Jeffrey Sachs seems to be echoing the words of Sam Harris in his most recent opinion article.
While many factors contributed to America’s destabilising actions, a powerful one is anti-intellectualism, exemplified recently by Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin’s surging popularity.
Earlier this week, Harris wrote an article bashing America’s desire for anti-intellectualism. Sachs has jumped on the bandwagon of defending intellectualism and elitism in politics by taking a Saganistic approach to the issue by showing how in an age of Science, anti-intellectualism and disdain for Science are the last things we should be preaching.
The problem is an aggressive fundamentalism that denies modern science, and an aggressive anti-intellectualism that views experts and scientists as the enemy. It is those views that could end up getting us all killed… The challenges faced by a major power like the US require rigorous analysis of information according to the best scientific principles.
This is a great article by Sachs, and coming from probably the word’s leading Economist, his words should resonate outside of the science-minded community.
As for what I think, I’ve also noticed that it’s the parochial, the religious trump card, the in-group behaviour that ties itself to an anti-intellectual nationalism that is stunting the growth of the global community. If only people could get over themselves, over their Gods, over their tradition, over their dogma, over their disdain of modern science, and over their disdain for intelligence, then we could mature as a civilization and realize that in this day and age we need to rely on eachother to survive.
…Apparently I can take a Saganistic approach as well.
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I think the major problem with ‘intellectuals’ is that they… like everyone else really… think that if only more people were like them, the world would be a better place. Whats worse, they think that all you need to do is ‘educate people’ and this will make them more intellectual and then those people will see the light, and be more respectful of intelligence…etc..
Fact is though, most people make decisions based on emotion, instinct, and ‘arguments from authority’, not rational debate and not scientific analysis. We evolved instincts in small tribal groups, not in laboratories or universities, and these instincts have, for the most part, kept us, or at least our family groups, alive. They are effective and ‘proven’ in everyday life.
Rationalism and science for most people are alien and unproven, they exist in direct opposition to most of our instincts. Even the best scientists have to fight like hell to keep their instincts from coloring their work. This is why peer review, double-blind, etc… are so important. Bemoaning the fact that this is so and expecting that you can readily change this aspect of the human condition by simply ‘educating people’ is a recipe for disaster.
Someone like Sarah Palin has appeal, because she speaks to our instincts, and is damn good at it. Intellectuals who ignore this aspect of life, will always be seen as worse than fools by most people, and in a way, they are.
so are you saying you don’t see value in education? Of course education isn’t the be all and end all, but it’s the most effective tool we have of getting people to make more informed decisions. I’d like to hear a better idea…
Yes science is alien to many people, because alot of the time it contradicts our common sense, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accept it over emotions. You’re saying that we’ve developed decision making based on emotions so we might as well stick to it. That is an appeal to emotion in its own right. Just because we have developed the common cold, doesn’t mean its beneficial. We have evolved to have left over baggage from the past (appendix, wisdom teeth, male nipples) so just because they’re there doesn’t mean we need them.
Like Harris says, you wouldn’t send your average athletes to compete in the olympics, so why would you want your average Joe running the country?
Your comment seems to have some underpinnings of contempt for the intellectual community for the fact that they don’t take into account emotions. On this, I agree with. As much as I disagree that political decisions should be based on emotion, I agree that Intellectuals overlook the ability of emotions to colour people’s decisions. What is needed are people like Carl Sagan who can appeal to someones emotions while still making an erudite point.
Education can help people make better informed decisions. But what I said was that most people don’t make decisions based on a review of the ‘information’ they are presented with. They make decisions based on emotions and arguments from authority. So while education is certainly helpful….IF… one is going to rationally examine the facts… it doesn’t make much difference if the decision gets made based on a persons instincts, which is, what most people do, most of the time.
