Adlai Stevenson was also a bit effeminate, which tended to set him apart as a true intellectual in form. Kerry had much of that form, AlGore some of it, including a heavy lisp.
The Demo concept of the intellectual is quite old fashioned and appears to us as.... an intellectual eunuch. Left over from the time when few people had college educations it is concept which has lost much of its pull over time because of the intellectual’s tendency to accomplish little of worth. In orther words, intellectuals are not men of action, but men who sit and think a lot and are of little use to the country.
The real intellectuals are the engineers who design our space ships, our fighters, our computers. Want some complexity? Try designing a processor with 10 billion operatinal amplifiers that multitasks. Or a fire control system for our fighters that will track and kill 32 enemy figters. Much more complex than readings of Marcus Aurelius, you betcha.
The anti-intellectualism that is referred to is nothing more than anti-aristocracy and it is fully justified.
Well stated. My only acquaintance of someone like you speak of was a distant relative and an engineer for JPL, he is brilliant and now retired. Not the least bit snobbish but limited in many subjects that average people talk about. I was fascinated when he would talk about unclassified areas of his work though there was some I couldn’t understand.
Riffing off you thoughts, I’ve found that a great preponderance of “intellectuals” are innumerate as a toddler - ie, they have no mathematical training or education, they have no concept of numbers and are completely gullible in the face of someone spouting random statistics posing as facts, because they have no internal “gut check” on the numbers.
One of my favorites from the early 90’s was debating someone on gun crime stats in California. This guy (a liberal arts major, well read in “the classics” no doubt) popped out with a stat that XYZ policy resulted in a reduction of 168% of crome stat ABC.”
At this, I looked like someone had just passed gas in public. I asked “After the first 100% reduction, where does the next 68% reduction come from?”
He was completely non-plussed, and repeated his claim. I said “Look, when you reduce something by 100%, it is ALL GONE. How can you reduce something more when you’ve completely eliminated it?!”
The audience sat up and agreed with me, and the ‘intellectual’ suddenly realized he was out to lunch - and then some.
Yet, until I pointed it out, this guy had the bit firmly in his teeth and was wow’ing the crowd.
This is the sort of thing that engineers crucify fellow engineers for. You’d never hear an engineer or scientist (especially a physics guy) pop out with this sort of mistake, because if they did in front of other engineers/scientists, they’d be crucified immediately.
Yet “intellectuals” who think “I don’t need calculus, my man, I’ve read Yeats!” have the public completely bamboozled into thinking they’re smart because they’re such suave talkers.
In todays’ public policy environment, we need more engineers/scientists not only running for office, we need more of them to step up to the plate in educating the public by any means possible. Thanks to the NEA, today’s school and college graduates are just woefully innumerate.
Whoa - just enough core truth to be totally insightful! Thanks.