Some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates. The most stinging dismissal of a point is to say: That’s academic. In other words, to be a scholar is, often, to be irrelevant. ~ Nicholas Kristof Liberal opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof garners respect from me because he strives to acknowledge when the other side makes a salient point. In the past, he has acknowledged that people who call themselves conservative are more generous in their private giving than liberals, regardless of income, and he takes his own to task for it. He has also admitted that some government aid programs disincentivize work and encourage abuse, often to the detriment of children. In this column, he decries the irrelevance of academic professionals to the policy debates of the day, and he makes several good points on the topic. His comments about the lack of political diversity certainly resonate in an era when campuses are more dedicated to instilling what one should think rather than how to think. Anti-intellectualism, however, isnt new to America, nor is it the province of one faction or another. Even people who claim to be using scholarship in their arguments are mostly just parroting their favorite Internet site or blog. One of my biggest challenges as a professor is to get my students to distinguish between a scholarly source and Wikipedia! :) According to Robert Cross with the University of Virginias Department of History (and taken from a peer-reviewed journal!): Americans, perhaps more than most people in other nations, have been particularly ambivalent about the pursuit of intellectuality. On one hand, Americans passionately believe that every American child should receive extensive formal education; by the end of the nineteenth century, each state in the Union required that every child attend school. On the other hand, Americans have a history of being suspicious of intellect and of believing that common sense is more reliable than learning, that nature is a better guide than training, and that practical experience in the school of hard knocks is more valuable than formal education. So do you think we need more eggheads to inform public policy? Dont worry, I wont take offense if you dont think so (grin)!
Posted on: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 14:13:05 +0000
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