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the republican national convention is a triumph of anti-intellectualism

the republican national convention is a triumph of anti-intellectualism

Last updated on: July 19, 2016 at 11:37 am by Rebecca Bratten Weiss

the republican national convention is a triumph of anti-intellectualism 2016-07-19T11:37:57-04:00 Rebecca Bratten Weiss

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Both parties have found themselves, for some time, in the awkward position of attempting to straddle the gap between “populist” and “intellectual.” We all know it’s good to be smart; we also know it’s bad to sneer at those who haven’t had prime educational advantages. I can laugh at National Review for printing, in the same issue, an article sneering at the “academic elite” and another sneering at bad grammar – but the Left is trapped in a similar conundrum, theoretically rejecting the classism and elitism of dead white males while erecting new classisms with the building blocks of ever-changing jargon, by which the elect can signal their superiority to those less versed in it.

(A plague on both your houses)

But recently, the Right has been overt in its rejection of “academic elitism” and “pointy-headed intellectuals” to the point of being a caricature of populism, insulting not only to us privileged elite professors in our ivory towers (okay – actually, my study is the size of a closet, but it gives a great view of a hay field) – but also to non-academics who do, as a matter of fact, enjoy reading, and thinking, and making rational decisions, and not being driven solely by the passions.

Rejecting ideas as elitist is a false populism, based on the assumption that ideas are rare treats to be enjoyed only by the select few. One thing I have found, in over ten years of university teaching, is that non-intellectuals can get excited about ideas, too. This doesn’t mean non-intellectuals need to get into thousands of dollars of debt for degrees they’ll never use – but it does mean that there is value in introducing philosophy, literature, history, science, and even theology, to everyone, for the sake of their own personal and spiritual growth.

Ironically, the people who reject intellectualism, and sneer at the value of a university education, are devoted to the ideals of the capitalists who are in the process of destroying our university system by running it according to a business model, rather than on the model that made the (Catholic) European universities great. And they can only do this while they continue to force an expensive education onto a demographic that will suffer from debilitating debt as a result.

(This is where I need a little flag that says “make our universities great again”).

Saying that everyone can enjoy ideas does not mean, however, that intellectuals are disposable. The western intellectual tradition has many weaknesses, from the misogyny of its traditional anthropology (“anthro” means “man” and “man” isn’t really as inclusive as some would tell you) to the body-mind dualism present from Plato on, to its tendency towards institutionalism and acceptance of violence, and finally its reduction of the Christian Gospel to any number of human “isms.”

But in spite critiques I level at this tradition, the fact remains that it has given us valuable forms, archetypes, disciplines, and tools for approaching the world with the goal of understanding. These include the principles of formal reasoning, but also principles of rhetoric, and the ability to analyze how rhetoric is used. These include principles and categories of ethics, important ethical questions, and rules for correct engagement with others. Our academic tradition should be a tradition in which argument and disagreement are actually forms of respect: to take the time to understand, and express disagreement with another’s position, is to say “you and your ideas are worthy of my time.” Shrill emotionalism has no place here.

Plato’s dream of a Republic in which kings are philosophers and philosophers are kings may have been partially a joke, and is certainly a pipe dream. And, to be honest, it’s not one I would want to see come to fruition (to paraphrase The Princess Bride, “I’ve known too many philosophers”).

However, a civilization that is whole and complete respects not only the material things within it (the earth, the soil, the buildings, the trees, the streets, the living bodies) but also its ideas. I don’t mean here fluffy vague “values” that can be concentrated into a single word and never analyzed again – such as “freedom” or “greatness.” I mean, the whole rigorous system of education in specific disciplines and conversations across the lines of those disciplines, the rigorous system that is enshrined for us in books, and collected in libraries. The public library is a symbol of a civilization that values the mind as well as the body. The university system ought to be, not an expensive career preparation, but a gymnasium of the mind, where one trains it to be exact, discerning, prudent – and, yes, ethical. To be trained in the intellect is to be trained in the psykhe – the soul. As the soul expands and strengthens, it should become majestic, generous: this is what magnanimity means.

One of the first lectures I give my students, on the first day of every class, is a warning against plagiarism. While I do think that the institutionalization of the academy has led to too rigid an idea of what plagiarism entails (all learning is a borrowing, after all, and we’re all suffering from anxiety of influence) it is still the case that to present someone else’s work as your own is intellectual theft, a form of mendacity, and indicative of sloth. There is no honor in this, no magnanimity, no greatness.

And yet, those who would make American great again (when was it great? one must ask – when it committed genocide against the native peoples? when it enslaved a whole race? when it waged countless wars? when it used up our vast natural resources?) excuse Melania Trump’s plagiarism of Michelle Obama’s speech. It doesn’t matter to them. Intellectual nitpicking, is what this is, I suppose, in their minds.

And it’s not just the plagiarism. It’s the lack of content, the appeal to emotion (pathos) while utterly neglecting the other branches of rhetoric. Logos? that’s for pointy-headed intellectuals. Ethos? better ignore that, given the moral character of the Great Trump, his repeated dishonesty, his serial adultery, his rape of his own wife, his unjust business dealings. The hyper-sensitivity of Trump’s fans is also typical. Like most bullies, they love to trash various demographics, but if you come back at them with the term “racist” their feelings are hurt. The feelings of Black Lives Matter activists are, apparently, irrelevant – but the feelings of “the people” who are “angry” (an acceptable emotion, in white males) are now a justification for anything.

I will grant them this: in many universities, right-wing or left-wing, there is no longer an education offered that seems relevant or living. Whether it be the reduction of education to career preparation, or enormous classes in which celebrity academics have no contact with their students, or learning flattened into “outcomes,” or professors who dislike their charges, or classes taught by exhausted adjuncts who don’t have time to meet with students personally, or hip subjects which offer trendy topics with no real pith to them – it’s understandable why many would revile academics. But the problem is not with intellectuals themselves, it’s with the corruption of the academic tradition, the loss of love. I can’t really fault “the people” for rejecting academia. Academia has already rejected itself.

——————————————————–

Another benefit of an education is that one learns a little bit about history, and as George Santayana said, those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. The language directed against Muslims and immigrants, at the Republican National Convention, built up an image of the Violent Muslim or Criminal Immigrant, apart from any statistical realities about what the majority of Muslims or immigrants are actually like. With reliance on anecdote instead of fact, a narrative was put forth in which America’s greatness depends on violence against the Other, and the Other becomes no longer an individual person, but a shadowy menace representing a dangerous type.

This has been done before. Excuse me for going Godwin on you, but prior to the annihilation of millions of Jews by Hitler’s nationalistic, xenophobic, and irrational regime, propaganda enforcing the idea of Jewish violence, unreliability, and criminality was put forth.

Our propaganda was based on a clear insight into the psychology of the masses. Our opponents appealed to reason, lived under the delusion that through political education the masses will become discerning and made immune to our poison. I’ve never had these illusions. I knew the utter lack of critical spirit in the mass, which doesn’t allow it to see contradictions. I knew that the mass will follow more easily the appeal to hatred and national honor, to rash action and excitement, than the call for insight and reason, that habituation and conditioning will stir it towards anything, even to war, for which we had to win them.

(Joseph Goebbels)

In a society which no longer respects its learned men and women, a society without an agora for its philosophers, those who do remember the past are doomed to watch helplessly while it is repeated, in spite of all we tried to do.

(Postscript: did you notice any mention of defense of life at the Republican National Convention? I didn’t).

image credit: dunce cap, from the Museum of Lincolnshire Life. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License,_version_1.2

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