non-thinking) framework is certainly fundamentally threatened by increased knowledge.
The part I can’t figure out is that neither religion nor conservatism is new to the scene. What’s different? Is it simply a matter of polarization in concert with the acquiescence of religion and conservatism’s tightening relationship?
One trend that continues is the widening gap in resources commanded across wealth continuum. Has the bourgeois appropriated this sentiment as a dual-pronged tactic to rally the marginalized in a way that simultaneously guarantees their further marginalization?
The ramifications of a continued trend toward the subjugation of thinking as a virtue are nothing but negative. Nothing is solved by anti-adaptation and stubborn adherence to strategies already proven to fail.
Something about all of this messes with my head. It doesn’t make any sense… I mean… It makes sense that power structures would seek to foment apathy and anti-understanding in those they intend to subordinate. It just doesn’t seem like anyone would be so stupid. Oh no… The circle of dumb is enveloping every sentence I write.
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James NomadRip
4 months ago
Two words: BAAAAAA!
Andrew MacPherson
4 months ago
Are you saying your countrymen would taste better with a mint crust after roasting over an open flame?
James NomadRip
4 months ago
Of course. There is a large bit of programming most of us get from day one that is tough to overcome. People genuinely believe o lot of the stuff we're fed all through the various institutions in which we are indoctrinated.
A lot of people would just rather take the blue pill.
Andrew MacPherson
4 months ago
I'm with ya. I get that deferring to social inputs rather than genuine thinking creates an environment that facilitates this kind of groupthink. I understand the mechanism. But… but… this is perhaps literally the most extreme instance possible. Being stupid is stupid. Being smart is smart. It's not open to interpretation. How stupid does one have to be to feel that stupid is smart? Won't believing that tear a hole in the space-time continuum?
At least when Michael Jackson convinced us that 'bad' was 'good', we all saw it for the transparent act of detournement that it was. This smart is stupid thing is sincere.
Can I get brain cancer from second-hand cognitive dissonance?
Thorin Messer
4 months ago
It starts very early. At least in the 70s-80s, when I went to public school here in the U.S., being stupid, or acting stupid, was cool. Anyone who read books or did well was marginalized. Why is this? I don't think we can assign this to the big adult constructs like Conservatism or Religion. I went to a lot of different schools as a child, and there were definitely widely ranging social backgrounds and economic levels, and at all of them the cool kids cultivated a disdain for learning and intelligence. In fact, they cultivated (and I think a lot of our popular culture still does) a disdain for appearing to care about anything. Q.v. “Whatever”.
Is this a natural result of something permeating our culture? Is it the inevitable result of our educational system? Or was it just kids rejecting what they thought the adults wanted them to do? I don't know, but it always astounded me, even as a child.
And I don't get the impression that it's new, either. I think there has always been a strong strain of this in U.S. culture. We did model ourselves after the Romans after all, with the definite deliberate schism between the Elites and the Mob. I can see how it might rankle a little, to have a self-appointed group tell most of the country that they are incapable of learning, thinking, or taking care of themselves. And it would be a small step from there to vilifying the defining features of the Elite.
Now I'm off to read Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter. Sounds like it's on exactly this topic.
Andrew MacPherson
4 months ago
Thanks for jumping in. I love it when people come out of nowhere (from my perspective) and provide thoughtful insight.
I'm with you on the being smart wasn't cool as kids concept. I'm with you on the inability to arbitrarily employ adult constructs to explain that. This distinction is exactly my point. Kids don't have fully formed brains and the psychology is supposed to change as our kiddie brains develop. Somehow… that switch either didn't get flipped when a significant number of current adults matured, or the switch was flipped, but was subsequently flipped back.
While you and I were kids, I don't think the sentiment was nearly as pervasive (in open public at least) in the adult circles of news and politics. I've felt the it change during the years I've been an adult. Sure, that's an anecdotal assertion big enough for anyone to drive a truck through, but if Hofstadter titled a book after the concept, I can't be completely off track.
Side note: With the popularity of geek chic, smart might now be cool in the younger set. In which case, we might be able to explain this all away with the eternal and automatic tendency for kids to just do/think the opposite of the adults. If that's the case, we might just be experiencing a swing in the regular cycle.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the book.
Briana (Sarah's friend)
3 months ago
The stupid people are breeding like rabbits. They have LITTERS of children while the intelligent folk stand by, mouths agape, plotting how to avoid such an awful fate. And these stupid people, when questioned why they would be so irresponsible and add more children to the population while myriad disadvantaged ones go without families, they respond that they want little carbon copies of themselves who will promote their religious teachings and vote for the latest moron up for election – or the latest measure that takes away the basic civil rights of specific groups of people.
Andrew MacPherson
3 months ago
Hi Briana… and welcome to the pretentious nerd party.
The tendency you mention used to freak me out. I always wondered how it was possible for anyone to escape the grip of breeding to increase the size of one's cause. I mean… it makes so much sense as a strategy because kids are basically zombie sponges where ideology is concerned. Contrast that to trying to persuade a rational adult to believe in invisible superheroes or that down is up and the create a progeny army option is definitely the path of least resistance.
After seeing so many people go through college and having some semblance of critical thinking instilled in them, I worry a little less. But then again, the whole point of this post is that things have shifted. If they shift far enough that education is fundamentally altered, or more people skip education, we're in trouble. Hopefully the interwebs will temper the efficacy of more significant trends in that direction.
P.S. The two of you are trouble.
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