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Much of our conception of intellectuals is mired in the image of the Academic. And while intellectuals which come out of academic circles are important, I thin

Much of our conception of intellectuals is mired in the image of the Academic. And while intellectuals which come out of academic circles are important, I think we actually need to push instead for a popular intellectualism which is not just independent of academia, but actively pushes it's obsolescence. There have been scenes, areas and movements of popular intellectualism in the past. The Lower East Side in the 1910's for instance. I think Chomsky is an incredible political analyst and thinker, and I appreciate the work he's done immensely. But I think it's important also to consider how important it is that we do not separate ourselves or others from "The Intellectuals", that we don't acquiesce to a certain academic dilettantism instead of building a culture of intellectualism for ourselves and others. The major steps towards that are to first drop any pretense that intellectualism comes from a specific context, whether academia, the middle classes, white, male, etc. Wholeheartedly adopt, instead, the idea that anybody can and should be encouraged towards intellectualism. In short, replace The Intellectual, with a culture of intellectualism. Secondly, to encourage the importance of facts, the complexity of the world, and infinity of ideas. Intellectualism doesn't thrive when people choose strict ideologies, and argue them stubbornly. Instead, encourage people to accept being wrong, to revel in it, even, and to put their ideas up to scrutiny like a scientist. The internet puts us in an incredible point in history where facts are non-exclusive. We have all the facts we could ever need, and it's gotten easier and easier to locate them. This major barrier to being an intellectual, historically provided by academia, is almost completely gone. It's time we learned how to move forward with the rest of it.

