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[NT] Does anti-intellectualism annoy you?

Grublet

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No one actually reads news articles anymore, they just scan the headline and form all their opinions based on that. I'm tired of no one actually reading and being so ADD about everything. I have people tell me all the time that they don't care to learn or that they've learned enough. The latter is particularly common in older folks. What has made people this way? :dry:
 

Qlip

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Oh, ADD, or maybe just not caring isn't anti intellectualism. Anti intellectualism is when you look down at other people for reading the articles.

Yeah, I really don't like it when people purposefully avoid learning because it's learning. But I also don't like people who look down at me for having interests different from their own.
 

Baltar

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I think people are bogged down these days by too much mind-numbing specialization
at work and school, and on the other end of that candle, the eschewing of liberal
arts by employers has led the rest of society to not appreciate anything deeper or more
nuanced/complex/interesting than where to click the goddamn mouse.
 

Arkigos

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I don't think it's ever been any different. If you brought endless knowledge to people in, say, the middle ages they would not every man and woman run to gobble it all up. Most people wouldn't really care while some would care a great deal. This is actually very applicable to Type. Some types like to gather knowledge, some less and some essentially none that isn't highly applicable to their lives.

It's possible your observations are a bit of a Red Herring. We now live in a society of highly available information that is beginning to expect us to be more informed. Most people are continuing to be uninterested and only now is that uninterest apparent. I suspect is has always been as it is with most people in this regard. Just two generations ago people were profoundly uninformed and were generally not expected to be any other way.
 

tkae.

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Is it anti-intellectualism when I advocate that people stop trying to put experiences and emotions and their relationship with their environment into taxonomies and to just feel things? To experience things fully and try to feel instead of holding their experiences down by the neck and examining it for every little detail?
 

UniqueMixture

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People do what they're rewarded for. Not many are rewarded for "wasting time" doing "useless" things.
 
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Ginkgo

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No. Any claim depends on the intellect. I rest assured.
 

Orangey

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I remember reading an article that distinguished between a few different kinds of anti-intellectualism that critics tend to lump together. I think the one you're referring to in the OP was called "thalamic anti-intellectualism," which is just an instinctive aversion to intellectual discourse of any kind (due to some sense of insecurity about it, or inferiority.) There are other kinds, though, which are not so unsympathetic sounding (like, one was an anti-clerical variety which is basically an anti-Walter-Lippmann-esque-technocratic-nightmare kind, and I can certainly sympathize with that.) Maybe I'll find the article later.
 

You

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People do what they're rewarded for. Not many are rewarded for "wasting time" doing "useless" things.

or forsee a reward. some rewards are intrinsic, others material and all in between. people can't see the value in a news article or book, but may know more about plumbing pipes than you could learn from a printed page.
 

Lark

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No one actually reads news articles anymore, they just scan the headline and form all their opinions based on that. I'm tired of no one actually reading and being so ADD about everything. I have people tell me all the time that they don't care to learn or that they've learned enough. The latter is particularly common in older folks. What has made people this way? :dry:

Common in older folk since when? I encounter it among younger people way more than I do older people, they dont think they need school, further education, training on the job or anything to be truthful and a lot of them display massive disinterest even general knowledge building or knowing anything, plus I've seen shocking frustration with anything which has more than an intuitive operating system or skills set.

I dont like anti-intellectualism but I also dont like pseudo-intellectualism too, when people think they are learned but they just got the greatest blinkers known to man or who dont accept differences of opinion and instead consider dissenting, differing opinions to be displays of ignorance or lack of understanding. I particularly hate this as it is found in libertarian circles or other cliches or scenes.

I do like the idea of learning per se and beginners mind but they're pretty rare. Particularly among people who talk of them or about them.
 

Lark

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Oh, ADD, or maybe just not caring isn't anti intellectualism. Anti intellectualism is when you look down at other people for reading the articles.

Yeah, I really don't like it when people purposefully avoid learning because it's learning. But I also don't like people who look down at me for having interests different from their own.

Set the God damned perky petes or whatever they're called on their asses Qlip!! Then do the whole immolation thing you were talking about in the other thread which read like you were drunk or something :newwink:
 

skylights

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I suspect it has always been this way and the older generation feels like they know much based on experience, while newer generations are overwhelmed with more information via technology updates than they can keep up with. I do not know if it is so much anti-intellectualism as the basic truth that there will always be more information available than one individual can process.