Actually I’m not saying we should ’stick’ with anything. I’m saying we have no choice. I’m saying we have to understand that people are going to believe what the people ‘they trust’ say, and ignore the facts. I’m saying that people are going to go with their gut, and we can’t ignore the baggage from the past, because it has a much bigger impact on the way we behave, than any kind of rational assessment. And while you may not need your appendix, appendicitis can kill you regardless. So ignoring the fact its there and can affect you, is dangerous.
As to running the country, its much easier to measure someone’s ability to long jump, than it is to measure their ability to lead. So the analogy is bad. Education can certainly help a leader, but it won’t make you into one, if you’re not. One of the big problems with science education today is the fact that scientists are down right lousy at communicating with, and inspiring, people. That is something you don’t learn in a lab or at a Mensa convention. In fact people with high intelligence tend to have more trouble dealing with other people than those with only average intelligence. So, leading a country is not so much about being the person who ‘knows everything’, as it is about being able to put the right people in the right jobs… and that’s more a social skill, and a matter of instinct, than a matter for raw intelligence.
Another perspective:
It’s not anti-intellectualism so much as pure dogmatism and social/political conflict of interest. So many people are severely addicted to their beliefs. Their entire framework for why and how to live is based on these beliefs. Their consistent struggling threw shit jobs to get to the afterlife where things won’t suck anymore is routed in it – indeed, many of the most fundamentalist-leaning people are living lives of unending drudgery, be they factory workers or underappreciated and relatively powerless housewives. And then there are the people who benefit from these archaic belief systems – men, people higher up in the faith hierarchies, and so on. There’s a bit of pyramid-style mentality to some degree in that the higher up you get, the more you’ve invested and the more you have to lose in terms of past investment and current and future pay-offs for your efforts in the system. I could go on and on about the psychological and sociological reasons for why these systems can be held with iron grips by individuals and communities, but I’ll leave it at what I’ve said so far.
Back to anti-intellectualism. These people do not seem to be anti-intellectual simply because they’d rather “go with the gut”. At every given opportunity where they can use intellectualism to bolster their beliefs – though the efforts are constantly complete disingenuous tripe – they jump on it and milk it for everything it’s worth it. They embrace Michael Behe with open arms. They invite lettered global warming deniers to speak endlessly. They attend lectures by academic creationists. And wherever possible, they try to use reason to ground their beliefs. When reason fails, then they start calling on faith, closing their ears and generally being anti-intellectual.
They’re not anti-intellectual because they’d rather be emotion driven. They’re anti-intellectual because free and rational inquiry has had a long and storied history of beating the crap out of their bullshit beliefs. Rather than let this perk their ears up, most of them instead duck and cover out of the line of fire of intelligent conversation and demonize “secular progressive elitism”, using unfounded emotion-based attacks on it such as linking it to satanism, nazism, communism, stalinism, the nuclear age (which is ironic, because they tend to be the first ones screaming for leaders to push the button), and so on, in the place of rational argument. But the second in the smallest most convoluted inkling of what could be interpreted as support for their beliefs emerges from someone who has a tie to the rational community, they zoom in on it with an electron microscope, photoshop it, and begin screaming from the rooftops that SCIENCE PROVES GOD!
I think you are describing a vocal minority, when you talk about those who are intentionally dishonest. Most people simply don’t speak the language of science, but are instead well versed in more emotional types of ideas.
Of course, your use of the term ’shit-jobs’ puts you firmly in the camp of arrogant intellectual. Those shit jobs make your intellectual pursuits possible. Without them, you likely wouldn’t know how to feed yourself, let alone be of much use to anyone. Human beings could survive without university professors. Not so, without food producers or those who know how to build shelter.
Do I sound anti-intellectual? One of the big arguments ‘intellectuals’ have been making is that the 9/11 attacks and anti-Americanism are the result of a bad foreign policy. By the same logic one could say anti-intellectualism results from abuse by intellectuals. Derogatory remarks, much like the ’shit job’ comment, probably fit in well here. How would you like it if someone called what you do, a shit job. Especially when its essential to society functioning. And how would you feel if the person saying that…. wasn’t essential at all. How would you feel if you couldn’t see them doing much of anything? Its all about optics.
