6 ms·

Anti-Education by Nietzsche, and why mainstream culture does our best thinking

54 points by drjohnson 11y ago

carapat_virulat 11y ago
Many of the seminal writers of what the author calls The American cult of political correctness in universities, like Derrida, Foucault, de Bevoir, Butler, Adorno have all been influenced by Nietzsche. I haven't read any of those authors nor Nietzsche, and I have no idea whatsoever about the political correctness that goes on in the USA so I'm not trying to make any kind of point. I just find it funny that conservatives have a certain pop idea of Nietzsche as some kind of more serious Ayn Rand, while actual Nietzsche scholars have actualized his ideas in all kinds of directions.
- JackFr 11y ago
  The American cult of political correctness may have paid lip service to those authors 20 or 30 years ago, but the current regime of trigger warnings and safe spaces doesn't even pretend to have an intellectual basis. It's grounded largely on the supremacy of the subjective experience, 'feelsies' if you will. That being said, your complaint about conservatives is a bit of a straw man.
  - wfo 11y ago
    Pretty much dead on. I don't think any conservatives think of Nietzsche as a more serious Ayn Rand, rather they think of Ayn Rand as serious herself. Reading Nietzsche (or any philosopher really) without the proper context these days he appears just genuinely weird. I think non-intellectual people on the left read Derrida and Foucault and it eventually turned into trigger warnings and safe spaces. Non-intellectual people on the right read Nietzsche and it eventually turned into books called things like "Atlas Shrugged" and polemics about "makers and takers".
  - camgunz 11y ago
    I feel some consternation whenever I see loaded language, and in this case it's "cult". It's completely reasonable to not want your race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. attacked around your home (safe spaces), or to not have violent acts you've experienced joked about (trigger warnings). These things are different than being against free speech; that's the strawman here.
sogen 11y ago
The author is wrong, Adorno for example heavily criticized mass culture (Disney, E entertainment, celebrities gossip, etc) as pure garbage that distracts the masses from real topics. Read The culture industry enlightenment as mass deception Also: The Perverts guide to Ideology And if you're feeling adventurous, John Gatto's books
- bcook 11y ago
  That's the worst of the mainstream. That is not a valid or logical argument against the position that the mainstream's best is better than academia's best.
- eruditely 11y ago
  If there's any person to not listen to, it's Adorno.
rbrogan 11y ago
If I am reading this right, the argument goes something like this: (1) Nietzsche was anti-academic and did his best work independently. (2) He was against academia being used as a means to nation-state ends, and he disliked how that undermined independent, critical thought. (3) There are similar problems today in academia where it goes against independent thinking. (4) The best independent thinking comes through not in high culture, but mainstream culture and it better explores issues than academia. IMO, the problem is communication. If you read academic writing (especially in the humanities) it can seem like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and the person writing it is not really trying to communicate anything intelligent, but is just trying to sound impressive. I believe this is mostly not true. Rather, the problem is the same with technical documentation that is high in rigor and detail, but low in learnability; the problem is that it is difficult to communicate. The person writing will usually (IMO) have something in them they are sincerely trying to express. The goal of entertainment is to entertain, but it also has to appeal at least somewhat to the passions of the creators and the intellects of the viewers. So thinking finds its way through that medium and can reach a mass audience. It is not that academia has no potential to do the same, it is just that there is not a dynamic set up which brings it out very well.
- myztic 11y ago
  I think that the article over-estimates strongly the influence of entertainment to a certain degree when it comes to our intellectual development. And I am someone who consumes a lot of media. While it's true some will profit from the intellectual properties, I would argue in order to see this side of an entertainment show, one must have the intellectual capacity to do so in the first place. An "intelligent" person might see an existential moral conflict portrayed brilliantly in something like Breaking Bad, others see a story about Drugs, Tough guys, cool Misfortunes, funny incidents, black humour and they don't notice or derive any moral teachings from it. (I might misrepresent Breaking Bad here to some degree, I have not seen it completely. Could have also named examples like Spirited Away, Watership Down, ... simple cartoons to some, but they are missing the bigger picture.) That's why shows which rate high among TV Critics and get a lot of viewers, normally appeal to both, those who see the big picture, and those who are appealed to the "superficial" version of it. Academia does not have to entertain in the same way, but academia will also change radically when it comes to getting a point across. Technology will help incredibly with bringing abstract information to people outside of a specific scientific field. We humans are not good at Maths, not at all. We