you're one o' them over-educated book readin' liberals ain't ya?

[mopaul]

i had an uncle way back when who always messed with me about reading books. i read thousands as a kid, and he used to say things like the above to insult me in front of everyone. he looked down on intellectualism, for lack of a better term.

he sneered at those who read newspapers or books of any kind. of course, he'd never ever read a single book in his life, other than school. but this attitude is nothing new, and now even the president carries this anti-intellectual swagger.

this is still going on, stronger than ever. teens make fun of the smart kids. i was never that bright, but the one's who were were always picked on and ridiculed. the less educated kids scoff at scholarly kids who use proper english, as opposed to the current slang. called teacher's pets, or nerds, and even beaten up.

that same childish attitude is carried into adulthood unfortunately, and i've never seen it in more full swing than right now. especially under bush II. he BRAGS about not reading books or newspapers. BOASTS about his in-curiousness. deliberately uses a hick accent to appeal to the dumbest among us. (i've got a hick accent too, so don't attack me)

the nazis also attacked intellectuals and free thinkers. saw them as dangerous, because thinking for yourself is counter to the group think, nazi personae. become like the dominant mob, don't be an intellectual troublemaker. write only nationalist books. speak only nazi words, make only official artworks and music.

when i was readin' all them fancy schmancy books, i read about the nazis pretty heavily. they've always fascinated and horrified me, and i was caught off guard when i realized that bushkkko is using the nazi playbook, for the same nazi purposes. my momma didn't raise no idiot.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Reminds me of a Bill Hicks bit...Whatchoo reading fer?

"She did'nt ask me what I was reading, but what I was reading for. I never really thought about it before, but I guess it's so I don't become a fucking waitress in a waffle house like you lady!"

"He must be one of them....readers"

[RedSock]

17. i love that hicks routine

"Looks like we got ourselves a reader!

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. You don't get criticized just for knowing too much.

It's also the things you decide to focus your time on, and the level of intensity that you decide to give to a project.

In a modern world that loves a multi-tasker, those who enjoy doing one thing and doing it well are considered abnormal -- unless it has something to do with making fast money. It's the reason why we're losing our master craftsmen and the reason why the young generation is losing the ability to critical think. Better to run with the pack, than to go against it and get torn apart.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. I see this everyday as my teenagers come back from school and

tell me how some kids in their classes ridicule them for getting good grades and for going to the library afterhours.Even when my kids are very good at sports ( one in Tennis and the other in soccer) they never stop being ridiculed as "nerds". When this is the attitude of children one can only guess what their parents' thinking is like.

I will never forget the day when one of my daughters came home saying that her teacher told her that ambition is not very good for young girls.The ambition she was especially concerned about was intellectual in nature.

Bush, of course, has made being dumb fashionable in his own way, but he was on fertile ground to start with.

[phylny]

8. Since our girls were little, we've asked them the same question:

"Who gets the good jobs?"

"The ones who study."
"The ones who work hard."
"The ones who are educated."

We also have instilled in them the notion that people who make fun of you are insecure and feel like they have to mow you down to make themselves look better, but WE know the truth. We can smile at their folly and move on, because they're going nowhere, and we have places to go, things to do, education to acquire, money to earn.

[KlatooBNikto]

10. Absolutely.To ask our girls to be less ambitious is a sin in my

opinion.It is like consigning 50% of our population to be as mediocre as Jesse Helms, or even Bush for that matter.

[LibertyorDeath]

4. Fucking A

[freeplessinseattle]

24. no, a fucking C is more like it, lol.

[Demit]

5. My sister poked fun at me for "always having my nose in a book"

When I gave my nieces children's storybooks for Christmas, Caldicott Medal winners, she complained to my mother that I'd bought them BOOKS. She does have a collection of well-worn books on her shelves--they are part of the decor that her Bloomingdale's decorator picked out and installed.

My sister is a Republican. She loves her Rush Limbaugh.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

12. So typical!

My husband and I seek out educational gifts for our nieces and nephews that look fun simply because that's the kind of gift we remember getting the most enjoyment from. My mother-in-law keeps marveling that two nephews, in particular, seem to gravitate to these gifts repeatedly.

It doesn't seem to occur to them that these kids have brains and enjoy using them, because they keep getting them the popular, expensive gifts that don't require reading or learning anything. They think the gifts we give are just weird! Every Christmas is an orgy of expensive gifts and then they can't figure out why the kids turn to that "weird" book or science activity. They all love Rush too, must be a connection there!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. None readers are easier to fool

Personally, I take it as an insult that the RNC chose to target WV and AR with the mass mailings asserting that the 'liberals' will ban the Bible. Shows the GOP believes in stereotypes-that people in these states are ignorant hillbillies. As I said in my local LTTE, I hope people getting this mailing are as insulted by the insinuation as I am, and that they look carefully at everything the GOP says-if they lie about this, what else are they lying about?

[muchacho]

7. Don't worry, be stupid!

it is an interesting,and troubling,phenomenon.

Having highly educated people (often Ivy league) championing ignorance and undermining the desire for intelligence.

Like the man that condescendingly says "Don't worry your pretty little head..."

The Dems aren't much better here.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Yes, anti-intellectualism is a big problem here in the US

Politicians want to keep us stupid.
Religious leaders FOR SURE want to keep us stupid.
Stupid people are easier to deceive.

"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable."
--H.L. Mencken

[sweetheart]

11. book learning and knowledge

Knowledge is transmitted through a methodological approach, and
one form of knowledge, can be transmitted through books. THis is
in contrast to the "actors" approach, where knowledge is being able
to "do" something, not talk about it.