Human beings can survive with very little. We don’t need intellectuals. Science can make life better… and it can also make life worse. Disrespecting the people who do the heavy lifting in society is hardly the way to win their gratitude for the work you do.
Why did you capitalize ’science’?
Joe: Hi. I’m gonna begin by clarifying an understandable misinterpretation of my message that you made. When I said “shit job”, I wasn’t intending to insult them at all or to deride in anyway the merits and importance of what they do. I was calling the jobs “shit” because I just don’t see how they could be conducive of personal well-being for most of those who do them. I feel genuine sympathy for them. My comment was one not of arrogance but of sympathy for them and antipathy for the system that makes such lots in life a worthy option for them given their circumstances.
I’ll also add that I have become very much critical of the system we live in that has put essentially every single one of us in a position where we must work 40 or more hours a week when there seems to be good reason to believe that humanity could very well have survived on far fewer hours of work had it not been for the nature of our 10,000 year old global dominionist economic style wherein we claim property and roles of executives over all of nature. Because of this system, which encompassess well over 99% of humanity, so many people are left in positions in which they have perhaps no better options than working their butts off at, yes, shit jobs, doing medial, unsatisfying work that contributes little to personal growth, requires that they subordinate to others who in turn have their own bosses within a system which cares primarily about the bottom line and not so much on human well-being, and on and on. They do this work for at least 40 hours a week for decade after decade after decade. This is an absolutely abhorrent state of affairs.
For all the good that has come from our 10,000 year old culture, I think that had the forebearers of our culture never initiated the concepts of totalitarian agriculture (i.e., playing the role of determiners of which species gets to live, where they live, and so on, with the determining factors being what is best for our yields), ownership (e.g., of food surpluses), and so on, the much smaller but sustainable human population that would have continued to live by means of hunting and foraging would probably have been a lot better off than the majority of the world’s people are today.
In such a world, people would work far fewer hours and they (unlike myself and many of us) would know full well how to get their food.
I know that I kind of stretched into a tangent, but these issues have been on my mind a lot over the past few months and much like John McCain manufactures opportunities to bring up how he was a POW, I have been increasingly introducing this issue into my conversations. Thanks for endulging me.
Ron, you really don’t see how utterly patronizing you sound? I know quite few people who would tell you very plainly where you can shove your ’sympathy’.
And they would also not have much respect for this fantasy world of hunting and foraging which you seem to have created. A hunter-gatherer existence can be a harsh and cruel way to live by any modern standard. Sustainable population doesn’t exist. Hunter-gatherers tend to be nomadic because they tend to use up a place and have to move on.
We all hate our jobs sometimes, but for many an honest days work, can be very satisfying. And many don’t see living off government subsidies or the hard work of others as honest work.
I think it was Nietzsche, who once called philosophy a vice…. because it demands one have leisure time…. in other words that someone else is doing the work while you pick lint out of your navel.
Being anti-intellectual is not the same as being anti-intellect.
Well all I can say is that I don’t mean to sound patronizing. My sympathy is genuine.
Onto nomads. What’s wrong with moving around? Yes, they moved around. Who cares? What Im saying is that some anthopologists have said that for the most part they worked far less than we do. The grand majority of human history is not like our 10,000 year culture. Concepts such as property and work are relatively new concepts, for the most part, it seems. When people are simply hunter-gatherers who pick and kill their food freely from nature, they don’t own things. They may protect the food they’ve collected until they’ve eaten it, and the land they sleep on until they move on, but that’s about it. And they didn’t work like we do. They hunt when they need to or when an animal just happens to be there and they pick fruit when they need to. But they needed not clock in or answer to some manager.
Yes, there were battles in hunter-gatherer times. Rivalling tribes had their small-scale battles on a consistent but small scale level, yes. But humans have always fought. Our society has magnified this and subjected certain subpopulations with the blunt of the fighting.
