Tim Blair

Being in touch with people per se means not being an "intellectual." Something about common sense and values scare brainiacs.

The SMH reports that Green Christine Milne has won the last Tasmanian senate seat. "Ms Milne said her election was a rejection of pro-logging policies."

Seems she's not in touch with reality, let alone the people. She got less than 15% of the primary vote.

And Bob Brown said: "this outcome is hugely deserved and will be celebrated right around the island".

Yes Bob, they'll be dancing in the streets in Launceston and Burnie tonight.

Oh, please. You right-wing lunatics are a sorry bunch.

Any fool can see that the problem is that the people are out of touch with the intellectuals. If the people had any consciousness of their actual interests, John Howard would be swinging from a lamppost. It's the intellectuals who understand the issues clearly. You can't expect a truck driver or a steelworker to spare the time and effort to educate himself, though, so that's why we have the Left. You could describe the intellectuals as the brain of the human race, and the workers, the common people, as the body. Both are necessary. The Right, of course, and the wealthy, rentiers, property-owners, the management class, all that, they're a cancer -- we can do without them. We've got no reason to let them live, and a wise patient would have them cut out and flushed away as quickly as possible, them and the repulsive lice they call their children. Root and branch. It's the only sane way to have a decent society where people are treated like human beings.

So the problem, really, is that the body -- which ought to be well cared-for but was never made to be in charge, let's face it -- is rejecting the brain and letting the cancer run the show. The results are predictable: The collapse of society, theiving blood-suckers running the show from behind the scenes and fooling the proles who can't honestly be expected to see through it all without help, but they're rejecting the help they're offered. This is not the fault of Labor, it's the fault of the damned stupid proles who are too stupid to see what's good for them. We can help them with that, we can help them to see their own true interests clearly. A little dislocation is well worth the price.

Bottom line: So-called "democracy", the Western kind, has failed. It's hopelessly corrupt. True democracy, the direct excercise of power by the people themselves or by those who represent their interests, is a much more humane and realistic alternative. A man with an AK-47 knows his own business best and can be trusted to do what he must to establish justice. The vote is a sham, because it turns a very serious matter into a popularity contest, judged by the ignorant sheep on the streets who simply aren't -- I do love them, you know, but I can be honest -- simply aren't capable of doing the job.

Aarrgghh, thank you from taking time off from your busy duties as head strategist for the American Democratic Party, in order to enlighten us proles.

So, do you propose that the "body" be kept as pets, or as meat? In the course of your self-described "dislocation," of course.

>

so apaketh a man(?) really out of touch... the workers paradise collapsed after doing business for 80(I exagerate) years...died of old age..
I really think it died because the russians were no longer willing to kill or imprison people on a whim...you know ,they got soft...
As soon as any one gets appointed ,elected ,or cabaled (made up word)into power they are no longer "people" ...at best they are managers even if they never did anything in life but crack a book to absorb the truth(intellectuals)..

Percy Doetoenails: Meat? MEAT?! What an obscene concept!

I, sir, am a vegetarian.

If you want to see somebody who regards his living equals on this Earth as mere "meat", to be tortured, brutalized, and eaten for pleasure, I suggest you look in a mirror.

Of course, capitalism is carnivoristic cannibalism at its worst, is it not? Blood-suckers and flesh-gnawers, both literal and figurative, are on an identical moral plane.

Arrrrgggghhhhh:

Does Australia have anything like opensecrets.org?

If it did, it would most probably refute this, "The Right, of course, and the wealthy, rentiers, property-owners, the management class, all that, they're a cancer -- we can do without them."

Check out the site I posted.

Hahah, Aarrgghh, that first post of yours was hilarious. You been trolling thru Socialist rhetoric of the Robber Baron period?

Rick C,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I think I can clarify a few points, as follows:

The brutal, unprecedentedly Hitlerian savagery of Bushitler's Hitler-like assault on all our most precious liberties and entitlements is inarguably more savagely brutal than that of Hitler himself, Bushitler's avowed mentor as he ("he" meaning Bushitler, not the other Hitler) greedily devours the hideously torn and bleeding flesh of innocents and children! Hitler's unwilling victims[1] howl in indescribable agony and despair for vengeance yet again as gobs of their dripping flesh fly quivering gelatinously across the blood-soaked Fuehrerbunker of the White House in the Terror Capital of the World, Federal Concentration Gulag Number one, slave-camp and genocide headquarters, Hitler's own Hitlerian Hitlerites sadistically Hitlerizing what was left of what was already, to be honest, the most psychopathically cruel and inequitous[2] system the world has ever known -- America -- a land where Hitler's own closest advisers roamed free to advise their new demonic masters in the liquidation of the last shattered remnants of decency and civil society on this wrecked planet, they are HITLER, HITLER, HITLER HITLER HITLER, HIIIIITLERRRRRR!

