[Timo]

Are they?

"America is not a deeply intellectual culture," says Anthony Grafton, a history professor at Princeton. "[Intellectualism] is a countercultural value, not one that most people embrace. It's not what life in the suburbs is about, and most of our wonderfully bright students come from a well-off suburb."

Yes? No? That the way it should be?

Whole article here.

[daimoni]

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[roger_ramjet]

I don�t know. America is a diverse country. There are intellectually serious people and there are a lot more who aren�t. Hasn�t it always been that way?

Seems to me that a great deal of what people learn at college is highly specialized. People can be brillant within their specialty but if they move an inch beyond their field of expertise, it�s like dropping off a cliff.

The article mentions the nerd label as a sign of our anti-intellectualism. But it�s also true that there�s often a hidden pride that people take in being called a nerd or geek.

[wolfen]

The following is based upon observation and analysis, not scientific data:

Evolution basically implies that the rare subgroups of a species are a threat to the status quo, for better or worse. Or neither. Whenever you deal with a Bell Curve, people will usually have a polarized response to people on the ends because the primal reptilian brain can only take so much before the fight-or-flight thing is triggered.

THERFORE: Average intellects will tend to either emulate or avoid high-intellects. Moderate responses are less likely.

Expanding from that --> For any socially significant trait, average people will tend to emulate or avoid rare people. Although a person's personality will greatly influence their response to exceptional people (ie. slow, tall, skinny, or smart), these responses will primarily be shaped by (1) social conditioning and (2) self efficacy.

Social conditioning is an obvious factor, but self efficacy is usually lost in attempts to understand overall group response. People do what they do well, and so do groups. And this is the really fascinating bit.

Avoiding a 20 pg essay, here's my conclusion --> Blame the Information Age. As the amount of information average people process daily increases, so do feelings of inadequacy related to that processing. These feelings lead them to reduce stress by simplifying and reducing processing. Out of a need for survival, they select chunks of data to deal with "later" or never. "Live for today."

Unfortunately, exceptional intellects are more likely to do the opposite. A person does what they do well, so intellectuals are prone to seek more data for deeper analysis than the over-burdened masses. Consequently, their interactions with average people tend to induce stress in the latter group. This acts as a conditioning agent (punishment), and so average people tend to find intellectual people unpalatable.

The distinctions between cultures lies in prioritization and categorization of information. American family, historical, and religious influences (Strongly prioritized belonging contexts) tend to be dominated by the mass media -- which provides a broader menu of contexts that is not clearly prioritized for average intellects. Hence their general processing inefficiencies, consequent confusion, and distaste for intellectuals.

Intellectuals are also more likely to have the personality of a doorknob, but that's another matter entirely.

wolfen

[zigzag]

I think it's just another cultural cycle, and that it's probably overstated anyway. I suspect that for a lot of people in academia, the frame of reference is the 1960's-70's, when everything (including competitive sports) was questioned and relatively more people rejected careerism. And there were more things to fight for and about - the war, co-ed dorms, etc. But that period was something of an anomaly, and even then the vast majority of people in college were there for the usual reasons - to advance their careers. For instance, the "work hard-play hard" ethic is nothing new - I distinctly remember my pre-med ex-brother-in-law using those exact words circa 1968.

Plus you have an ongoing rise in affluence and distractions. When I was in college, there wasn't a whole lot else to do but study and talk about St. Augustine. No cable TV, no CDs, VCRs or DVDs, no internet, no computer games, etc. A game of foosball was considered pretty exciting. And few kids could afford to travel. Now, there are a lot more distractions, and even to very pointy-headed 20-year-olds, navel-gazing must seem rather a dead-end in comparison, and I wouldn't necessarily blame them for thinking so.

I dunno, just armchair observations. I could be completely wrong. Certainly intellectualism has always been viewed with more skepticism here than in, say, France.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
I don�t know. America is a diverse country. There are intellectually serious people and there are a lot more who aren�t. Hasn�t it always been that way?

Seems to me that a great deal of what people learn at college is highly specialized. People can be brillant within their specialty but if they move an inch beyond their field of expertise, it�s like dropping off a cliff.

It's not just in America and I agree. I know some brilliant people (in their field) that couldn't tie their shoelaces.

In Australia we also have "Tall Poppy Syndrome" where anyone trying to rise above the herd quickly gets his head lopped off.