One of the most aggravating things to me in this world has to be the absolutely rampant anti-intellectualism that dominates so many conversations and debates, and its influence just seems to be expanding. Do you think there will ever actually be a time when this ends? I'd hope so once people become more educated and cultural changes eventually happen, but as of now it honestly infuriates me like few things ever have.
Anti-intellectualism comes alongside alienation from others. It has to. Being an intellectual is essentially saying "I trust the findings of academics and will adopt their consensus." Nobody can learn about the whole span of the world, it's too much information. But when you are convinced that collaboration is weakness and compromise is failure, you have to keep the world in your head, and the only way to do that is to maintain a really simplified internal diorama from which your "truth" is derived.
Thanks, I'm already thinking of ways I am off the mark though, like how things like race science and eugenics have been the "academic" position in the past.
I think properly working the academic consensus into your mind involves also understanding that it's the product of people. It's not that different from having some trust in institutions outside of academia too. There were people in the sciences fighting bitterly against those trends, and in the long run their position became standard.
Yeah probably. I don't like the idea of having faith in science of course, considering that science is done by people, and people aren't infallible. But it's the best tool we have for preserving and interacting with past ideas and breakthroughs. I suppose the thing I'd have to have faith in is humanity's drive to understand a "truth" that holds up to scrutiny, instead of the characterization some have of human beings as creatures that wish only to satisfy existential terror incuriously.
Thanks, I'm already thinking of ways I am off the mark though, like how things like race science and eugenics have been the "academic" position in the past.
That was very useful to people. It's not like a majority, even those disliking academia, will trust no scientific study or something, they just don't trust the ones they disagree with politically
This is an uncomfortable reality but the more recent examples of the sciences and humanities being considered progressive overall gives me hope.
I don't think there was ever really race science, I could be wrong here but to my knowledge it was basically all pseudo science. Maybe this is a flawed take but I don't remember any creditable research from it but lots of old white dudes telling everyone how they're better because they say so.
the difference between pseudo-science and science can be slight, and always better understood in hindsight. IQ was a big part of race science in the early 1900s, and it looks like science. It's objectively measured, systemic data. You've gotta take a step back to realise it's bullshit and too subjectively defined to be useful for anything. A big part of science is trying to think objective, and it's only been somewhat recently there's been a movement to remind people that they aren't actually objective, ever.
I get where you're going and I don't really disagree but people thought lots of things were objective while having no conclusive data.
Being an intellectual is essentially saying “I trust...
That doesn't make sense. Intellect is a personal attribute that can't be outsourced, not even to academics. If someone claims to be an intellectual but the information from academics isn't subject to the same level of scrutiny as all other sources, their claim is incorrect. People tend to start from academic sources because they have a better chance of already being held to scrutiny than other sources, but if they stop there just because smart-guy-said-so, they're no intellectual. Or they're just pressed for time.
I get what you are saying, but I don't think anti-intellectualism refers to people being against people who happen to have "intellect." And also, this claim about being a true intellectual seems like an impossible standard. It's possible to rigorously scrutinize an assumption drawn from smart types, sure, but nobody has the time to do that for everything that makes up their understanding of reality.
I could tell you right now that sidewinder rattlesnakes don't use their heat-sensitive facial pits to select thermally ideal ambush sites, they just use their eyes to pick a site that looks good. You could not deduce this without experimentation. (I was part of a study that tested it.)
Now, you could trust that I'm telling you the closest thing to the truth that is known in the world of rattlesnakes, but let's say you want to be intellectual by your definition and go know it without just taking my (admittedly qualified) word for it. You could go get a herpetology degree, go convince a grad student that it would be worth challenging our conclusion, and spend another three months like we did out in the desert catching snakes and running experiments with thermal cameras.
You probably don't want to do that, because you probably don't have the highly specific interest in snakes that we had, and so it would feel like a waste of your time. In the end, I think you'll probably admit that I know more about this snake topic than you, you'll accept my conclusion, and go around understanding it without having personally studied or observed it, and that's a good thing because it will free you up to go figure something out that fits into your interests and you can share your findings with me in turn.