But I am, of course, aware that none of you cheap cannibalistic psychopaths is able or willing to address my points in a sane and reasoned fashion. Instead, I fully expect the sort of incoherent, bug-eyed, ad-hominem temper tantrums we've all come to identify as the very life-blood of right-wing discourse.

[1] It must be noted that many, if not most, of our Islamic brothers in the struggle for justice a) don't believe it happened, and b) are glad it did. Also Pat Buchanan, who turns out to be a one of our lot after all.
[2] Not "iniquitous" -- though it is that as well.

LAMO!

Okay, fess up. Who's the genius/madman behind the castle Aarrgghh?

Aaarghhh (whatever)-

You obviously missed the memo where most elected democrats are obnoxiously rich and elitist. Most of the wealthiest senators are dems ( I think it is 8 or 9 of the top ten wealthy). Happy to see they have snookered you into thinking they care, beautiful. There is this old saying, that those types do their best to show concern for the downtrodden in order to make sure they aren't a part of them. Works in the pres race as well. Kerry is an wealthy elitist snob who is doing his best to show himself the everyday man, because he is not. He and his wife paid less than 15% income taxes, while the Pres paid over 25% and Kerry gives almost nothing to charity while Bush donates about 10%. Yeah, you keep on writing your interesting little manifestos on how dems care. They hope you think so, so they can continue to be your master. I have no thought that Republicans "care". For the most part they would perfer I care for myself and do what they can to help that along.

Ahem, people...? Mr. Scream is hijacking the thread. And he is ranting in the most obvious Leftoid Moonbat manner. You might want to ignore him, as I don't think there are any sarcasm tags in his posts.

That being said, the left has a long ways to go in finding an intellectual who is in touch with the people. At least, someone who is accepted by left as an intellectual; those standards tend to be somewhat different. Not higher. Just different.

I'm really wondering about "Aarrgghh". On the one hand, his posts are idiotic and self-contradictory. On the other hand, the same thing can be said of most leftist dogma today.

So, parody or sincere?

And also,

the dems haven't had an original thought in the US in over 30 years. Most of the political debate in this country occurs within the GOP, with some interesting strings thrown in by the Libertarians. The dems have been screaming race and poverty without any regard as to whether anything they espouse might help. Black America votes at least 80% dem, but dems economic policies keep them on the farm. And Black America agrees with the GOP on social issues such as school vouchers and support for traditional marriage more than the dems because intuitively they realize that the family structure in black communities is under tremendous pressure which negatively impacts their offspring's hope for a better life. Cosby talked about it. But when in the voter booth they can't break the habit. Just like a smoker who knows he should quit, can't do it.

So if you want to talk intellectual fire power, most of it is on the right when it comes to politcal policy. All the left can offer is anarchists and attending conferences. And you cannot build a society out of that - as Europe is beginning to find out.

Yeah probably right - sorry for unauthorized feeding. I will accept my lashes, please forgive me Andrea.

name a single member of this in-touch leftoid intellectual generation.

Hamish Alcorn, no doubt. And Chris Sheil.

Dear The Real Jeffs,

You seem to have fallen afoul of Godwin's Law, which states that if any discussion continues long enough, the probability approaches unity that somebody will compare somebody else to Howard Dean -- and that the usefulness of the discussion will then be at an end.

You may also be unfamiliar with Moore's Law, which states that the number of comparisons to Adolf Hitler will double every eighteen months for the foreseeable future.

But only if BusHitler wins right?

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

JEM, that is *exactly* what Hitler would say.

Intellectuals means being stuck in a yelly blob of ideological phantasms.
It´s like having the visionary faculty of a fly seeing everything, just not very clearly.
It´s not about seperating and nailing facts from reality but about seperating your ideological preconceptions from reality.
It´s about using abstract thinking as a mean to get your focus away from reality into the airy fairy land of your favorite utopian concepts - not in order to adapt a new approach to the reality of the real world which you then have to keep in focus.

Well atleast that is what most people think it´s about and it´s what most so-called intellectuals do and therefore again what most people think it is about.

The easiest way for the intellectual to meet the nminds of ordinary people would be for him/her to understand the value of common sense - it does not go by this name for no reason at all.

The fundament for approaching ( not necesarily obtain ) truth is: see things as they are - not as you want them to be.

Aarrgghh, the "usefulness of this discussion" unfortunately departed this mortal coil the very moment you made your first post.

Now, hush, back into your cage.

COME ON, I spotted the sarcasm the moment I opened the thread. Enjoy life a little more, guys.

As for naming an intellectual leftoid who is the most in touch with reality, there's that marklatham guy. Not the failed, bitter candidate, but the guy who posts on blogs under the name marklatham. Oh, he's so funny! I still remember the time he put Hitler mustaches on campagin signs and came back to say "someone put Hitler mustaches on campaign signs, tee hee hee!"

I think he's probably the MOST in touch, given the others.