And what makes y ou think that this is all fantasy? Do you think that bears or tigers spend 60 hours a week working, preparing their food, maintaining their home and property, etc.? If not, then why must we?
I’ll write more later. I’m on my work break right now. And I don’t work at a university.
To continue:
This thinking I’m describing has been taken from the novelist Daniel Quinn, who goes into it at length in his amazing book “Ishmael”, which I highly recommend.
Think about it. Humans have been in existence for a hell of a lot longer than our 10,000 year old civilization. They were known to be hunter-gatherers for quite a long time. There still are some hunter-gatherers today, but they comprise well under 1% of the population. Why did hunter-gatherer tribes fall out of style? Most likely because of the conquest nature of our cultural ancestors. The foundations of our culture, which now comprises just a sliver less than 100% of the human population, include the following departures from the way humans lived outside of the current culture, which represents a tiny sliver of human history:
* We settle permanently. Hunter-gatherers would settle impermanently, much like many nomadic animals. They’d set up in a fruitful area. Stay until it was becoming less fruitful, and then pack it up and move onto a richer environment.
* We claim permanent property – e.g., this land is ours. The closest thing hunter-gatherers did to this, according to Quinn at least, is protect their current food and dwelling arrangements. But they wouldn’t protect the land itself, as if it was forever theirs.
* That we settle and claim permanent property creates another difference: we stock up surpluses. Hunter-gatherers could not and did not build up large collections of food, precious metals, and so on. We do. And between storing up land and resources and saying “this is mine”, we create a situation which is apparently novel – at least in degree – which allows humans to exploit and tyrannize each other, saying that if you do not *work* you will not eat, because all the land where food is found is owned and all the food is also owned. How exactly one can legitimately claim ownership to a patch of land, well, they probably don’t go into much detail about that. But the point is that it *is* owned, and if you want to eat tonight, you’re gonna have to work for an owner, because hunting and gathering is hardly an option anymore. That some humans came to assume ownership and control of nature and to prevent others from freely moving into it and taking what food they needed created our culture – one in which we do not simply go to nature for food like any free animal does, and like 99% of human history did; no, now we go around exploiting and being exploited to have the privilege of what was once free for the taking.
* Another way in which we’re different is that our culture assumes that humans are not subject to the laws of nature like every other species. We deny the limitations of ecology which entail that each ecosystem can maintain only a certain amount of specimens of a certain range of species. We believe that we are somehow ordained to be fruitful and multiply. The result of this throughout our culture’s history has been the need to continue to take over more and more and more land – which involved eliminating more and more hunter-gatherer communities one way or another. Now we’re at a population crisis because we’ve pretty well exhausted most of the usable land, we’ve destroyed many ecosystems, and so on. Had humans stayed as hunter-gatherers, yes, there would always be a certain relatively stable amount of food-shortage. An ecosystem is able to hold a certain number of organisms of certain range of species, and the equilibrium population tends to be at the ecosystem’s holding capacity, on average. So there will usually be a bit of famine. But now we have massive unending famine coupled with a variety of other major social problems – e.g., large-scale war.
* We fight large-scale. Yes, hunter-gatherer tribes fought. But the fights, according to Quinn, were small-scale. They were relatively continuous – little scuffles constantly – but it tended to stay small and it was a biologically stable existence. Now we live in a world where the battles are massive and are anything but biologically stable.
I’ll also say that some anthropologists have, based on research, asserted that hunter-gatherers may only have worked about 20 hours a week, compared to our 40 – or more in other parts of the world. I live in South Korea now – though I ‘m Canadian – and they work notably harder here than Canadians, on average. Now, there’s been controversy over how much HGs worked, but it is highly doubtful they worked remotely close to as much as we do, for the most part. They also didn’t have the type of social inequality we have, the level of famine or fighting, and so on.
I feel sympathy for people in our culture because we have come to believe our culture completely. We see no problem in people claiming ownership over nature and then exploiting each other with it.
I’ve got to go again now. I’m sure what I’ve said will get some disagreements and “what abouts” and so on.