The Age of Intellectualism?
Simple Justice:
Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times op-ed celebrates Barack Obama’s election for a very different reason then his race or policies.
Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
What are you suggesting, Nick, that Sarah Palin wasn’t smart? Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.
Kristof goes on to argue that intellectualism has not proven to always be the cure for society’s (both this and others, going back as far as Nero and Rome) ills. But lack of intellectualism, which has been touted ad naseum as the alternative, has proven to be even more of a failure. Anti-intellectualism has an appeal to many Americans, since it elevates their thoughts and opinions on a subject to a status of worthiness that they would otherwise never enjoy. “Common sense” has become a mantra for those who don’t want to pull a muscle by thinking too hard.
What has this done for us in producing our upcoming decisionmakers?
We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.
Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according…