Congratulations, Aaarrgh: beautiful, pitch-perfect parody. In fact a little TOO perfect. Reminds me of the story C S Lewis tells about the time when his ``Screwtape Letters'' were being serialized in a newspaper, and some clergyman wrote in to cancel his subscription on the grounds that the advice being given was ``absolutely diabolical.''

And no, I can't think of any in-touch leftoids either. There are of course several who THINK they're in touch, but that's another matter entirely.

IT's kind of funny that you can't tell the hard left rants from hard left parody these days.

There is an American leftist "intellectual" prize-winning documentarian who is in touch with the people and popular. We know he is in touch, and he touches us, because he always wears dirty jeans and a ballcap and rails about authority structures. That he "rails" all the way to the bank is beside the point. The people are proud to support his upper class lifestyle, as long as he keeps looking scruffy for the cams and declaiming against his country.

Re: Vegetarians

How smart do you have to be to sneak up on a plant?

"Labor needs to put its faith in a new generation of intellectuals who are in touch with the people."

Couldn't agree more. Run along now and put your faith in a new generation of intellectuals who are in touch with the people.

Meanwhile Australians will continue to put their faith in people who are actually intelligent as opposed to intellectual.

AAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!

(Please note, that's spelled differently from "Aarrgghh")

My sense of humor is on the wane today! It comes from thinking too much at work. I can't tell the difference between Sortelli's sarcasm and Aarrgghh's trolling. Or is it Sortelli's sincerity and Aarrgghh's satire? Well, I know Sortelli isn't trolling, so that much is right in the world.

Aw, hell, this is another reason to rail against the "leftoid intellectual generation" -- the end product of their intellectual activities is analogous to people not using pooper scoopers while walking their Great Danes in the grass. Other people have to be careful where to step, and have to clean the mess off their shoes when they put their foot down in the wrong place.

I don't think any of us should feel bad about being confused as to whether Arrghhh is putting us on or not - fer chrissakes, he was quoting from the Left's scriptures.

And the fact that this "scripture" echoes a fair amount of what passes for "intellectualism" illustrates that the "intellectuals" inhabit a different reality from the rest of us yokels.

Thankfully.

So "Aaaaaaaargh" is really Howard Dean?

Wow! I was wondering what he was doing since the primaries.

Keep on reaching for that rainbow, How!

Mr Kerry is an intellectual. Nooooo, it's not due to the alphabet soup. Well, maybe a bit, but no it goes back to his days in Nam, no I mean Cambodia, shit I mean game 6 of the 86 World Series.

Aaarrgh, that was excellent. Satire is difficult in such a bizarre age. Don't forget the Humour Warning in future, and BTW, when the smirking chimp is crushing dissent in America he's Bushitler, but when he's directly serving his Jewish overlords he's Busharon.

Jacques Derrida died! How many leftoid intellectuals self-deconstructed? Sadly, not enough.

The only way to be an intellectual is to be out of touch with the people...

Name one member of the new, in-touch leftoid generation?

Possibly Tim Dunlop, mentioned in the post above.

Aaaaaargh has gone straight to Plan 9 -- "You see! You see! Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"

Aaaaargh has gone straight to Plan 9 -- "You see! You see! Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"

I can't remember an Australian leftoid political figure with serious charisma and intellectual muscle since Barry Unsworth.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh
Karl Rove at it again

name a single member of this in-touch leftoid intellectual generation.
PORTNOI'S COMPLAINT.
And one recalls professor Legrand of the Sorbonne, who made pilgrimages to the quartier of La Madeleine to keep in touch with "the common man" or in his case "the common woman".

I sure as hell hope I'm never in touch with Margo Kingston (shudder).

I can't remember an Australian leftoid political figure with serious charisma and intellectual muscle since Barry Unsworth.

What about the other Barry - Jones? He's still alive and pontificating.

Arghh has a nice hominid sound to it. If he's capable of ideation (it's doubtful) he "thinks" of rage as his opposable thumb. He can beat cons to death with it because an intellectual contest is futile.

I think that there might be a purpose in Arghh's vocalizations, however. Its a predictable reaction to having taken the wrong evolutionary branch and wound up in the mental cul-de-sac of The Left. The frustration of the descending political tribe.

Seriously, be afraid of the American Left. We don't have to analogize Hitler to explain the contours of these little demons. They are what they are. They'd have the tumbrels rolling in a minute if they had the power. Totalitarian shits who need to be stopped whenever and wherever we find them.

Argy:

A clever reinterpretation of Godwin's Law, indeed. Was Howard Dean a fascist? Dean was just an East Side Manhattan swell with proletarian pretensions. Would that the same could be said of you.

Actually, I think Godwin had you in mind with Godwin's Law, insofar as an accusation of Argghism, prohibits further discussion.

Go argy!

Argy is cool. I vote argy keeps ranting.
(never admit its parody guy, it spoils the effect) ...