Being an intellectual is essentially saying “I trust the findings of academics and will adopt their consensus.”
It's the exact opposite of that. An intellectual is someone with a lot of curiosity and typically rejects the status quo. Anti-intellectualism is the acceptance of what others say based on "stuff" (emotions, group affiliation). Intellectuals have been oppressed because they offer intelligent ideas to challenge a political party, religion, or the "adopted consensus".
I just responded to a pretty similar position below.
It is silly to conflate opposition to the status quo with intellectualism. Those visionaries whose ideas led to paradigm shifts were still building upon previous consensus. Sometimes being correct puts you at odds with the group, but so does being COMPLETELY WRONG.
Sometimes
Anti-intellectualism is a strategy employed by some rich people that control some mass media outlets to keep people away from being class conscious.
"the world" is not anti-intellectual, you just hang out with the wrong people
Some folks can't much help who they hang out with. Any American is literally surrounded by thousands of miles of other Americans, and anti-intellectualism is rampant in the country. It's not like Sweden is going to let Americans immigrate with the justification that "I'm a sad intellectual surrounded by boorish peasants."
I'm very specific about my friends, I promise you that isn't the problem. It's more of an observational thing, and it is clearly present in western society at the very least. Even with my friends, we are still an insignificant minority compared to the larger population.
Others have said it already, but anti-intellectualism at its core is alienation. It's a lack of trust in academic or professional authorities and substituting that trust for either ones own experiences or complete hallucinations. People will find alternative communities to trust, especially if they can find something that verifies their existing biases.
If you sense something's wrong with the world, but lack an ability to pinpoint it, you'll go to whoever seems most immediately relatable to you. Reactionaries like Qanon people ended up in that situation. They no longer trust authorities on information outside of cranks on Facebook.
So the question is how do you get more people to adopt a consensus of reality that's based on expertise, professional research, investigation, etc? You have to convince more people they're part of that process and that experts share their interests. America has had that before, but usually in times of conflict against a foreign enemy. The average American used to be really into space travel tech for instance.
There was also a period around the 1890s where the average American was really into electricity as a hobby, like making little circuits or trinkets. It was considered pretty normal back then to have an understanding of how simple circuits like a doorbell worked.
It's a lack of trust in academic or professional authorities and substituting that trust for either ones own experiences or complete hallucinations.
Often, it's trust in cult of personality figures that are saying what the alienated person already wants to believe.
If I was in college still there's a part of me that would have wanted to make it my life's work to reach the same level of "legitimacy" as PeePee Jordanson so that I could spend all my time sabotaging his reputation as publicly as possible
The anglosphere is anti-intellectual and some other parts are, but that does not mean the whole world is, and the influence of the anglosphere is waning fast.
I think cultural anti-intelectualism to some extent comes from the belief that intelectuals don't care about their interests or wellbeing. Not helped by the historic lack of accessibility of education
I think the latter is improving somewhat
It is tricky to get someone to recognise that they aren't knowlegable enough. Even if you say it as gently as possible, some will still hear "you're dumb" and no one likes that.
Also it's a great tool to manipulate people : "I don't need a scientist trying to explain me life from the depths of their lab !! I have commonsense !!"I think the best way to be diplomatic about a matter like that is to emphasize that people have different fields of experience and expertise, and you just want to share information on one of the topics where you are more familiar.
Of course, if you treat them as know-nothings who should be grateful that a Knower has condescended to instructing them and they respond as though you are insulting them, it is because you are.
Can we start with anti-I-Need-My-Dopamine-Hit-Every-10-Minutes?
Between people's ever depleting attention span and our desire for acceptance on social media, I just don't see how you can even begin to tackle "anti-intellectualism".
Most people use these platforms to comment on a headline and never read the article. Perhaps we could all decide to use these platforms properly and use the downvote button to bury comments that, while funny or otherwise emotionally engaging, are clearly not accurate or providing value to the topic of discussion.
By upvoting funny comments and rewarding hive-mind mentality, we're partly to blame for the lack of intellectualism.
