Are Conservatives Anti-intellectual?

Conservative Hideout 2.0 ^ | 2-7-10 | Matt

[ConservativeHideout]

I will say that we are against is elitism. The founders created the nation, and while many went into (at times) government service at various levels, many others went back to work, or back to the farm. They left us to manage our own lives, without the tyrannical interference of government. On the other hand, our current elites crave power, and seek to wield that power in order to dictate most aspects of our lives. The elites sneer at the common man, or others that offer a dissenting opinion. They believe that they have a right to govern based on their education and so-called enlightenment. They believe that they alone are endowed with the knowledge with which to manage our education, careers, salaries and wages, diets, housing, transportation, energy consumption, childrearing, media consumption, medical care, retirements, and so on. They believe that our Constitution, based on a small government and individual freedoms, is outmoded and in need of re-interpretation. They believe that we are far too foolish and short sited to deal with our problem. In fact, how many times have we read that we are acting against our own self-interests? When we choose freedom, and the responsibility that comes with it, the elites view us as foolish and petulant children that are in need of ridicule and the “loving” guidance of the all powerful nanny state.

[ConservativeHideout]

It's a long article, but I hope it nails the differences between elitism and education.

[SMCC1]

Anti-intellectual? No.
Anti-intellectuals? Yes.

[screaminsunshine]

I think they are anti-communist.

[Bad Jack Bauer]

I think that Consevatives have great respect for intellectuals that are not elitest. Look at the admiration we have for Thomas Sewell and Walter Williams. William F. Buckley was another.

[highlander_UW]

They believe that they have a right to govern based on their education and so-called enlightenment.

There is no such right to governance based upon education or self proclaimed enlightenment...at least not that I've seen in the Constitution. Perhaps the supposedly educated liberals can identify where in the Constitution such a clause is contained. Otherwise they can just bugger off.

[InterceptPoint]

That’s a good question. I think I will pass it on to Hayek, Freidman, Rand and von Mises and get their reaction.

[ClearCase_guy]

In a slightly different vein, CP Snow wrote "The Two Cultures" decades ago in which he pointed out that scientists and engineers know their own fields well -- and also tend to know who Shakespeare is, and what a Picasso looks like. But our society typically does not consider scientists and engineers to be "intellectuals". However, a college professor of political science is apt to be quite ignorant of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and probably cannot fix machinery or run a business. Yet, we consider such a person to be an "intellectual".

The term "intellectual", therefore, tends to be used to describe people who know little, can do less, and who insist that they be put in charge of everything in order to prevent the "stupid people" from having a role in society.

On that basis, I am anti-Intellectual.

[LiberConservative]

The worst thing you can do to your enemies is to assume they are stupid. Let them think what they want.

[Let's Roll]

When intellectualism descends into gobbledy-gook and nonsense, yeah pretty much.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I think too many on the left consider themselves “intellectual” when they are merely (in the Soviet sense) intelligentsia, which were those who had absorbed Marxist and party doctrine sufficiently to parrot it at high levels.

[Domestic Church]

Are Conservatives Anti-intellectual?

Only if you consider Russell Kirk to be an “anti-intellectual.”

[dirtboy]

I have no problem with practical intellectualism - such as scientific research and sound historians, for example. But modern liberal intellectualism seeks to rewrite history and the very meaning of words and concepts - and if a word means whatever a liberal Supreme Court justice decides it should mean, then everything from private contracts to the Constitution itself has no real meaning whatsoever.

[circlecity]

Conservatives are very high on intellect but take a dim view of intellectuals.

[ConservativeHideout]

I can’t argue with that.

[ConservativeHideout]

Well said. Not everyone who is knowledgeable and education wishes to dictate to the masses.

[RedStateRocker]

“I will say that we are against is elitism.”

Grammar check is your friend. Is it elitist to not be interested in reading an article relating to education when the first sentence is incoherent?

[R. Scott]

My Sociology diploma has the little brass plaque, “Cum Laude” I guess that makes me an “intellectual”, but I’m a conservative.

[ConservativeHideout]

Intellectuals are OK, elitism is the problem.

[skeeter]

Conservatives use history & precedent to develop their positions. Its liberals who continue to wrestle against human nature & strive for whats clearly impossible.

So who's anti-intellectual?

[Pollster1]

I am an intellectual. I believe that gives my vote special weight: my votes should count for just as much as a dead democrat’s vote. That does not make me elitist.

Obama is described as an intellectual. Liberals believe that gives his vote special weight: dead democrats should be allowed to vote for him for up to ten years after they die. And a note to any socialist trolls. Yes, that does make Obama and his thugs elitists.