Speaking of intellectuals....do you reckon Lord Downer ever thinks before he opens his mouth.

Pick the bleeding obvious in this statement.

" Mr Downer said it may be possible that media were close by the location of the attack which occurred 350 metres from the Australian embassy and near a hotel used by journalists."

Just wondering why the only people acting like National Socialists happen to be the Left? These "people" have used the words "Nazi", "Fascist" and "Hitler" so much that they fail to realize that there actually used to be nazis, fascists and a guy named hitler who contributed to the deaths of over 50 million europeans, jews, africans, americans and russians. Where are Bush's graveyards of the millions? I can hardly wait for November 3rd when every moonbat lefty's head explodes. I expect the popping sounds will keep me awake for at least a week

AMJoe,
you just answered it yourself. Bush's graveyard of millions will be when all the lefties heads explode.

I want Aaaargh to start his (or her) own blog.

Very funny stuff.

Inspired by your contagious merriment over the epithet "left-wing intellectuals", I went on a Google search. All I found was right-wing rants against the evil lefties, but I did click onto a canadian of some note, John Ralston Saul. He is a trenchant critic of globalisation and the invisible hand of self-regulating market forces, so loved of the capitalists. He makes a point of showing how little these global capitalists pay on tax and how irrational the money market is, He also asserts convincingly that these forces of global managerialism is ant-democratic. I think he would pass as a worthy wearer of the left-wing label, except those labels are so yesterday.
John briggs

I had the misfortune to stumble across 'insight' on SBS last night. The audience was mainly filled with lefties upset over the FTA with the US (usual suspect Richard Neville was at his post drug-addled best).

One thing struck me: it was clear that they couldn't handle the Australian people voting (through the marketplace) for US culture (films, TV, McDonalds etc) so they were advocating some sort of regulation so that people would be forced to endure the intellectuals' version of a 'more Australian' culture.

It has eerie parallels with the carping after Howard's election win - ie, the people can't be trusted with democracy. Fascism is a natural state for the Left.

/Excuse the incoherence...long afternoon

Art Vandelay — Dear God, they want you to be Quebec...

Art.

That was my first sighting of a Richard Neville moving image. It was extremely gratifying, coming so soon after a first ever Maureen Dowd sighting on CNN.

By the way have you got any idea what all that artist's gibberish about triple bottom lines was supposed to signify?

Richard Neville? Quebec? Nooooo...

That makes me want to absorb even more US culture here.

Allright everyone, this Sunday night, we're all sticking Jack-O-Lanterns out the front, and sending our kids out in suitably scary costumes - MargoK masks, perhaps?

Steve, do you mean the guy with the orange pants and wild hair? (I could be slightly off the mark here)

I think he was talking about GDP not being a good measure of production...given that the market doesn't value basket-weaving, self-actualisation seminars, planting trees etc particularly highly (and doesn't deduct dollars for carbon emissions), the Left like to come up with their own measures that skew the figures more to their liking. Does this fit with your recollection?

Don't quote me on this, I was too busy laughing to listen completely.

Others will answer this one better, but "triple bottom line" is lefty code for an organisation/company factoring social responsibilities into their activities. Your first bottom line is fiscal - profit and loss. I forget what the second is. The third is what your evil capitalist freebooting 'costs' the downtrodden masses and the environment, for which you must repent, atone and pay.

"Labor needs to put its faith in a new generation of intellectuals who are in touch with the people."

…starting with Latham’s rousing metaphysical discussion on the principled tenets of the flapping handshake.

Labor needs to put its faith in a new generation of intellectuals who are in touch with the people.

Oh boy. Can we specify a type B- blood group just to make this target group even smaller?

Hahahahaha! Latham's attacking the PM's style of shaking hands! What a loser.

Great link, Anabel!

mojo
that reminds of of a comment I heard from somebody else a while back:
"If got didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat"

Got dammit
that should have been "If GOD didn't......"

cuckoo wrote others will answer this one better, but "triple bottom line" is lefty code for an organisation/company factoring social responsibilities into their activities.

Exactly. It's a load of cobblers.

I can speak with authority on this as I'm a Fellow of CPA Australia. Triple bottom line has infected the profession and is spreading like a virus. 'Social auditing' is another trendy leftoid idea. Every month the CPA magazine has articles lauding TBL. I had a complaint letter published in the CPA magazine a couple of years back along the lines of, "if BHP spent less (or zilch) on surplus accountants doing social auditing and more on engineers it wouldn't be pissing money up against a wall at its Hammersley hot briquetted iron plant". Needless to say, I got shouted down by all the lovey-dovey accountants who wrote in next month calling me an out-of-date luddite. The profession, at least an personified by CPA Australia, marches towards irrevelancy.

You can always tell the hard left rants from the hard left parody. The parody is spelled and punctuated correctly, using real English words and everything.

John Ralston Saul! Canadian of some note!! Intellectual!!

