Dorf Man.
Posted on 10/26/2004 6:35:14 AM PDT by Tina Johnson
An acquaintance e-mailed to let me know there was such a person as Ariel Dorfman (a Chilean currently at Duke), that he had written an unintentionally hilarious column for the Los Angeles Times called “Brainy Candidates Need Not Apply,” and that he was flatly suggesting Senator Kerry was too smart to be president; that he was so smart he intimidated the average voter. (That’s you, dummy.) That sort of uncontained snobbery is just too good to be true, I thought, and clicked on the link to see for myself.
As it turned out, the synopsis given to me was right on the money. Is Senator Kerry too intelligent to be president? After meeting him for the first time at the World Economics Forum in 1998, Dorfman the Intellectual thought so. “He was subtle, full of cultural and historical references, elaborating each fine argument at length, with perception and nuance. I commented to one of his aides afterward that I regrettably thought his brains could turn out to be the biggest impediment to a man like him ever occupying the White House. Later, I slid my hand up the senator’s leg. Sensing his hesitation, I told him everything was going to be okay and to just relax.” Oh, sorry. Those last two sentences was just my continuing the dream Dorfman was having when he wrote this abortion of a column.
The upshot is that Dorfman has always seen a strident anti-intellectualism in the American electorate. “I first encountered that widespread prejudice as a 10-year-old Latin American boy in New York in 1952. It was an election year, and I was enrolled in the Dalton School on 89th Street — a bastion of American progressives. [In 1952, “progressive students” was code for “Red Diaper Babies.”] I had no doubt that ‘my’ candidate, Adlai Stevenson, one of the most lucid and cultured men in the nation, was going to defeat Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general who bragged that he preferred playing golf to reading a book. In a mock vote, the tally in my class was, as far as I recall, 27 to 1.”
Of course, Stevenson won only nine States en route to being stomped like a hippie at Altamont. The young Chilean was similarly crushed. “When I asked my dad how people could possibly reject someone as smart and educated as Stevenson, he explained that this was a transitory aberration, the malevolent dregs of McCarthyism, which had convinced many Americans that, at a time of great national peril, being an intellectual was akin to being a traitor.” That peril was the Soviet Union. Odd that while the USSR isn’t mentioned by name, “McCarthyism” rolled right off the lips. (You’ll find this is often the case among Leftists of a certain age.) Also odd that, at age 10, young Dorfman was able to remember, word-for-word, his father’s complicated explanation. (In other words, he’s lying.)
But – oh! – the malevolent dregs of McCarthyism! It wasn’t that Stevenson arrived to the ’52 campaign reluctant to run and was therefore thought to be indecisive. It wasn’t that General Eisenhower was a heavily decorated and loved war hero who served under MacArthur and Pershing, or even that on D-Day he was the Supreme Commander of the troops storming France. It certainly wasn’t that a war hero seemed more appealing than the governor of Illinois in the face of the growing Soviet threat. No, it was the dregs of McCarthyism and American anti-intellectualism.
No one will deny a certain large pocket of anti-intellectualism exists in the American fabric. It manifests itself whenever someone buys a Britney Spears CD, takes Michael Moore seriously, or watches the CBS Evening News. But when has it ever not existed in the history of Man? Who suggests everyone in France was on board with the Enlightenment (remembering, please, that we are speaking of France)? And why not say that a lack of reason swirls around Kerry supporters? Does it make sense to you that the same people who screamed at the top of their lungs about the Abu Ghraib prison photos stand ready, straight-faced, to elect a confessed war criminal?
Dorfman’s Big Point is that he hopes Americans won’t be afraid of “a man who believes that the best way to defeat the multiple terrors of today and tomorrow is with an intelligence of which no human should ever be ashamed.” He’s missing the point: Intelligence is great, but what help are words and good intentions when it comes time to throw a punch?
Apologies to Dave Barry.
I'll take wisdom over intelligence any day.
Rush Limbaugh talked about this at length last Friday. Just more elitist snobbery, They're just so much smarter than the rest of us.
"No one will deny a certain large pocket of anti-intellectualism exists in the American fabric. It manifests itself whenever someone buys a Britney Spears CD, takes Michael Moore seriously, or watches the CBS Evening News."
Big ouchy!!!
One time, this guy tried to mug me in an alley. I recited Shakepeare, read some Yeats and explained the Unified Field Theory. The dude dropped his knife and ran off, apparently intimidated by my superior intellect.
Dorf Man.
Wow...that's great! This could change the way we live.
I'm leaving the pepper spray at home and bringing some really intimidating books next time.
Now I see why Kerry voted against all weaponry over the last twenty years. He knew a better way. Such a smart guy.
Ariel Dorfman is a self-absorbed Chilean leftwinger from the days of the overthrow of Allende. He pines for the days he debated Sartre and García Marquez, and wishes he were Che Guevara. I have Chilean friends who were like him, but they grew out of it.
I had three guys try to mug me once. When I pulled out my .44 magnum, they got real nice and apologized. I guess they saw my superior intellect.
Does Ariel Dorfman know he's taking a hit on the web?
Of course not, he's too intelligent to figure it out.
LOL, a more reality-based scenario.
Heh, you should name your weapon "Intellect." It'd be kind of like how the vikings used to name thier swords, axes, hammers, and what not. :P
No one will deny a certain large pocket of anti-intellectualism exists in the American fabric. It manifests itself whenever someone buys a Britney Spears CD, takes Michael Moore seriously, or watches the CBS Evening News.
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!
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