Lemmy is far better than Reddit regarding the use of downvotes, but many people still use it as an emotional disagreement button rather than something used to hide useless/irrelevant content. I only downvote when somebody says something completely fucked or starts trolling.
I don't think upvoting funny comments is necessarily wrong, but there is a lack of meaningful engagement a lot of the time.
I don't think I've ever witnessed literal "anti-intellectualism", perhaps that's a thing around you ? People not caring/understanding the value of knowledge, sure, but deliberately opposing it... that sounds terribly dumb. Not sure what anybody would get out of it
Have you seen people overrate "common sense"? That's it.
Don't think deeply, go for common sense, disregard the specialists, we can't understand their areas of study, therefore they are lying.
Also, avoid studying humanities: history, philosophy, sociology, politics. That will make you poor! Stay technical and mathy, don't worry about anything else other than making money! Have a life project! Get rich!
That's the anti intellectual speech.
Who benefits from the smart peoples of the world not questioning the status quo, and the building blocks of capitalism?
In the run up to brevity people were literally saying "were tired of listening to experts" who were saying it would be a bad idea.
Were you not around for the last 4 years when half the country decided all doctors were working together and lying?
How about our populations response to climate scientists.
Or the universally agreed on hatred for any college degree that isn't sufficiently marketable as "worthless"
The only way I can imagine saying you've never seen anti intellectualism is you don't know what you're looking for.
I don't think I've seen this in France at least.
Were you not around for the last 4 years when half the country decided all doctors were working together and lying?
There is absolutely some (growing?) distrust in institutional knowledge, pharmaceutical labs, etc. but it's far from being as strong as in the US (which is the country I assume you're referring to?)
Anti intellectualism is a cornerstone of right wing politics which is gaining steam in lots of countries in Europe.
OP's point is valid throughout for most of the white shaded counties as well
Drinking game: click on a random username in the comments section and take a shot every time they start talking out of their ass
My account doesn't count (although I am flattered, weirdo)
Add in surface level observations of 'if you are so smart you would realise not everyone is an idiot' or 'you have to understand their perspective better' and maybe 1/2 comments you are slamming a shot. I guess people don't read comments anymore. (Probably never did.)
Wow what a useless and toxic response that says absolutely nothing. Making hexbear look really good!
Oh I'm sorry, you misunderstood. I'm not here adverting hexbear, because I don't give a shit what you think about my platform. I'm making fun of you for having dogshit opinions.
"There are only two extreme outcomes and no other versions of events that could have possibly ever happened."
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I don't think there are only 2 outcomes. I asked a question regarding a potential of one absolute outcome.
I asked a question regarding a potential of one absolute outcome.
No, you wrote this:
It's not. We'd still be hitting rocks if we were anti intellectual.
Where is the question? You presumed an absolute outcome and now expect everyone else to go along with it, nodding sagely to your smug presumption.
Wait til AI takes prominence. What effect on intellectualism that might have remains to be seen. As long as LLMs aren't tailored to bias certain views, it may just lift humanity.
It's just gonna pollute the internet with even more bullshit. Language models don't really understand topics, they just put together words that are likely to appear with each other. Biases are inherent to this design.
As long as LLMs aren't tailored to bias certain views, it may just lift humanity.
The bias is already there (even if those that own it and command that bias may claim otherwise and you may believe them) and the "lift humanity" pitch is marketing bullshit.
As long as LLMs aren't tailored to bias certain views, it may just lift humanity.
Press x to doubt on this.
Nothing about a glorified auto-fill will uplift humanity. We already see the opposite happening right now. LLMs output is already making the internet worse because its being flooded with auto-fill bullshit. And that in turn is making LLMs even worse over time, because instead of just being garbage out, now the garbage goes in and cimes out worse than the first time.
And its impossible for LLMs to not have bias, and ones claiming to not have bias are probably the worst of all.
As soon as the AIs start saying it would make the most sense to equally distribute resources and having 10 people hoarding all the wealth is bad for the economy they're going to get some adjustments real fucking fast.
