Friday, January 21, 2011

The decline of the intellectual

Who’s really surprised? We’ve gone from glass milk bottles to cheap plastic cartons, from fedoras to baseball caps, from Dr. Pepper to juice boxes. Lots of good things are in decline or have already vanished, so there’s no reason why our intellectual class should be any different.

Jeff Poor at DC Caller illustrates my point in this post. Behold the vaporings of crackpot “deep thinker” Noam Chomsky:
”There’s [sic] other factors like the anger, and the fear and hostility in the country about everything carries over to this [this man’s claim to fame is his expertise in linguistics, right? - P.],” Chomsky said. “So if you look at polls, everyone hates Congress. They hate the Democrats. They hate the Republicans even more. They hate big business. They hate banks and they distrust scientists. So why should we believe what these pointy-head elitist are telling? We don’t trust anything else. We don’t trust them.”

He explained those feelings led to November’s election results, and would have serious repercussions for civilization.

“All of this combines the latest election a couple of days ago,” he continued. “You could almost interpret it [as] a kind of a death knell for the species.”
Actually, I interpret the conservatives' election victories of November to be more like the death knell for Deluxe-Class accommodations on the national gravy train for tenured Gaia fetishists, speech commissars, talking airheads, trans fat policemen, Bolshevik tycoons, congressional lemmings, Hollywood philosophes and other such ideological dingleberies that nestle in the shorts of the body politic. And yes, I say that like it’s a good thing.


It tolls for thee, you cloth-headed poseur.

10 comments:

Steve Skubinna said...

Not everything is in decline. I still drink single malt Scotch and single cask Bourbon and craft beer, and never from a paper cup.

There is not a single piece of plastic furniture in my house.

Every clock I own has actual hands, and not some preposterous digital display.

And finally, the only circumstance that would ever induce me to consume SPAM or Cheez-Whiz would be the post apocalyptic scenario during the short span of time the heroic band of plucky survivors (which needless to say would include myself) struggle to reconstitute the dairy and livestock sectors of the economy.

None of which shall be given to Chomsky, assuming he survives the cataclysm. Nope, he shall wail and gnash his teeth in the outer darkness, where there is only cheap beer in cans to drink and Kraft singles on wonder bread to eat. It's better than he deserves, actually.

Paco said...

Kraft singles? That's brutal, man.

JeffS said...

I'd mark the start of the decline of the intellectual around 1980 or so, possibly a knee jerk reaction by the left to the election of Reagan. That's about the time that a lot of airheads like Chomsky started their ascent into the upper strata of the intelligentsia, whether they were capable or not.

More likely, it's the natural results of encouraging emotive, logic free thinking without responsibility for the consequences in our schools. Reagan just forced the lefties to accelerate their schedule.

bruce said...

Oliver Kamm had Chomsky skewered on a very pointy stick - pursued his footnotes to find, surprise, they led nowhere, if I recall.

If we live in a secular age, then we need a new term to describe Chomsky and his devotees. Because they're as bad as any fanatic religious cult.

bruce said...

"a kind of a death knell for the species"

These are the same people who baulk at American exceptionalism. I mean, WTF?

USA is not special, but it is supernaturally all-powerful and important! What drug are these people taking? Super-narcissol I suppose.

Merilyn said...

Paco this might give you a smile today, regarding Keith Olberman.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/keith_kanned/#commentsmore

Paco said...

Merilyn: I was, indeed, delighted to read of Keith Olbermann's departure - although I imagine he'll pop up somewhere else, doing more or less the same thing.

Yojimbo said...

"..single cask Bourbon and craft beer," There's a country and western song in there somewhere.

And Never From A Paper Cup. The latest biography of Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey is available today at Pacozon.com.
:):)

The decline of the intellectual was there from the beginning because there is always a certain estrangement with reality with these people. I think it hit full throttle in the late nineteenth century with the onset of the progressive movement. The railcars became forever uncoupled at that point.

Minicapt said...

I blame "Higher Criticism".

Cheers

Paco said...

I blame the Lower Critics.