humans are good at touching, smelling, visualizing things. Albert Einstein was one of the most influential physicists in the 20th century, and even though his ideas (at that time) must have seemed incredibly counter-intuitive, it was through thought experiments with a large amount of visualization, that helped him form his theories. Visuals are so important. And they'll become better and better, and we will be able to do them more effectively and in a whole new way as technology progresses. Think about proper 3D-Virtual Environments, 3D Position Tracking in a room with a VR-Headset. The possibilities we have there. I remember very clearly when we talked about Retrograde Motion of planets in school. By the time we were finishing sketching it out everybody understood it[1]. In order to understand it, not everybody has to be able to reach the conclusion themselves. Why do planets seem to move backwards / stop and turn around? 30 Seconds of video will explain it to the layman, enough so that he is satisfied with the answer and actually gets it. Education may progress particularly slowly, but eventually we will reach a completely different form of education and will have incredibly clever ways of getting information across. Academia does not have to primarily entertain, but it should also be able to quickly get the point across, we will get there. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72FrZz_zJFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72FrZz_zJFU
jfoutz 11y ago
It's a whole lot easier to write a convincing argument than it is to write a correct argument. At the start, at the education phase of learning, stuff needs to be engaging. It's totally worthwhile to invoke emotion, humor, whatever rhetorical trick is available to convince the student. Later though, when you hit the frontier, and start thinking things no one ever thought about, stylized dry writing is easer to evaluate for correctness. You don't want an emotional investment, you want an objective view so it can be picked apart based on its own merits. If that stands up, seems correct, or at least worth more investigation, then it can be dressed up in the easy to communicate way. Perhaps some ideas can't be evaluated without investing in their emotional content. That's a tough place to find truth.
- outlace 11y ago
  "At the start, at the education phase of learning, stuff needs to be engaging" Perhaps this is true in primary school, but I think in secondary school and definitely in university, education can be engaging while remaining completely intellectually honest and devoid of outright appeals to emotion. When education becomes about how to think and not what to think, it is inherently more interesting. I remember taking my first moral philosophy class in university, and much to my surprise, it was one of the most engaging classes I ever took precisely because it challenged everything I thought I knew. The professor could have spent the time teaching us what to think (e.g. just what the major moral philosophy theories are) but instead she used the socratic method and challenged each of us about what we already believed and how those philosophers like Kant came to their theories. Indeed, intellectual and moral relativism is dangerous because it does the same thing religion does, it is a method of coming to knowledge/truth (an epistemology) that no one else has access to and/or that relies on subjective evidence (i.e. emotions/feelings).
  - jfoutz 11y ago
    I don't think there's any dishonesty, i think we just like charismatic people more, and are more inclined to believe them. Maybe we don't look quite so hard for cracks in their arguments. Double blind peer review helps combat this, stylized writing helps combat this. We're just animals. we've got a million subtle biases. I agree with you, we should challenge what we know and believe. That ain't easy.
RamshackleJ 11y ago
the author cherry picks examples of "mainstream" culture to support his argument. It also feels like the separation between education institutions and "mainstream" culture is a false dichotomy. Especially when 40%+ of the US population now holds a degree from one of these institutions. While in Nietzsche's day university was a rare privilege today it is not. Claiming that something as prolific is separate from mainstream seems wrong.
outlace 11y ago
"...let any idea however offensive be freely expressed, so that it can be challenged and where necessary rationally rebutted." Amen to that. If only that were the case, we'd be so much better off.
javajosh 11y ago
Nietzsche's sister was a real bitch. Didn't know that. As for the rest, I found the article concerning. Maybe it's more about the humanities than the hard sciences, but it seems clear to me that academia is doing a good job pushing the boundaries of what is known. As for 'culture', no I don't think academia ever really had the ability or intention to define it - it seeks, perhaps, to describe it. It's true that modern philosophers have little effect on real culture, and that's perhaps for the best.
vonnik 11y ago
The writing and thought in this piece is pretty facile. @rbrogan's comment below sums it up well. Let's remember that Nietzsche received a very rigorous education before his precocious career as a professor. Sure, there are pressures on the university that push its members away from independent and critical thought. But independent and critical thought has threatened institutions with volatility for a long time. I don't think the wilderness of pop culture is the best place to go looking for it.