Just shows you can teach a horse to Google, but you can't make it think.

JRS is the smug, shallow, sanctimonious and hypocritical "wife" of our gloating left-liberal Governor General.

Thsee are the people who took some 60 of their lefty "intellectual" buddies on a taxpayer funded tour of Northern Europe last year.

Johhny Wishbone

Even better was the famous comment by a texas cattleman.

"Vegetables ain't food. Vegetables is what food eats"

I saw Richard Neville on SBS too!!

AARRGGHH!!

And people say that I dont finish what I .......

Mikey:

Man, are you good. We're still laughing here.

Does John Ralston Saul have anything to do with Canada's new defense policy of "soft power"? Was it Axworthy who posited the brilliant strategy of deploying divisions of Canadian bureacrats to prattle her enemies to death?

It might work. Zarqawi would behead himself if he had to listen to a licensed Canadian time bandit for more than three seconds.

Thanks, Mikey! I always appreciate professional advice.

Rhod,

JRS is a professional parasite living his entire life off the public purse. He has made no contribution, stupid or otherwise. Unlike LLoyd Assworthy who contributed mightily to the demise of the Canadian military, our international credibility and our integrity as a viable nation

You're all welcome. Glad to do my bit for the cause.

jlchydro:

Thank you very much. Seeing Canada is these straits gives me no pleasure. I no longer visit family there for these very reasons.

My remark was directed to the wonks who are in charge where you are. It happened so fast, too.

Dear Jlchydro and other Kanuks: Have you some objection to those who live all their lives on the public purse? Are you one of those who worship at the altar(golden calf) of Private enterprise? Your statement has invalidated nearly all university staff, not to mention the entire teaching staff of the public schools. Where does this anti-intellectualism come from? Name me one of the great scientists of the past. or most of the srtists, who were not intellectuals? Do not we reward intellectual activity in our schools? Why the suspicion of intellectuals? It seems a bit of reverse snobbery to me! Perhaps yoou missed out on the intellectual race to excellence at school and have thus acquired a resentment of those who think for a living?
John briggs

J.Briggs, if these 'intellectuals' are that smart, how come they have to sponge off the public purse?

Where does this anti-intellectualism come from?

You may want to look at the behaviour of many "intellectuals" (particularly the most vocal ones) these days as a good starting point for finding the answer on your own. HTH.

Additional hint: As somebody pointed out above, being an intellectual doesn't require you to be intelligent. I'd love to see academia filled with intelligent people rather than intellectual ones. Perhaps you don't.

Perhaps yoou missed out on the intellectual race to excellence at school and have thus acquired a resentment of those who think for a living?

Nothing like assuming that people who don't agree with you are dumb. Yup, you're an intellectual, all right. Judging from your writing style, that's also the only thing you are.

Hey, j.briggs, I have a clueless egghead story to beat all! I was taking this class (for my Humanities degree -- see, I's a secret intellekchooal too!) called "Contemporary Multicultural Humanities." Anyway, the professor lady had lots of degrees and a "Dr." before her name and was the head of all sorts of art committees and involved in this and that. But we got into a discussion somehow about corporate America's encroachment on pristine Third World lands where the people had been used to living simple lives close to the soil (or as those of an earlier, more robust age would have called it, lived short, brutal lives struggling with nature for every bit of food and shelter). Anyway, one of the professor lady's big complaints was the way those bad old corporations were "changing the lives of the people" by building paved roads that would accomodate evil things like buses and cars, just so they could get more workers transported into their factories, which were of course doomladen death-halls, never places where poor people could finally make a living wage. The way she expressed her complaint was "the people will ride the buses instead of walk and won't get enough exercise." I swear by Algore's tortured Mother Gaia that this is what she said.

John Briggs:

What a remarkable post! Unbelievable. Mr. Briggs compares ideation with being an intellectual, and he doesn't seem to know the difference. Only a teacher could make this mistake, or this may be satire..but Briggs doesn't seem to be able to pull it off, so he's probably serious.

Posing the question of whether artists and scientists are "intellectuals", followed by the question of whether "intellectual" activity is rewarded in schools is to compare a noun to an adjective. Why not ask why a pumpkin pie isn't as tasty as a pumpkin. Because they aren't the same thing, you fool! (And anyway, the most debased term in the English language is "artist", so the first question is moot.)

There's simply too much material for parody here, including the unashamed reference to "Kanuks". The possibility that Briggs might be standing behind a lectern somewhere is too grim to contemplate. jlchydro's perceptions stand unchallenged and affirmed by John Briggs...the corrosive effect of the public purse.

One more thing for Briggs:

Do you "think" for a living?

Poor jlchydro, a loser in the race to excellence to the gigantic intellect of John Briggs and his kind. Is Briggs not the very person this blog thread is all about? The great lumpenfaculty of self-regarding page turners who "think" for a living.