kevin_riggen 16y ago
"This major barrier to being an intellectual, historically provided by academia, is almost completely gone." Wow, what an amazing conclusion. Well said and thanks.
- FluidDjango 16y ago
  I teach (mediocre) college students. And I disagree. It is not lack of access to information ('facts') that is a barrier to being an intellectual. It is a combination of inability/unwillingness to think analytically about information and ideas. IMHO.
  - izaidi 16y ago
    There can be more than one barrier.
  - kiba 16y ago
    My though process often clashes with somebody who have a very different assumption about how political systems should be organized. I sometime recognize that the discussion is going nowhere because the difference in ethical and principles are too great. One example of this is the concept of democracy and the idea of popular consent. I am extremely distrustful of human beings, so my political ideology tend to have a strong anti-authoritarian bent.
  - sb 16y ago
    I had the exact same objection to the parents argument. IMHO, your experience with college students is a direct consequence of what we know all too well from the discouraging PISA results...
  - kevin_riggen 16y ago
    Let rephrase it to "the major physical barrier".
- babeKnuth 16y ago
  Not really. Intelligent acts are everywhere. Academia is usually the last place I ever encounter anything intelligent. For example, a lot of people find TED vids stimulating. Or the Discovery channel, etc. Those aren't what one would consider "academic". Further, Chomsky tends to dismiss "academia" as not being relevant to the "real world" whenever he uses the phrase "academic exercise" for something that doesn't matter and is just mental masturbation.
pmorici 16y ago
"The internet puts us in an incredible point in history where facts are non-exclusive." I was watching an interview with Chomsky on hulu the other day and they asked him what he though about blogs and the Internet vs. traditional news papers and it seemed like he thought the destruction of newspapers was a very bad thing and that blogs were not a suitable replacement.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  Seeing as newspapers have had decades upon decades to mature, and blogs are less than a decade and a half old, for now, I would agree with him. However, I don't think that will be the case forever, and once independent internet journalism catches up, the net result will be a much better situation.
_delirium 16y ago
The internet puts us in an incredible point in history where facts are non-exclusive. We have all the facts we could ever need, and it's gotten easier and easier to locate them. This major barrier to being an intellectual, historically provided by academia, is almost completely gone. I agree the internet makes it even easier, but access to raw facts hasn't really been a barrier for decades, if not a century, at least in the United States. The average person has long had access to a ton of information they simply didn't use, via libraries, especially in major cities with good library systems. You occasionally read about people even some decades ago who became experts in a field by just sitting in the New York public library reading all the books on the subject they could get their hands on, but it's not the usual case. Many university libraries are open to the public as well, but most of the public doesn't take them up on that offer, either. Maybe the internet will be what changes that, but I have some doubts. My guess is that the people who will use information on the internet to truly become experts on a subject overlap heavily with the kinds of people who, 50 years ago, would've been in the library becoming experts on the subject (though it's probably the case that there will be more of them). If anything, the library is probably still a better resource, at least for now. If someone wants to learn physics on their own, to the point where they could really be an expert in some area, grabbing a bunch of the best physics books they can find and reading them cover-to-cover is going to get them there faster than reading physics blogs and Wikipedia will (though blogs and Wikipedia do have some quite good information, and are good for keeping up on recent advances).
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  though it's probably the case that there will be more of them Someone pointed out below the issue of time investment in order to be an intellectual. The internet makes searching, information retrieval, access to experts, etc. so much less time consuming, that it becomes perfectly reasonable to work a full time job, have a family, and still slowly build a repertoire around a subject. So that does mean more people can become intellectuals. And that increase in numbers can build momentum, but what I'm suggesting is to not just bank on that as a natural occurrence, but to actively work towards a culture of public intellectualism. Others down below let their skepticism get in the way, and that's exactly one of the problems I think we all need to overcome. Of course, it's difficult, a lot of people have grown up in a culture of anti-intellectualism, of ideological stubbornness, or of passive acceptance. Think of it this way, the first step in changing a culture is to no longer accept that a culture must be the way it is. It doesn't mean that everyone will suddenly become Noam Chomsky, but instead of simply accepting the goal as impossible, take it as a challenge: How do we get from here to there? If you want to learn physics, reading all the physics blogs on the internet is probably not as good an approach as picking up the best 20 or 30 physics books you can find and reading them cover to cover. Sure, blogs aren't great, physics books are much better, but we now also have MIT OpenCourseWare, Connexions, etc. I can almost completely get a full MIT education, sometimes including lectures, without ever having to get accepted into MIT. But the most important thing is that books and lectures aren't everything, so the next step isn't just about people taking the initiative to self-learn a subject, but to actually build free institutions where people can meet with others working in the field, hobbyists, etc. In past popular intellectual movements, that has meant something as simple as a coffee shop. LUGS are a good example of that kind of common interest organizing. In the future, more structured places of intellectualism will be necessary, much like universities, but explicitly free of charge and without any purpose of degree or accreditation. But hey, let's take it a step at a time. :)
babeKnuth 16y ago
i agree with all of what you said, but not necessarily in the way you express it (or the examples/references used) i prefer the term "intelligence" rather than intellectual. any idiot (every one of us) operates on intelligence, tho it might not be well developed for all domains. i'm unsure if intellectualism was historically provided by academia tho. nor whether that matters. intelligence is everywhere, and can manifest itself in any place and medium. this has a minimum grace of style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJb3ka_ZNtM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJb3ka_ZNtM

kevin_riggen 16y ago

"This major barrier to being an intellectual, historically provided by academia, is almost completely gone." Wow, what an amazing conclusion. Well said and thanks.

FluidDjango 16y ago
I teach (mediocre) college students. And I disagree. It is not lack of access to information ('facts') that is a barrier to being an intellectual. It is a combination of inability/unwillingness to think analytically about information and ideas. IMHO.
- izaidi 16y ago
  There can be more than one barrier.
- kiba 16y ago
  My though process often clashes with somebody who have a very different assumption about how political systems should be organized. I sometime recognize that the discussion is going nowhere because the difference in ethical and principles are too great. One example of this is the concept of democracy and the idea of popular consent. I am extremely distrustful of human beings, so my political ideology tend to have a strong anti-authoritarian bent.
- sb 16y ago
  I had the exact same objection to the parents argument. IMHO, your experience with college students is a direct consequence of what we know all too well from the discouraging PISA results...
- kevin_riggen 16y ago
  Let rephrase it to "the major physical barrier".
babeKnuth 16y ago
Not really. Intelligent acts are everywhere. Academia is usually the last place I ever encounter anything intelligent. For example, a lot of people find TED vids stimulating. Or the Discovery channel, etc. Those aren't what one would consider "academic". Further, Chomsky tends to dismiss "academia" as not being relevant to the "real world" whenever he uses the phrase "academic exercise" for something that doesn't matter and is just mental masturbation.