54 points by drjohnson 11y ago

Many of the seminal writers of what the author calls The American cult of political correctness in universities, like Derrida, Foucault, de Bevoir, Butler, Adorno have all been influenced by Nietzsche. I haven't read any of those authors nor Nietzsche, and I have no idea whatsoever about the political correctness that goes on in the USA so I'm not trying to make any kind of point. I just find it funny that conservatives have a certain pop idea of Nietzsche as some kind of more serious Ayn Rand, while actual Nietzsche scholars have actualized his ideas in all kinds of directions.

JackFr 11y ago
The American cult of political correctness may have paid lip service to those authors 20 or 30 years ago, but the current regime of trigger warnings and safe spaces doesn't even pretend to have an intellectual basis. It's grounded largely on the supremacy of the subjective experience, 'feelsies' if you will. That being said, your complaint about conservatives is a bit of a straw man.
- wfo 11y ago
  Pretty much dead on. I don't think any conservatives think of Nietzsche as a more serious Ayn Rand, rather they think of Ayn Rand as serious herself. Reading Nietzsche (or any philosopher really) without the proper context these days he appears just genuinely weird. I think non-intellectual people on the left read Derrida and Foucault and it eventually turned into trigger warnings and safe spaces. Non-intellectual people on the right read Nietzsche and it eventually turned into books called things like "Atlas Shrugged" and polemics about "makers and takers".
- camgunz 11y ago
  I feel some consternation whenever I see loaded language, and in this case it's "cult". It's completely reasonable to not want your race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. attacked around your home (safe spaces), or to not have violent acts you've experienced joked about (trigger warnings). These things are different than being against free speech; that's the strawman here.

sogen 11y ago

The author is wrong, Adorno for example heavily criticized mass culture (Disney, E entertainment, celebrities gossip, etc) as pure garbage that distracts the masses from real topics. Read The culture industry enlightenment as mass deception Also: The Perverts guide to Ideology And if you're feeling adventurous, John Gatto's books

bcook 11y ago
That's the worst of the mainstream. That is not a valid or logical argument against the position that the mainstream's best is better than academia's best.
eruditely 11y ago
If there's any person to not listen to, it's Adorno.

rbrogan 11y ago

If I am reading this right, the argument goes something like this: (1) Nietzsche was anti-academic and did his best work independently. (2) He was against academia being used as a means to nation-state ends, and he disliked how that undermined independent, critical thought. (3) There are similar problems today in academia where it goes against independent thinking. (4) The best independent thinking comes through not in high culture, but mainstream culture and it better explores issues than academia. IMO, the problem is communication. If you read academic writing (especially in the humanities) it can seem like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and the person writing it is not really trying to communicate anything intelligent, but is just trying to sound impressive. I believe this is mostly not true. Rather, the problem is the same with technical documentation that is high in rigor and detail, but low in learnability; the problem is that it is difficult to communicate. The person writing will usually (IMO) have something in them they are sincerely trying to express. The goal of entertainment is to entertain, but it also has to appeal at least somewhat to the passions of the creators and the intellects of the viewers. So thinking finds its way through that medium and can reach a mass audience. It is not that academia has no potential to do the same, it is just that there is not a dynamic set up which brings it out very well.