Well, Briggs, anyone who gets paid to "think" for a living without producing something, is a parasite. Tenure might have relieved you of the obligation to produce, but the formula remains. I wouldn't give you two cents for your "thoughts" so far.

Dear pumpkin lovers and others: You all seem to have a peculiar, slanted idea of what an intellectual is. You assume all intellectuals are some sort of congenital idiot who got to their position by some nefariou skullduggery. You never attack right wing intellectuals, even though some of what they write is equally fatuous. I well remember "Reaganomics" which was based on some curve produced by Friedman that said as you cut tax, more money is raided. The whole world had a good laugh about that one. But of course he also consulted astrologers who as we all know are right up there in intellect and sagacity.
I gather from my own research that an intellectual is one who has achieved academic excellence in any of a number of fields, who has read an enormous number of the best writers of our tradition, and represents some of the best products of our education system. I further assume that "intellectual" and "scholar" are synonyms, and that all intellectuals would have an IQ well above the 130 mark on a Test. I would further add that "philosopher" would also come under the heading of intellectual, unless you are counting Forrest Gump and his famous "Box o' chocolates" view of life. Now I admit that "Kanuk" was a cheap shot, but I reiterate that the substance of my post has not been answered by anything of moment.
PS: I consider myself a minor intellectual, in that I am reasonably well read and reasonably well educated. I have read a number of the works of intellectuals- Mark Twain being amongst the best LOL. I tend to believe that Plato's idea of The republic run by philosopher kings as not a bad idea.
John briggs

Personally, I like Paul Johnson's thesis: intellectuals value abstract ideas more than they value human beings. Taken to it's extreme, this leads to gulags and killing fields. After all, Pol Pot's bunch were all intellectuals. They had studied in Paris in the '50's. Their great idea was to return Cambodia to The Year Zero - a utopian rural existence. If 2 million people had to be killed to realize their dream, well, so be it.

Hitler's "scientific" race theories had their origins in the German universities of the late 19th century. German students were the most fervent followers of Nazism.

Those are very extreme examples. But as a veteran of the P.C. wars on college campuses, I'm quite aware how much those who belong to "the herd of independent minds" love power - when they're the ones exercising it.

Well now I know that Mr. Briggs is not an intellectual. In fact, I'm not sure that his mental level rises to that of "turnip."

Oh, come now, Andrea! Professor (because he professes so well!) Briggs declared himself a "minor intellectual". That shows a (very) small amount of humility on his part.

And he deigns to post his specifications for The True Intellectual (TM) here; that shows his willingness to mingle with The Unwashed Masses (TM), whilst hiding his own shortcomings (i.e., being a "minor intellectual"). This insures his place among his peers, those substandard elitists who aren't smart enough to be A True Intellectual (TM), and settle for being wannabes by ignoring reality.

Ah, yes, Professor Briggs! We thank you for strolling amongst us, spreading enlightnment and wisdom. The waters part before you. Birds sing in your presence! Flowers spring from the earth where you feet touch it. And a halo forms about your head when the sun comes out.

Now go away and fling your feces somewhere else.

PS: I consider myself a minor intellectual, in that I am reasonably well read and reasonably well educated.

See, that's what all current-day "intellectuals" say about themselves: "I consider myself". True scholars (which is certainly NOT synonymous to "intellectuals"), including many of the ancient ones you're holding up as ideal intellectuals, would have been loath to judging their own intellectual capabilities; they prefer to let their work speak for them.

Thanks for unintentionally proving the point everybody was trying to hammer into your big, intellectual skull, Johnny.

BTW:

I further assume that (...) all intellectuals would have an IQ well above the 130 mark on a Test.

Would you care to present some supporting data for this assumption? In light of the fact that intellectualism runs particularly wild among humanities departments and their hangers-on (such as you), which aren't exactly known for their aptitude at what IQ tests measure, I'd be surprised if latter-day intellectuals as a whole averaged IQs even outside of one standard deviation, i.e. 115.

Now, if you asserted that they'd do especially well on verbal aptitude tests, I'd heartily agree. I'm sure they're good at bullshitting people.

Dear anti-intellectuals: MY, you do carry a load of spleen and invective, don't you? Andrea shows all the advanced reasoning skills of a gnu, forever upset because she ran into a professor in her humanities course who dared to challenge some of the sacred truths of "progress" in an attempt to shake her out of her complacency! She dared to challenge the materialist dream of endless urbanisation and the "obvious" superiority of the Coca Cola and Golden Arches mentality. Oh. my, how far we have fallen in our dream of an educated class! Young graduates, prepared to think outside the Norm and to challenge so called basic assumptions.
Then we have the bloke who thinks the Khmer Rouge were intellectuals! He's forgotten all abput Mao and his Cultural Revolution! Those thugs despised intellectuals! All teachers or anyone who wore glasses(!!) were forced to labour camps! Most of them were beaten and condemned both in cambodia and China.
All the advances in society have been brought by intellectuals. It is wrong to put all intellectuals in the Humanities faculties. Einstein was a mathematician, but he is also remembered for much of his social writing as well. So are many of the other scientists. like those involved in the Manhattan project! Gandhi was an intellectual! What would you call Martin Luther King and Booker Washington?
Now some bloke who seems to have basic Psych wants to challenge my assertion that intellectuals have an IQ of at least 130! He counters by stating that it must be nearer 115 with no supporting evidence either but has the temerity to challenge me because they cluster in "soft" subjects such as Humanities. I recall reading a report years ago that put the average IQ of the US Senate at 130. JFK was said to have an IQ of 150 and Bill Clinton is way up there also. I mean, come on guys! learn the first steps of reasoning. All you have is a nice line in invective.
John briggs