LLMs are not the aspects of AI that are going to have the biggest impact. It will be AI based tools for evaluating data in the aid of specific tasks that has the big effect
Well I don't have a dog in the AI fight. I did sufficiently couch my comments as a thought experiment. I could have postulated the opposite scenario I suppose. Or none at all. I do see that there are some strong and confident predictions as to the outcomes.
I do see that there are some strong and confident predictions as to the outcomes.
I see what's already happened so far with LLMs and there is no sign of "uplifting" outside of marketing propaganda.
I do see that there are some strong and confident predictions as to the outcomes.
Yeah most people don't "couch ideas as thought experiments" they just say what they think. Although i don't think anyone replying made a prediction really. We can already see what's happening and we know that bias is inherent to the entire design of LLMs.
Ayn Rand once said "It is not I who will die, it is the world." I will never stop being anti-intellectual personally so when I die it can't change.
Sorry, the answer is no but if you trust the quote the world will only exist for another 30-40 years so I wouldn't worry.
It's alright, Rand was wrong about that statement just like she was wrong about virtually everything she said.
Seriously. Bizarre quote to take as truth
on a communist forumtbf lemmy.ml is mostly neolib in practice.
Wait, but that's a hexbear user? What?
You're right. I just saw they were a comrade bear and made the assumption
They're a haver of interesting takes, to say the least
Nah it's a bit. No one actually unironically identifies as anti-intellectual.
I'm kinda of a Diogenes figure. Sometimes you get "behold a man" and sometimes you get a homeless man yelling at passerbys.
I'm kinda of a Diogenes figure.
No. You're just being obnoxiously smug while expecting people to praise you as some sort of eccentric philosopher.
“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” ― Carl Sagan
There's countless "Digoenes figures" like yourself already and they all believe they are the Main Character, too. And like you already did in the other comment chain here, they also get just as mad when their junk philosophy (such as, in your case, Ayn Rand) gets called out.
No. You're just being obnoxiously smug while expecting people to praise you as some sort of eccentric philosopher.
Literally describing myself as a homeless man and anti-intellectual. No one is taking it seriously but you man.
Are you seriously invoking Ayn Rand as a source of wisdom?
And that particularly solipsistic quote?
You believe you are the Main Character of the universe and that everything ceases to exist when you die. And you're accusing me of believing in woo bullshit.
And you're such a scratched liberal that you started foaming at the mouth with some weird personal attack you've been holding on to, apparently, for weeks.
Solipsism is a helluva drug.
You believe you are the Main Character of the universe and that everything ceases to exist when you die
Man you really don't understand when people are doing bits. You think people would just go on the internet and not mean literally everything they type?
Hexbear needs a villian, don't you understand UlyssesT? You wouldn't be having half of the enjoyment in this conversation if I just did a normal comment. But now I got to do a silly bit and you got to pretend you're arguing with someone serious.
Discussion on the internet is inherently worthless because no one ever changes their opinions. It's a black box in which no matter the inputs, the outputs remain the same. Is it really so wrong then to lay down ideas like "seriousness" if it doesn't change anything? Your answer will be of course that I'm delusional and only doing this to cope or something because that's what your opinion started as. No matter what you or I say, we cannot change.
Stop posting and touch grass if you want truth, nothing here matters.
Man you really don't understand when people are doing bits.
Being obnoxious and falling back to "it was just a bit" is tiresome and belongs in the dustbin of history right alongside the "ironic" nazis of 4chan. Insincere people like you can move the goalposts all you want but I just see the obnoxious part and stop there because that's all there usually is under those pretentious masks of irony.
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Stop posting and touch grass if you want truth
You first, especially because of your masturbatory "I am internet Diogenes" LARPing attempts, be they bits or ironic or whatever you want to pretend they were.
Discussion on the internet is inherently worthless
Your internet nihilism is childish and about 20 years stale. 4chan is still open if you want to go somewhere that still praises internet nihilism.
nothing here matters
If you're not being praised for your Diogenes LARP, bit or irony or whatever, nothing matters because all you care about is being praised for your bit/irony/very-smartness!
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/125
