Anti-intellectualism and Blogs for Those Who Like to Think

Poor Ms. Bookworld innocently caused a bit of a ruckus last week with her brilliantly funny post on Bloom’s Syndrome, a disorder I began to inoculate myself against at the tender age of eighteen when I entered the hallowed halls of my Institute of Higher Learning to discover what an epidemic it was. Unfortunately, in responses to Ms. Bookworld, the ugly word “anti-intellectual” made an appearance. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this word being used because a satirical piece was written that arose from something Harold Bloom said? I get the distinct feeling people must not understand what an anti-intellectual is. I’ve decided it’s my duty to set the world straight.

An anti-intellectual is someone who is anti-education, anti-study, anti-learning, anti-debate, anti-exploration, and anti-shades-of-gray. Anti-intellectuals are the sorts of people who will say, “Why study history? It’s all in the past,” or “No one needs to read the classics. They can’t teach us anything about today.” If you want some beautiful examples of anti-intellectuals, take a look at America’s current administration, you know, the one composed of people whose idea of improving education is to make sure educational testing companies are making big bucks while also making sure our children are discouraged from ever having any original thoughts. Otherwise, the kids might grow up to be citizens who vote and who pay attention to more than sound bites when doing so.

Walk into a room full of anti-intellectuals, and my guess is you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who even knows who Harold Bloom is. If someone does, I doubt he or she will have actually read any of his books or be able to quote him. And speaking of quotes, anti-intellectuals are also the sorts of people who take quotes out of context in order to ban books.

I wouldn’t label anyone who can laugh at her own tendencies toward intellectual snobbism an anti-intellectual. I also wouldn’t use the word to describe myself. I grew up surrounded by intellectuals, and I have chosen career paths that guarantee constant encounters with intellectuals. However, I would absolutely call myself anti-pseudo-intellectuals (well, except for the fact that I can’t help feeling a little sorry for pseudo-intellectuals and wondering what their childhoods were like for them to grow up into people who constantly want to prove to others how smart they are). Perhaps the real problem is that people are confusing intellectuals with pseudo-intellectuals. I sort of find this hard to believe, because there’s such a profound difference between the two.

Intellectuals are first and foremost curious. That means they would never pretend to know it all. Good grief. Knowing it all would mean having nothing new to learn, and how boring life would be with nothing new to learn. Intellectuals are not afraid to ask questions, a means to learning. Intellectuals are passionate, and their passion inspires others. They love to teach, always aware that those they teach have plenty to teach them in return. Intellectuals are open-minded, truly aware of the fact that, although they may catch themselves doing so (after all, they’re only human), unless they’ve been there and done that, they don’t have much right to criticize. If they don’t understand something (e.g. why someone loves American Idol), they will talk to people, try to understand it, and come away from that conversation with some interesting thoughts, even if they still don’t get it. Intellectuals (at least the ones I know), although they may often be depressed over the state of things, know how to have fun, and they love to laugh loud and hard. But maybe above and beyond all this, I've never met a true intellectual who went around trying to make others feel small or stupid.

Then, there’s the genius. Lucky are those of us who get to meet a few of those in our lives. I would imagine pseudo-intellectuals don’t meet many. After all, Mr. or Ms. Genius might have just walked out of a low-life bar or a movie theater featuring Hollywood’s latest blockbuster hit, places pseudo-intellectuals peer at over upturned noses. While a pseudo-intellectual is busy bemoaning his inability to find anything worth reading that he hasn't already read at his local Border’s, he may, frowning, walk right past a genius chuckling over Bridget Jones’s Diary.

And that’s the key word: frowning. Pseudo-intellectuals love to frown. They frown at Hollywood. They frown at popular sitcoms. They frown at bestseller lists. They frown at schools that aren’t in the Ivy League or at least one of the “Public Ivies.” They frown at anything considered “middle” or "low brow” (defined, of course, by them). Do they ever laugh? Well, yes, of course they do, as long as it’s at someone else’s expense.

I’d love to be an intellectual. I love hanging out with them. Maybe that’s why Book World was one of the first blogs I ever read on a regular basis. Meanwhile, I was tagged by Dorr for my own blog that makes her think (a wonderful honor, coming from someone whose posts are guaranteed to keep the cogs and wheels in my brain from rusting). That means I need to nominate five others for the thinking blogger award. The rules don’t say whether or not people can be nominated more than once, but I’m hoping not, since that means others have already nominated the many, many blogs that deserve this award, making it much easier for me to choose a mere five. Here they are (and don’t let me catch you calling any of these an anti-intellectual):

Jew Eat Yet – I mean, where else can you find such brilliance as a comparison between Haman and Ann Coulter (who, incidentally, is the Platonic anti-intellectual)?

Froshty Mugs
Ian’sblog

-- Well, I have to note these two, because they’re related to me. If I can’t be an intellectual, at least I can be related to some who’ve been making me think all my life and are now doing so via their blog posts.

Mandarine – a philosopher, a tech whiz, a master with words (even in a second language), as close to a “Renaissance Man” as it’s possible to be in The Information Age

Miss Snark – how can an editor not be made to think by Miss Snark?