Don’t quit your day job, broski.

Peter writes: I have learned (the hard way) that it is much easier to simply ignore the rants and lunatic ravings of the libtard trolls that post here most often, like BC, vivo, moho, now and then, and jharp. They offer nothing to the discussion and arte only here to get a rise out of real Americans or (more likely) because they are paid to do so by leftist entities like Soros.

It’s much easier to keep the discussion on track, and meaningful, if you simply skip over any posts that come from such disingenuous leftist posters, like I and many other regulars here on PJM do.

The “anti-intellectual” charge is mostly about diverting serious criticism of the product of intellectuals.

It’s not so much about people reflexively refusing to listen to the arguments of intelletctuals and fairly evaluate. The anti intellectual charge attemps to condemn anyone who inconveniently refuses to succumb to the suggestion that qualified intellectuals should be allowed to argue entirely by Ethos. They want potential opponents to blindly accept their work entirely on the grounds of their academic qualifications and avoid anyone looking for (and finding) errors, fraud, begging the question, plagiarism, or sometimes a distinct lack of any useful or comprehensible content. Anyone who wants to poke through their data or bibliogrpahy is up to no good and probably is motivated entirely by an irrational hostility towards scholarship and intellectuals in general.

In short it’s a nasty hybrid of:

1.) an ad hominem attack (by questioning me, you are showing yourself to be the sort of guy who instinctively hates rational thought and promotes ignorance and superstition)

2.) a straw man argument (ergo, this isn’t really about the validity of my work…it’s about your hatred of academia and therefore your arguments can’t really be motivated by any valid problem with my work. Let’s talk about your REAL problem…you have an anti-intellectual mind set.)

3.) and a tautology (people who attack my work do so because they are anti-intellectual therefore only anti-intellecuals attack my work, therefore anyone who attacks my work MUST be an anti-intellectual…therfore…)

The “anti-intellectual” charge, besides being construct of Manichaean conflict pitting US(yay!) vs. THEM(Boo! hiss!) makes the whole “intellectual” status a sort of impenetrable vacuole in which anyone can hide a great deal of malice, malpractice, or incompetentce while launching mad sally after mad sally against the fortresses of intuition, good sense, analysis, logic, history, and reason. These mad sallies eventially form a prison of platitudes and cliches and propaganda that gradually replaces curiosity. Before long everybody “knows” stuff that was never really demonstrated to be true or useful and to go against it is the sin of a primitive societal backslider or an anti-intellectual.

For instance in women’s studies, “the rule of thumb” is comkonly cited as an ancient historical reference to the legality of wife beating in ancient patriarchal Rome(supposedly) documented in a (nonexistent) body of law laid down by (a poeic mythical figure who may never have existed) Romulus, the first king of Rome (who was suckled by a she wolf along with his twin).

Theory, claptrap, poor cursory scholarship, and outright balderdash all beging to take on the shine of truth under the aegis of an academic who in turn takes shelter behind his or her qualifications. Naturally anyone who tries to challenge such shoddy stuff is branded an “anti-intellectual” and attempts are made to marginalize them and supress public exposure to their crititcism.

After all nobody has to argue with kooks if they don’t want to. So if you can make all your critics seem like kooks you are home free. Of course after long period of time with no serious challenges the academics often begin to devolve into nuts who teach and believe absurd things. Sadly sometimes their students get a very skewed view of reality and they act on this view and often ignore any evidence that does not fit with that view. It’s a real shame.

Any time you want to try and make a real point about anything then feel free. Otherwise, I hope your highly vague yet self righteous outburst impressed you a tad bit more than it has impressed me. I’m sure it is the sort of thing that would generally impress “your kind” though. To me it just looked like a typical, quickie, form letter style put down that could have come from a metaphorical can.

The main aim of your response appears to be expressing your sense of entitlement to a position of intellectual superiority from which you hope to be able to systematically dispense or withhold “legitimacy” based on your own reactionary dislike of strong words or opinions that conflict with your own. Sadly I am able to withstand this brand of ersatz peer pressure mostly because I do not regard you as a peer.

What does ‘helpful and constructive’ even mean to you? Does it mean agreeing with a highly stupid Democrat agenda in the vain hope that if I do so you’ll stop implying I’m not as smart as you and “your kind” ?

I don’t want to help Obama or the democrats do an end run around the constitution to Europeanize the country I live in. I don’t think leftist ideas are constructive so much as they are utopian and therefore destructive. I’m really not interested in collaborating with the democrat agenda because I strongly disagree with it and its addled proponents.

I have little to no use for smugly ignorant web-goons who encourage others to live in perpetual mortal dread of ever resembling a stereotype, especially when that stereotype was created expressly to intimidate the spineless into shutting up and quietly going along with the latest leftist bid to promote and implement the stupid quasi-marxist fad du jour. The agenda I oppose is not imaginary and is not nonsense though the premises by which it is being justified mostly ARE a lot of nonsense.

My goal is to “help” a bunch of leftist politicians out of their offices come November 2010. I hope to play a small roll in the “construction” of a better Congress that regularly resorts to reading bills before voting on them and actually listens to angry consituents without sneering, threatning, or prevarication.

‘Huffing, puffing, and red faced’ don’t really apply to typed words. While you have demostrated that you have a fantastic imagination, I really have to wonder why you bothered responding with your brief, witless, uninformative collection of platitudinous tripe that was mainly about characterizing me instead of addressing anything I said.

Good luck with your trolling and your desire to apply the “wildly confused conservative” label will nilly until someone foolishly takes your heckling seriously and begins to worry about staying within what passes for your good graces.

It’s not hard to write something that you think is clever and shows up the person you’re talking to. I’ll grant I had no idea you were describing a hand passing over the head to indicate that the person missed the point. However, no one missed your over-arching point: you hold anyone who disagrees with you in contempt. That’s really your problem and not mine, though it is interesting to respond to see where your thoughts go.

Great read!