in·tel·lec·tu·al (ntl-kch-l)
adj.
1.
a. Of or relating to the intellect.
b. Rational rather than emotional.
2. Appealing to or engaging the intellect: an intellectual book; an intellectual problem.
3.
a. Having or showing intellect, especially to a high degree. See Synonyms at intelligent.
b. Given to activities or pursuits that require exercise of the intellect.
n.
An intellectual person.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Middle English, from Old French intellectuel, from Late Latin intellctulis, from Latin intellctus, intellect; see intellect.]

Fuck off, Briggsy,

I used to "consider myself" an intellectual when I was a socialist. Following my Damascene conversion, I now realize how fucking stupid I used to be.

I'm still a bit stupid, but the further I get away from socialism, the smarter I get.

Dear Hydro: Oh, I see. Attila the Hun is your idol, is he? I know how you feel: St Paul was a great swearer-he learnt it as a sailmaker. Jesus tried washing his mouth out but to no avail.
John briggs

Now some bloke who seems to have basic Psych wants to challenge my assertion that intellectuals have an IQ of at least 130! He counters by stating that it must be nearer 115 with no supporting evidence either but has the temerity to challenge me because they cluster in "soft" subjects such as Humanities.

No supporting evidence? I mentioned that people who go into humanities (an assertion you don't seem to object to) tend to do not so well at what standard IQ tests measure, which is logical reasoning, abstract thinking and a whiff of mathematics. That's just a common-sense observation, not hard evidence, granted, but a lot more than you did when you threw out this nugget (just to quote it again):

I further assume that (...) all intellectuals would have an IQ well above the 130 mark on a Test.

Evidently, your assertion wasn't even influenced by common sense. Another thing you share with many others who call themselves "intellectuals".

Also, you don't seem to take criticism well, if you think any challenge to your half-baked assumptions is a case of "temerity". At any rate, I was still putting my guess for the average humanities member at the first standard deviation, i.e. smarter than about 68% of the entire population, which I felt was fairly lenient, but probably not far from the truth. You, on the other hand, put all of them at 130+, or beyond two standard deviations, meaning that you expect all those intellectuals to be clustered beyond the 95th percentile of the population, for an average IQ of somewhere between 135 and 140. Were you aware of the statistics underlying the distribution of IQ values, or did you just throw out the number 130 because it sounds "really, really smart" and because that's the minimum IQ that MENSA requires?

Nonetheless, I'm still open to be proven wrong on the IQ point. You're welcome to post your evidence, or your underlying reasoning, for the 130+ claim. As it stands, your claim seems to be merely tautological - everyone with an IQ greater than 130 gets deemed an intellectual by you. That's not very persuasive. (Not that persuading anybody has even seemed to be one of your goals since you started posting here, so I'm not expecting too much.)

BTW, what does it mean that I "have basic Psych"? You really need to work on those verbal skills if you're already not doing well on the IQ test, buddy, or you'll end up with nothing but your pretensions to being a "minor intellectual".

I recall reading a report years ago that put the average IQ of the US Senate at 130. JFK was said to have an IQ of 150 and Bill Clinton is way up there also.

And that has to do with the prior discussion in which way exactly...? Surely a man of your stunning intellect knows that anecdote != data, particularly when the anecdote doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand. Or did you just attempt to define the entire Senate as intellectuals? I dare say many of them would object to that classification, as well.

Lest I miss commenting on the following, in the grand tradition of how people like you have been treated for decades:

I mean, come on guys! learn the first steps of reasoning.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

I'm beginning to wonder if j.briggs isn't Aaarrrghh! in another disguise. I suppose I could check IPs....

checking... checking...

Nope, they are quite different. Which is a relief, because I was afraid that something had happened to the fine comic sensibilities of Aaarrgghh!!, perhaps brain damage from having a piano dropped on his head or something. So now I can say that I j.briggs shows the reason why popularity continues to elude the current crop of postmodern intellectuals: they are unwilling, and apparently unable, to let go of their contempt for any human being that does not parrot the ideas and mannerisms of their cozy little circle. For some reason nastiness, snottiness, and insults never seem to get these people the approval they crave.

