Anti-intellectualism

I've been seeing some people confused as to why there are leftist who are anti-intellectuals, so let me clear some things up.
There's nothing wrong with anti-intellectualism.
It's important to remember intellectuals are constantly used to uphold the status quo and normalize imperialism. If you want examples, look no further than Sam Harris, Hitchens or any flavor-of-the-week preening liberal. I imagine Jordan Peterson is the next in queue. Chomsky makes a good point when mapping out how they deflect criticism for those in power. vids related.

youtu.be/hgzG8QiaFp4
youtu.be/huMUGm5z6RE

Other urls found in this thread:

dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3520932/PETER-HITCHENS-Privatisation-Free-trade-Shares-great-ruined-Britain.html
slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2005/04/long_live_labor.html
reason.com/archives/2001/11/01/free-radical/3
twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/828300536109744128
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Not intellectuals.

They were given platforms to spew their "intellectual" opinion.
They are intellectuals, just terrible.

U wot? Peter Hitchens is pretty woke tbh: he is starting to unironically support Corbyn.

Define intellectual, you pseud.

believe he's talking about the objectively inferior warmonging hitchens.

...

this.
They're both pretty shit

Cancer Hitchens is the lesser evil by far, despite his metamorphosis over the middle east and political islam.

yes that is correct.

peter hitchens bumbles his way into the right answer dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3520932/PETER-HITCHENS-Privatisation-Free-trade-Shares-great-ruined-Britain.html
christopher hitchens drinks his way into the wrong answer. (and gets the name of the party wrong to boot) slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2005/04/long_live_labor.html

except he was also very wrong in the past too
reason.com/archives/2001/11/01/free-radical/3

meanwhile the objectively superior brother did what all good men would do and voted Labour in 1979.
twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/828300536109744128

problem is chomsky doesn't distinguish between anti-intellectual thought and criticising intellectuals

when people are "anti-intellectual" that usually means they shun critical thought and analysis of things/events/contexts/phenomena, because being intelligent is "elitist" and "unamerican"

chomsky is right that most public intellectuals are frauds and apologists for power and that we should oppose them, but there is a real "shut up and stop asking questions" tendency within the general population (especially in america), and it aims to keep people subservient to power just as people like harris do

I do give him credit for saying capitalism is shit before he died, at least.
Fuck him for not say as much when he was alive, though.

Hitchens was a Marxist for most of his life, if not all of his life. He just bought the meme that US Imperialism could accidentally do good in the world. He continued to have disdain for American hegemony even while supporting the Iraq war because he thought Saddam was worse for Iraqis than US imperialism.
I think Hitchens is shit tier and Iraq was cancer, but his defense of the war is stronger than any other defense other supporters gave.

I highly doubt it was all his life.
There were a couple times I remember him saying he gave up on socialism because he found out capitalism was much more dynamic than he thought it was, or some horse shit.

They both were, apparently the story is that Peter got into a motorbike crash and they both "grew up". However both of them, with teh dawn of the neoliberal consensus and hte power of New labour, abandoned their wanton support for the tories and became paleocons. Now Peter is actually becoming a quasi-Corbynite, probably because he sees the link between "moral degradation" & economics and is starting to clock that it wasn't New Labour's fault: it was capitalism's.

I wonder if that's how Norman Geras (the sympathetic author of Marx and Human Nature) also came to embracing neoconservatism.

I've always thought that Chomsky, even though he's wrong to dismiss high-brow theory types, still at least has a point. The people writing complicated theory with idiosyncratic jargon under the title of Marxism or socialism aren't really reaching out to the masses. And not only that, but he claims writing in a difficult way is a trick to gain prestige and power in academia and in the public's eyes and not because out of principle, you couldn't write simpler. Which doesn't make him right, but it's better than hearing about cultural Marxism or brainwashing or whatever.

wow, peter is dumb, but i like him more than his brother

you are such a fucking burger it's disgusting

anti-intellectual thought is the thought of opposing the upholding of ideas or people based upon their academic, knowledgeable, or any way intellectual standing

>intellectual powers, activities, etc.
>an intellectual person
>intellectual employments
>intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy
retard

...

NOPE
Anti-intellectualism is one of the pillars of fascism, not because it's just an attack on a class, but because it belies a fundamental aversion to criticism and analysis.

user, the very existence of those pre-fabricated pundits is anti-intellectualism. They're a pale mockery of an intellectual, cardboard cut-outs, really. Their role as creators of pro-status quo "culture" and propaganda is frankly secondary. Their true value to Porky is to uphold the false dichotomy between left and right and the latter's legitimacy, which is completely illusory, and is demonstrated perfectly by how absurdly organic leftist intellectuals outnumber organic rightist ones. Anti-intellectualism directly benefits the powers that be.

I'm guessing OP was playing devil's advocate to see how the board fended this off.

OP I think you're mistaking anti-intellectualism with anti-elitism.

OP framed anti-intellectualism as opposition to intellectuals who defend the status quo, which is like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.