myztic 11y ago
I think that the article over-estimates strongly the influence of entertainment to a certain degree when it comes to our intellectual development. And I am someone who consumes a lot of media. While it's true some will profit from the intellectual properties, I would argue in order to see this side of an entertainment show, one must have the intellectual capacity to do so in the first place. An "intelligent" person might see an existential moral conflict portrayed brilliantly in something like Breaking Bad, others see a story about Drugs, Tough guys, cool Misfortunes, funny incidents, black humour and they don't notice or derive any moral teachings from it. (I might misrepresent Breaking Bad here to some degree, I have not seen it completely. Could have also named examples like Spirited Away, Watership Down, ... simple cartoons to some, but they are missing the bigger picture.) That's why shows which rate high among TV Critics and get a lot of viewers, normally appeal to both, those who see the big picture, and those who are appealed to the "superficial" version of it. Academia does not have to entertain in the same way, but academia will also change radically when it comes to getting a point across. Technology will help incredibly with bringing abstract information to people outside of a specific scientific field. We humans are not good at Maths, not at all. We humans are good at touching, smelling, visualizing things. Albert Einstein was one of the most influential physicists in the 20th century, and even though his ideas (at that time) must have seemed incredibly counter-intuitive, it was through thought experiments with a large amount of visualization, that helped him form his theories. Visuals are so important. And they'll become better and better, and we will be able to do them more effectively and in a whole new way as technology progresses. Think about proper 3D-Virtual Environments, 3D Position Tracking in a room with a VR-Headset. The possibilities we have there. I remember very clearly when we talked about Retrograde Motion of planets in school. By the time we were finishing sketching it out everybody understood it[1]. In order to understand it, not everybody has to be able to reach the conclusion themselves. Why do planets seem to move backwards / stop and turn around? 30 Seconds of video will explain it to the layman, enough so that he is satisfied with the answer and actually gets it. Education may progress particularly slowly, but eventually we will reach a completely different form of education and will have incredibly clever ways of getting information across. Academia does not have to primarily entertain, but it should also be able to quickly get the point across, we will get there. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72FrZz_zJFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72FrZz_zJFU

jfoutz 11y ago

It's a whole lot easier to write a convincing argument than it is to write a correct argument. At the start, at the education phase of learning, stuff needs to be engaging. It's totally worthwhile to invoke emotion, humor, whatever rhetorical trick is available to convince the student. Later though, when you hit the frontier, and start thinking things no one ever thought about, stylized dry writing is easer to evaluate for correctness. You don't want an emotional investment, you want an objective view so it can be picked apart based on its own merits. If that stands up, seems correct, or at least worth more investigation, then it can be dressed up in the easy to communicate way. Perhaps some ideas can't be evaluated without investing in their emotional content. That's a tough place to find truth.

outlace 11y ago
"At the start, at the education phase of learning, stuff needs to be engaging" Perhaps this is true in primary school, but I think in secondary school and definitely in university, education can be engaging while remaining completely intellectually honest and devoid of outright appeals to emotion. When education becomes about how to think and not what to think, it is inherently more interesting. I remember taking my first moral philosophy class in university, and much to my surprise, it was one of the most engaging classes I ever took precisely because it challenged everything I thought I knew. The professor could have spent the time teaching us what to think (e.g. just what the major moral philosophy theories are) but instead she used the socratic method and challenged each of us about what we already believed and how those philosophers like Kant came to their theories. Indeed, intellectual and moral relativism is dangerous because it does the same thing religion does, it is a method of coming to knowledge/truth (an epistemology) that no one else has access to and/or that relies on subjective evidence (i.e. emotions/feelings).
- jfoutz 11y ago
  I don't think there's any dishonesty, i think we just like charismatic people more, and are more inclined to believe them. Maybe we don't look quite so hard for cracks in their arguments. Double blind peer review helps combat this, stylized writing helps combat this. We're just animals. we've got a million subtle biases. I agree with you, we should challenge what we know and believe. That ain't easy.

RamshackleJ 11y ago

the author cherry picks examples of "mainstream" culture to support his argument. It also feels like the separation between education institutions and "mainstream" culture is a false dichotomy. Especially when 40%+ of the US population now holds a degree from one of these institutions. While in Nietzsche's day university was a rare privilege today it is not. Claiming that something as prolific is separate from mainstream seems wrong.

outlace 11y ago

"...let any idea however offensive be freely expressed, so that it can be challenged and where necessary rationally rebutted." Amen to that. If only that were the case, we'd be so much better off.

javajosh 11y ago

Nietzsche's sister was a real bitch. Didn't know that. As for the rest, I found the article concerning. Maybe it's more about the humanities than the hard sciences, but it seems clear to me that academia is doing a good job pushing the boundaries of what is known. As for 'culture', no I don't think academia ever really had the ability or intention to define it - it seeks, perhaps, to describe it. It's true that modern philosophers have little effect on real culture, and that's perhaps for the best.

vonnik 11y ago

The writing and thought in this piece is pretty facile. @rbrogan's comment below sums it up well. Let's remember that Nietzsche received a very rigorous education before his precocious career as a professor. Sure, there are pressures on the university that push its members away from independent and critical thought. But independent and critical thought has threatened institutions with volatility for a long time. I don't think the wilderness of pop culture is the best place to go looking for it.