J. Briggs: First of all, people named Donna are not "blokes." Not a very careful reader, are you?

Read any history of the Khmer Rouge for information on where they derived their ideas. You don't seem to know much about them.

Confusing I.Q. scores with wisdom shows, alas, that you are not very wise. Besides, by that measure, Bush beats Kerry, according to the New York Times. I don't have time to look for the link right now, but the Times reported on Sunday that a comparison of military test scores shows that Bush's I.Q. is in the mid 120's and Kerry's is about 120.

I suspect that J. Briggs is one of those otherwise unremarkable people who scores well enough on tests to join Mensa. I have a friend with an aunt in Mensa. Joining Mensa is the only accomplishment she has to her name and she is eager to let everyone know about it within 5 minutes of meeting them. Apparently they meet once a month and talk about how smart they are.

The reason many people disdain intellectuals is because intellectuals have shown so much contempt for "the people." Many people who are held up to be intellectuals write articles which essentially bitch and moan about the poor choices "the people" make, because the people are either (a) idiots, (b) sheeple, or (c) some combination of choice a and b.

Think that is going to go down well? Think people like getting insulted like that be a stuck-up sneerer? If so, then you just may be an "intellectual."

Briggs is taking on all comers here and shows all the automatic impulses of his kind. A mediocre intelligence reinforced by an indestructible sense of self importance can be trampled, but not subdued. The little snake's head of ego keeps hissing even though it's detached completely from the coil and covered with soil and leaves.

When the subject of the Cultural Revolution came up, and Prof Briggs, (BA, Lower Trenton Community College), noted that the Maoists hated intellectuals, he was movingly unaware that he made their case for them. We don't humiliate with dunce caps, though, we just let them talk and write on blogs.

I still haven't sorted out the implications of an intellectual who designates Mark Twain as his inspiration, or who follows that with a fast ball about the personal appeal of Plato's Philosopher King. I guess this has something to do with the capacity for contradiction for which intellectuals are admired.

Twain would have taken Briggs by the velvet collar and shaken him until his IQ was dropped three points to 90, smacked him with his mortar board until little blue birds swirled around his head and then kicked him back to Toon Town.

The pop culture references are for you, Brigss.

Let's see.....

Worships intellectuals? Check.

Sneering and condescending? Check.

States opinions as facts? Check.

Refuses to respond direct questions? Check.

Has multiple errors of formating, spelling, and grammar? Check.

Ignorant of, or has selective memory concerning history? Check.

States opinions as being a logical analysis? Check.

Yep. Briggs is a leftoid troll. And a stupid one as well.

The Real JeffS:

"States opinions as being a logical analysis"

Man, you're so right. They also "think" that information is the same as knowledge.

Dear all ant-intellectuals: First to poster who missed my mark twain reference-it was irony, mate! Twain is one of my favourite writers. However, I gather you would not class him as an intellectual?
To the guy who argues about IQ, I know what 130 means. I read a report years ago that the whole school district of Palo Alto had an average IQ of 130 because all the parents were rocket scientists!
He also confuses the IQ of students who study Humanities with Professors of Humanities. Granted many students pick Humanities courses because they are "soft", but the ones who become professors and thus earn the right to make expert comment (the role of Professor) are way above that of the average student. They come from the top decile of students. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of statistics will know that with a Mean of 115, the top decile will be 130+ and the bottom decile about 90.
John briggs

And your point is, Briggs? Besides being able to cut and paste, I mean?

This is getting a bit tiresome, but just to pick out the most easy one to demolish your most recent post:

[Professors] come from the top decile of students.

Yet another lame assertion dressed up as fact. (I know JeffS already spotted the pattern, but I just had to say it.) I could just as easily assert that the top third of students, even among humanities, are most probably smart enough to make more money in the private sector (and end up doing so), leaving the middle-of-the-road, IQ 115 students to fill the academic vacancies. (BTW, I actually don't think freshman humanities students average 115, for all the structural disadvantages of the standard IQ test I outlined before.)

Anyway, if you seriously think that only the cream of the crop stays in academia, you're even more deluded than I already thought you are. Your poor little brain seems so fraught with unproven "feel-good" assumptions, it's no wonder you can't argue for any of them credibly.

This is all really besides the point, anyway. I'm not even saying that a group of humanities professors that averages IQ 115 is necessarily worse at their special subjects than a group of hard science professors with average IQ of 130. You are the one who made this strange claim about "intellectuals" that they must necessarily have a superhigh IQ, which was a complete non sequitur from the matter of intellectualism, and was (for lack of a better description) a really silly appeal to the authority of IQ tests, as though a high IQ would actually "prove" anything about the relative worth of the societal contributions of intellectuals. Smarter people aren't inherently more valuable to society - please learn to deal with this obvious fact of life.

BTW, can anybody figure out what the pointless anecdote about Palo Alto was supposed to signify?