Personally I am more guilty of only reading certain articles than of only skimming the headlines.
 

Elfboy

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Is it anti-intellectualism when I advocate that people stop trying to put experiences and emotions and their relationship with their environment into taxonomies and to just feel things? To experience things fully and try to feel instead of holding their experiences down by the neck and examining it for every little detail?

+7
[MENTION=15315]UniqueMixture[/MENTION]
your comment was soo 7w8 :laugh:
 

Southern Kross

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My national culture is rather anti-intellectualist; well at least it's anti-Intuitive style intellectualism. It's not necessarily nasty about it, but there is tendency for people to scoff at theoretical/bookish knowledge. There's a emphasis on do-it-yourself, hard-work and hands-on knowledge, experience and experimentation. There is a celebration of ordinary New Zealand inventors/adventurers/sportsmen etc making a mockery of wealthy companies/countries etc and their fancy, high-tech, theory based approaches - such as Burt Munro setting a land speed record on a hand rebuilt, 40 year old motorcycle (a record that apparently Yamaha spent millions on trying, and failing, to beat). It's definitely a positive form of knowledge and achievement to encourage, and I certainly don't begrudge it. It's just that it can make people so suspicious about theoretical forms of intellect.

It's not something I noticed until I got to university, because we are brought up to participate in the scoffing and belittling. Sometimes I still catch myself making anti-intellectual comments without realising it, despite the fact I'm essentially targeting my own natural approach. I've certainly learned it's better not to talk with others about a lot of the things I read or take interest in, unless I know they will be receptive (and receptiveness isn't limited to Intuitors either - my Sensor parents are open-minded enough to see the value in it too).
 

Beorn

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No one actually reads news articles anymore, they just scan the headline and form all their opinions based on that. I'm tired of no one actually reading and being so ADD about everything. I have people tell me all the time that they don't care to learn or that they've learned enough. The latter is particularly common in older folks. What has made people this way? :dry:

Well they're not really going to learn much just from reading news articles. In fact you may get more stupid.

I'm not a fan of anti-intellectualism nor am I a fan of the worship of academic elites.
 

sprinkles

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Being too intellectual is not good for your sanity. So is being too anti-intellectual.

Knowing too many things can be overload. Refusing to know things is just limiting yourself.

Too much knowledge also takes away your fresh perspective, and it is easy to get set in your ways because you start to see things as the 'best' way - but in some cases it is not the best way.

I've discovered this making Portal 2 test chambers and letting other people play them. I believe I've made the solution easy (or at least possible) to figure out in a blind run without trial and error, just by thinking about it, which is what Portal is all about. The problem is that it is hard to do because when you make the level, you effectively have 'god knowledge' of that level, and it looks entirely different to people who didn't design it. So you get to watch them do things that you completely never intended.

That's why playtesting done by non-developers is so important.
 

entropie

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I have only read the headline of this thread*, but I'ld have to say no, cause more idiots, lesser competitors :)


* I am for a general policy in the NF subsection to sum up their writings in small, short and effective posts, but I've failed so far :D
 

tsumatachi_san

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Being knowledgeable is a good thing - it expands your mind and reading newspapers just help you get some perspective/cultural knowledge.

However - what intellectualism appears to be in this day and age is almost elitism in the way the texts are written (newspapers not so much, but academic texts for sure). They are written in such a fashion they repel a majority of the population, and with good reason because these texts take about three pages to say what could have been condensed to one paragraph. They use words most people will have to use a dictionary to understand and, even while the topics they cover can interest many people, they're too 'elite' to be fully comprehended.
Basically, to cover this the education system needs to be changed.

General anti-intellectualism, however, I think is born out of societal issues - such as being punished with extra homework in school, or forced to read certain books. It's rebellion against authority in that respect, but also an aversion to what people are now seeing as 'punishment'. The media also plays a part, stereotyping intellectuals in a negative fashion.

To be honest, I don't really care what people read or don't read, but I'd hope that people who will grow up to run countries will have more knowledge than average (especially on cultural and societal differences and workings).
 

Qlip

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Set the God damned perky petes or whatever they're called on their asses Qlip!! Then do the whole immolation thing you were talking about in the other thread which read like you were drunk or something :newwink:

Hah, I didn't think it was that harsh.. but this and my reps say otherwise. And.. I wasn't drunk, if I was different, maybe it's because I was sober. ;)
 
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