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One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent.

Especially in liberal arts, where the most extremism is found.

I used to laugh regularly at the majority of the drivel my liberal arts professors were espousing as practically law.

>>One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent. <<

Another is to think that education and intelligence are synonymous.

Thre really IS such a thing as an educated idiot.

Survey's show that those who go into education in general aren't as intelligent as those who go into pretty much any other profession -- health, business, engineering, law.

Some birkenstockers are indeed smart, in the sense that they can learn new words, write prose, even create poetry. This I don't deny. But anyone who believes that public policy should be directed by self-congratulations is as deficient in critical thinking skills as the toothless hillbilly sleeping with the hound dog. Worse, these balding ghouls with greasy ponytails often teach the young, who in turn...Savage says that birkenstockism is a mental disease; it is more of a transposed religion, a sort of false god that answers the hunger humans have for contact with the inexplicable.

Over the summer, I did research on a 50 year old Supereme Court case called Hernandez v. Texas. It was decided at the same time as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and held that Mexicans had the right to the opportunity to serve on juries (the broader holding was that the 14th amendment can protect any group that is unfairly discriminated against due to regional prejudicial treatment). Anyway, we had a conference to celebrate the anniversary, and professors came from all over, with most coming from Berkeley.

Anyway, I was chosen to keep time for the presenters, and was happy to do it. The conference was not what I expected. At all. Instead of celebrating this case, the professors excoriated what they called "the politics of whiteness" and the effort to promote assimilation of Mexicans. I'm not kidding, they thought that assimilation was a great evil. It got worse. The professors believed that all ethnic groups were being brainwashed by the all-powerful "white media." Here's the best part: they argued that diversity in juries was good for its own sake, because otherwise white prosecutors could speak in their "white code" to white jury members to convict the accused.

It was madness, plain and simple. These leftists are obsessed with race, and have the audacity to cry racism at every opportunity. I remarked to a friend after the conference (who, while being shocked at many of the statements, still defended some of the ideas expressed) "Do you not see the inherent hypocrisy in the statement, 'All white people are racist?'" Those professor-buffoons live in their own world, one of hatred, hypocrisy, and haughteur.

Here is an example of a liberal scholar's thought processes. This is what passes as "scholarship" in today's liberal universities. It is by D.G. Leahy in the book "Foundation: Matter the Body Itself" published in 1996 by the State University of New York Press. Can you figure out what he is saying? Hint: If you can't, it ain't because you're stupid and he's smart.

Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not the reality, viz., of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal predication of identity is possible of the self-identity which is not identity, while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness: actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. The precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of the light. The precision of the absolutely minimum transcendence of the dark is the light itself/the absolutely unconditioned exteriority of existence for the first time/the absolutely facial identity of existence/the proportion of the new creation sans depth/the light itself ex nihilo: the dark itself univocally identified, i.e., not self-identity identity itself equivocally, not the dark itself equivocally, in “self-alienation,” not “self-identity, itself in self-alienation” “released” in and by “otherness,” and “actual other,” “itself,” not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally, absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of identity which is the identification person-self).

Methinks the emperor has no clothes.

"One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent. "

I went to Stanford, went to school with brilliant people, I'm pretty brilliant my self. While university edumacation certainly helps AS PART OF ONES LIFE SCHOOLING, it has to be tested by the school of hard knocks. So many brilliant ideas I've had which would not stand up in the real world, or were brilliant but irrelevant.

As an engineer, I always do a theoretical paper drawing, then at least a physical mockup before trusting peoples lives with it. My current hobby/invention is building a ramjet engine that works witout forward velocity, pretty cool and I've had the theory down for years. But making the damn thing work in the real world has taken many hours in the garage and talking with non-academic people worldwide, not from something the university provided.

So, my opinion is that academic brilliance merely allows one to make collosal rather than mundane blunders. Until you get out of the ivory tower, you're just smokin crack if you think your ideas are worth spit.

Besides, most of the professors on campus are in expendable basketweaving courses like women's studies, it isn't the engineers who are raving socialists.

There is a singular element which sets apart those who live under the umbrella of tenur and academia. For the most part they have to have a terminal degree and to get that degree they have to be somewhat tenacious in their academic pursuits. Tenacity is the order to get there. It simply takes,usually, 4 years for a bachelors degree,2-3 years for a Masters, and 3-4 years for the terminal degree, PhD,Eed,M.D.,D.D.S.,ThD.,D.O.,DVM, and so on. Some of these people go out into the real world and open buinesses, go to work for buisiness, start medical or dental practices, and other real world work. Some stay at the universities and teach. This does not require extraordinary intelligence. I am in the medical field, and a lot of the doctors I know are actually dumbasses. The idea that university types are the intelligent types falls on its face. The people writing these letters are usually pimple-faced youths who have no point of reference. They neither seek nor do they have any idea what intelligence is. Sure, some folks seem to be smart on their face, and they are, but many teachers are merely immersed in a specific subject that the student simply knows nothing about. Put that same teacher in a hall full of people in his same field, and he ceases to be "intelligent". I could come before a group of freshmen at any college or medical college and wax eloquent about the autoimmune disorders of systemic lupus erythematosis, or Sjogrens disease. I could snow them with 5 syllable words and they would think I am smart. When in fact I don't know jacksh*t about those subjects beyond what a general practitioner knows. On the other hand I could go to a general practice seminar and hear a speaker on choledochlithiasis and its surgical and nonsurgical remedies and I would think he is not smart. That is because I have spent 25 years studying general surgical disease and their treatment. Everything has a point of reference. Take me out of my element and I am just like everyone else trying to get thru this beautiful world without hurting anyone.

This bears repeating:

One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent.

One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent.

One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent.

One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent.

Some of the most ignorant, poorly raised, limited people I have known have been well educated. Think Nazi Think Stalin. The intellegenzia supported them...

This repeats the classical arguments between Protagoras and Aristotle.

FA Hayek makes the point that one reason that "intellectuals" make so many mistakes is that they overvalue their own intelligence.

In place of common sense, I guess.