pmorici 16y ago

"The internet puts us in an incredible point in history where facts are non-exclusive." I was watching an interview with Chomsky on hulu the other day and they asked him what he though about blogs and the Internet vs. traditional news papers and it seemed like he thought the destruction of newspapers was a very bad thing and that blogs were not a suitable replacement.

michaelchisari 16y ago
Seeing as newspapers have had decades upon decades to mature, and blogs are less than a decade and a half old, for now, I would agree with him. However, I don't think that will be the case forever, and once independent internet journalism catches up, the net result will be a much better situation.

_delirium 16y ago

The internet puts us in an incredible point in history where facts are non-exclusive. We have all the facts we could ever need, and it's gotten easier and easier to locate them. This major barrier to being an intellectual, historically provided by academia, is almost completely gone. I agree the internet makes it even easier, but access to raw facts hasn't really been a barrier for decades, if not a century, at least in the United States. The average person has long had access to a ton of information they simply didn't use, via libraries, especially in major cities with good library systems. You occasionally read about people even some decades ago who became experts in a field by just sitting in the New York public library reading all the books on the subject they could get their hands on, but it's not the usual case. Many university libraries are open to the public as well, but most of the public doesn't take them up on that offer, either. Maybe the internet will be what changes that, but I have some doubts. My guess is that the people who will use information on the internet to truly become experts on a subject overlap heavily with the kinds of people who, 50 years ago, would've been in the library becoming experts on the subject (though it's probably the case that there will be more of them). If anything, the library is probably still a better resource, at least for now. If someone wants to learn physics on their own, to the point where they could really be an expert in some area, grabbing a bunch of the best physics books they can find and reading them cover-to-cover is going to get them there faster than reading physics blogs and Wikipedia will (though blogs and Wikipedia do have some quite good information, and are good for keeping up on recent advances).

michaelchisari 16y ago
though it's probably the case that there will be more of them Someone pointed out below the issue of time investment in order to be an intellectual. The internet makes searching, information retrieval, access to experts, etc. so much less time consuming, that it becomes perfectly reasonable to work a full time job, have a family, and still slowly build a repertoire around a subject. So that does mean more people can become intellectuals. And that increase in numbers can build momentum, but what I'm suggesting is to not just bank on that as a natural occurrence, but to actively work towards a culture of public intellectualism. Others down below let their skepticism get in the way, and that's exactly one of the problems I think we all need to overcome. Of course, it's difficult, a lot of people have grown up in a culture of anti-intellectualism, of ideological stubbornness, or of passive acceptance. Think of it this way, the first step in changing a culture is to no longer accept that a culture must be the way it is. It doesn't mean that everyone will suddenly become Noam Chomsky, but instead of simply accepting the goal as impossible, take it as a challenge: How do we get from here to there? If you want to learn physics, reading all the physics blogs on the internet is probably not as good an approach as picking up the best 20 or 30 physics books you can find and reading them cover to cover. Sure, blogs aren't great, physics books are much better, but we now also have MIT OpenCourseWare, Connexions, etc. I can almost completely get a full MIT education, sometimes including lectures, without ever having to get accepted into MIT. But the most important thing is that books and lectures aren't everything, so the next step isn't just about people taking the initiative to self-learn a subject, but to actually build free institutions where people can meet with others working in the field, hobbyists, etc. In past popular intellectual movements, that has meant something as simple as a coffee shop. LUGS are a good example of that kind of common interest organizing. In the future, more structured places of intellectualism will be necessary, much like universities, but explicitly free of charge and without any purpose of degree or accreditation. But hey, let's take it a step at a time. :)

babeKnuth 16y ago

i agree with all of what you said, but not necessarily in the way you express it (or the examples/references used) i prefer the term "intelligence" rather than intellectual. any idiot (every one of us) operates on intelligence, tho it might not be well developed for all domains. i'm unsure if intellectualism was historically provided by academia tho. nor whether that matters. intelligence is everywhere, and can manifest itself in any place and medium. this has a minimum grace of style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJb3ka_ZNtM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJb3ka_ZNtM