4 ms·

What I took away is that while plenty of poor people might believe/agree with thought leaders, it's the rich who enable them, by giving them a platform. I'd say

What I took away is that while plenty of poor people might believe/agree with thought leaders, it's the rich who enable them, by giving them a platform. I'd say the article is not so much academics vs. "thought leaders" as it is intellectuals (i.e. people who apply a critical lens to their chosen objects of study) vs. eloquent bullshitters (i.e. people who have one idea and dogmatically try to fit it to everything, and evangelically try to convince people that they're right. There are plenty of both inside and outside academia.

imartin2k 9y ago
"eloquent bullshitters" Good term. "The Rise of the Eloquent Bullshitters" would have been a nicer headline.
tpeo 9y ago
If the author wanted to pin something on the rich, I think he should've gone explicitly after think tanks instead. I don't think your run-of-the-mill celebrity intellectual living off book royalties, paid talks and columns has that much to do with large political donors. All a paid speaker needs is a paying audience, and preferably a large one. And if he's a bullshiter, that's all the better: bullshit sells. They just seem target anyone with some disposable income instead. But think tanks need budgets (different order of magnitude here), and their output is used to supply media and lobbyists with stuff which might budge the decision of voters as well as politicians. Also, I disagree that this is "The Rise" of anything in either case. Think tanks are recent, but they've been here for a while. But someone peddling some (seemingly?) shallow understanding of the world for money is probably old as the hills. Certainly older than the sophists, older than Mesmer and his animal magnetism, as well as older than any sort of quackery or intellectual sleight of hand in historical memory. Talking about this as if it were something new, and with allusions to Gramsci to top it off, just strikes me as making it as unnecessarily ominous.
lgleason 9y ago
I'm not going to name names, but right now I know of a individual who has no programming or teaching experience that is doing the rounds, keynoting and speaking at tech conferences on mentoring junior developers. Many of these conferences leave the qualified technical people to pay for their own costs, they get no stipend but a free ticket. Money does enable this when you have unqualified people being given free travel, stipends etc. to speak at conferences while the qualified ones are left to fend for their own expenses when they speak. Most of these conferences derive a large percentage of their revenue from sponsorship sooooooo....
christophilus 9y ago
I think this sums it up well. Most people have a difficult time distinguishing between well-reasoned, philosophically-sound thought and eloquent rhetoric. The former is hard to do and hard to find. The latter is available in spades. My dad was lamenting the inability of young people to think critically. Maybe he's just a grumpy old man, but he seems to remember being trained in classical thought and critical thinking while in middle school, and notes the lack of such training even at the university level today. I think he's got a fair point.

imartin2k 9y ago

"eloquent bullshitters" Good term. "The Rise of the Eloquent Bullshitters" would have been a nicer headline.

tpeo 9y ago

If the author wanted to pin something on the rich, I think he should've gone explicitly after think tanks instead. I don't think your run-of-the-mill celebrity intellectual living off book royalties, paid talks and columns has that much to do with large political donors. All a paid speaker needs is a paying audience, and preferably a large one. And if he's a bullshiter, that's all the better: bullshit sells. They just seem target anyone with some disposable income instead. But think tanks need budgets (different order of magnitude here), and their output is used to supply media and lobbyists with stuff which might budge the decision of voters as well as politicians. Also, I disagree that this is "The Rise" of anything in either case. Think tanks are recent, but they've been here for a while. But someone peddling some (seemingly?) shallow understanding of the world for money is probably old as the hills. Certainly older than the sophists, older than Mesmer and his animal magnetism, as well as older than any sort of quackery or intellectual sleight of hand in historical memory. Talking about this as if it were something new, and with allusions to Gramsci to top it off, just strikes me as making it as unnecessarily ominous.

lgleason 9y ago

I'm not going to name names, but right now I know of a individual who has no programming or teaching experience that is doing the rounds, keynoting and speaking at tech conferences on mentoring junior developers. Many of these conferences leave the qualified technical people to pay for their own costs, they get no stipend but a free ticket. Money does enable this when you have unqualified people being given free travel, stipends etc. to speak at conferences while the qualified ones are left to fend for their own expenses when they speak. Most of these conferences derive a large percentage of their revenue from sponsorship sooooooo....

christophilus 9y ago

I think this sums it up well. Most people have a difficult time distinguishing between well-reasoned, philosophically-sound thought and eloquent rhetoric. The former is hard to do and hard to find. The latter is available in spades. My dad was lamenting the inability of young people to think critically. Maybe he's just a grumpy old man, but he seems to remember being trained in classical thought and critical thinking while in middle school, and notes the lack of such training even at the university level today. I think he's got a fair point.