Once i designed a software system. Months later as users were
using the system in their work every day, someone pointed out to me
that the training manual that my team wrote, was partly wrong, and
that i did now know the steps and the theory behind why they did
things a certain way. The person did not realize i designed the
system, and berated me, for being ignorant of the book.

I realized that that person attained their position by book learning
and greasing away through exams and whatnot in a university system
that produces good attaboy ass kissers.... but people who are poorly
equipped to discriminate what knowledge is.

[Crankie Avalon]

13. Yeppers...

...them thar books is no good fer kids. Much better ta give 'em some shoot-'em-up video games as gifts--makes 'em better citizins fer when they gotta do their duty in places like Iraq and Syriaq.

Later, as kids become more older, they can read the Bible and maybe some pro-Confederacy Civil War hist'ry, but that's about it.

WAHOO!!! Remember the Alamode and whatnot!

[tom_paine]

16. LOL, Bunnypants*

Howz the coke habit doing? Or are you only allowed prescription drugs now (and LOTS of em!)?

[KlatooBNikto]

14. If any of my children whine about having to read some assigned

books, my wife always has a scare that snaps them right back: Do you want to wind up as another George Bush? LOL!

[LWolf]

15. We're currently increasing our anti-intellectual population by

leaps and bounds.

We've standardized schools into hateful places to be, relegated thinking and enjoyment of intellectual pursuits to the dumpster in favor of indoctrinating our entire population of young children into the "learning is a nasty chore; get it over with and get on with the real world" agenda. If you think it's bad now, just wait another 20 years.

Or...:think:....

Stand up and kick the test-obsessed learn-by-rote standardistos out of public ed today.

[Tsiyu]

18. leave no intelligentsia behind

Jebus Rice came to me in a dream last night and said that Dubya wuz annointed and that I must burn all my books and watch only FU(X) News for three moneth to be absolved of the sins of analysis, hearty vocabulary and lack of ignorance. I am complying.

[radwriter0555]

19. Nazis & gopers don't READ. They rely on spoken word for their information

since that method prevents them from processing and digesting any information, especially in today's teevee nation, where 'information' is rammed and crammed into 12 second sound bytes.

When "information" is force fed into tiny tublets, the lack of critical thought is clearly evident... the nazis er I mean the Gopers are only able to belch ouch one line of lies at a time without applying any principals of critical thought and analysis. They belch the same 3 lines over and over and over... I see this DAILY on the yahoo chats.

Makes me puke. I can't imagine NOT reading 12 articles on the same topic and making up my OWN mind about something.

[Sputnik]

20. See #11

http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Guilty

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I admit it freely that i have read hundreds of books. Some of them were actually for enjoyment. What a sick, sick person i must be.
The Professor

[kayell]

22. And proud of it!

What I don't understand are the people who are proud of their self-imposed ignorance.

[Minstrel Boy]

23. "Death to intelligence and long live death!"

Some interesting quotes here, from Harold Walsby's old The Domain of Ideologies:

During the Spanish Civil War, the "great Catholic writer and philosopher", Miguel Unamuno - who, at its beginning, favoured the fascist cause as against the "Reds" - was horrified at the brutalities ordered by the fascist General Staff. He wrote:

"All these crimes are committed in cold blood, in response to the slogan implied by the double-edged cry of this insane general who calls himself Millan Astray: 'Death to intelligence and long live death!'" (quoted by Melvin Rader in "No Compromise" p. 136)

Walsby quotes further from Raders' book:

"...one of the main aspects of Fascist anti-intellectualism: the refusal to employ science in the determination of basic human ideals." He goes on to describe the strong influence of "that forerunner of Fascism, Vilfredo Pareto" upon Mussolini and his sympathisers: "His (Mussolini's) remarks indicate that he was especially impressed by Pareto's denial of the intellectual, political, religious and moral unity of society. . . The Fascists either leave no room for pure theory, or subordinate it to morale and action. Typical of the Fascist attitude are the words of an early Nazi theorist, Moeller van den Bruck: 'The future belongs not to the problem-monger, but to the man of character'... in the Popolo d'Italia, November 22, 1921, Mussolini himself champions the relativistic position. Endeavouring to go the relativists one better, he defines Fascism as 'super-relativity'. The Fascists, he asserts, display their extremely relativistic outlook by refusing to give a definite form to their programme and by recognising 'in life and action an absolute supremacy over intelligence.'"

Has the strong anti-intellectual, anti-rational bias of the Right-wing - and particularly that of fascism - nothing to do with their vehement opposition to the Left? Is it mere coincidence or is there, as we suggest, a very intimate connection between the two? Is there not really an implicit recognition of the identity of the Left-wing ideology with a higher level of intellectual development than their own? Is not implied here our present thesis that there is a direct relationship between political outlooks or ideologies, on the one hand, and the vertical or qualitative development of intellect, on the other? What, we suggest, is here merely implicit, we shall, in due course, confirm with much stronger evidence in its favour.
http://www.gwiep.net/books/doi13.html

[Senior citizen]

25. Power fears thought.

Brute force always wins, except when eluded or outsmarted. To know you are a moran is to fear being shown up for the moran you are.

Some things I noticed when I was young was that teachers didn't like pupils who knew the subject matter better than they did, and employers didn't want to hire anyone smarter than they were.

I think that the dominance/pecking order stuff sort of falls apart when brains develop. There was an example among chimps or gorillas in the wild studies, when the alpha male was always the biggest and strongest, until one youngster figured out how to frighten others into submission even if they were bigger, by using nearby objects to make loud noises.