On 05/01/2010 6:31 PM, Frogwatch wrote:
David Brooks had a column in which he basically accuses Americans who
disagree with Obama of being anti-intellectual. GUILTY AS CHARGED, I
plead. Yes, I am very much against "intellectuals" running things
because much of the time "intellectual" is a psuedonym for "educated
fool". The reality is that being academically educated has nothing to
do with being able to competently run anything, in fact, most of the
time it is an impediment. The best leaders I have known rarely had
much education. I may be well educated but I would never expect
anyone to expect me to lead, it simply is not within me to lead.
When you get to know somebody who is brilliant but a failure it is
exasperating because it is difficult to see how someone so smart could
so often fail, yet smart failures are very common. The best leaders
never flaunt their educations because they want their followers to
identify with them, thus Brook's "educated class" is by definition a
set of poor leaders.
So, YES, I am anti-intellectual because I see most "intellectualism"
as being the mark of a failure.

There are two types of intellectuals.

There are the academic idealists who get so educated they forget how to
tie their shoes. I believe this is your educted fool. Ego driven,
thinking they are elite while actually being useless or worse,
destructive to others around them.

You want the intellectual from the schools of hard knocks, ground in
reality and accomplishments of real value. But intellectual enough to
grow. Not a sociopath and has values beyond power and greed. Actually
knows the meaning of honor but also ground well enough to knwo when to
kick ass and not bend over like Obama did with GM.

Trouble is north americans have been promoting sociopaths and academics
too long and are now right out of touch in the executive and in politics.