Is liberalism becoming more anti-intellectual?

[Beet]

For years we've heard about conservatism becoming more anti-intellectual. Where are the William F. Buckleys, they are nowhere to be seen, what we have are Ann Coulter and Alex Jones, etc. The uneducated deplorables. That's all been litigated. But what about liberalism? I contend that it has become equally anti-intellectual. Who are the great liberal intellectuals of today who are not scribbling away barely noticed in corners, but actually have a mass following and engage the right on the ideas that matter? I struggle to even think of an equivalent to Jordan Peterson.

[136or142]

One of the tenants of mainstream liberalism is that it tends to deal with issues on a case by case basis depending on the specifics of each case, so this is why there tend to be so few great broad based liberal philosophers after the initial philosophers who provided the initial outline of liberalism.

Isaiah Berlin who lived from 1909-1997 has been described as 'the last great liberal philosopher.' His biggest contribution was to greatly expand upon Emanuel Kant's concept of humans as 'crooked timber.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin

Jane Jacobs who lived from 1916-2006 might be argued as one of the first great more narrow liberal philosophers who moved liberal theory to dealing with practical day to day issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs

Of course, in economics anyway, the first great liberal practical philosopher was Alfred Marshal who lived from 1842-1924.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Marshall

I would think by far the best known liberal thinker around right now is Paul Krugman.

However, I think the reason most liberal thinkers aren't well known these days isn't due to any anti-intellectualism but because academic fields are getting more and more technical and narrower.  The line is "we know more and more about less and less and eventually we'll know absolutely everything about nothing."

This is adapted from

“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”

― Konrad Lorenz

I certainly agree that Jordan Peterson knows nothing about everything (or anything.)

Edit to add: I'm sure not all liberals agree that there are no great liberal theory philosophers anymore or that their own views are best applied on a case by case basis.

However, in general I think it's far to say that is the case since the cliche of conservatives think in black and white terms while liberals think in terms of shades of grey seems to be true.

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This isn't just in politics either.  I don't want to make too much of one data point but I remember when 'Dr' Laura was on the Larry King show during the 2000 election (I have no idea why I was watching this) and he asked her "how can you provide advise to people when you know so little about their situation?"

And she replied "If you live by bedrock principles life simply involves applying those principles no matter the details of the situation."

[OSR stands with Israel]

I wouldnt call the Bernie Wing Party Liberal.


The Democratic Party yes is become more anti-intellectual by moving in that direction but I wouldnt say Liberalism is.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I struggle to even think of an equivalent to Jordan Peterson.

Maybe liberals don't need anybody to tell them to tidy their rooms?

[GoTfan]

There's an entire major political party in the US that denies climate change.

Don't lecture me about anti-intellectualism.

[dead0man]

There's an entire major political party in the US that denies climate change.

Don't lecture me about anti-intellectualism.

who is lecturing you?

"Liberals", as a group isn't anti-intellectual, but there are many that are.  Most anti-GMO stuff comes from the left, the same with anti-nuclear power.  The "gender" issue...really any time a field has both biology and social sciences together the left is often there to put to limits on it.

[DC Al Fine]

There's an entire major political party in the US that denies climate change.

Don't lecture me about anti-intellectualism.

who is lecturing you?

"Liberals", as a group isn't anti-intellectual, but there are many that are.  Most anti-GMO stuff comes from the left, the same with anti-nuclear power.  The "gender" issue...really any time a field has both biology and social sciences together the left is often there to put to limits on it.

Don't forget that the state with the highest anti-vax rate is that bastion of fundamentalism; Vermont.

[GoTfan]

There's an entire major political party in the US that denies climate change.

Don't lecture me about anti-intellectualism.

who is lecturing you?

"Liberals", as a group isn't anti-intellectual, but there are many that are.  Most anti-GMO stuff comes from the left, the same with anti-nuclear power.  The "gender" issue...really any time a field has both biology and social sciences together the left is often there to put to limits on it.

Again, an entire political party in the US denies climate change.

An entire political party in the US pushes the myth that coal is clean.

This YouGov poll has some pretty damning statistics as well

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qcjryhyo22/tabs_HP_Science_20160410.pdf

From this poll, we can deduce the following:

-13% of Republicans don't trust scientists
-Fewer Republicans than Democrats believe scientists understand GMOs clearly
-Republicans and Democrats are evenly split on the safety of GMOS
-Less than half of Republicans believe it's safe to vaccinate a child, compared with 53% of Independents and 68% of Democrats

Seems pretty conclusive to me.

[Mopsus]

I struggle to even think of an equivalent to Jordan Peterson.

Maybe liberals don't need anybody to tell them to tidy their rooms?

“The term ‘tidiness’ discriminates against non-normative organizational methods”

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

There's an entire major political party in the US that denies climate change.

Don't lecture me about anti-intellectualism.

who is lecturing you?

"Liberals", as a group isn't anti-intellectual, but there are many that are.  Most anti-GMO stuff comes from the left, the same with anti-nuclear power.  The "gender" issue...really any time a field has both biology and social sciences together the left is often there to put to limits on it.

I mean, the right are far worse on the gender issue when it comes to ignoring science for the sake of their feelings.

Of course, the very worst example of anti-science sentiment on the left was the demented Soviet concept of Lysenkoism, which argued that Mendelian genetics were contrary to the doctrine of dialectical materialism and promoted a sort of neo-Lamarck sentiment in its stead. That was extremely mad.

[dead0man]

yes yes guys, conservatives aren't "becoming" anti-science, they already were....perhaps start a thread about it instead of dropping your whataboutism in here?

The question on the table has nothing to do with that.  And the answer to it is "yes, some of them".  You can think that's perfectly ok because the other side is often anti-science too if you want.  I think that's pretty funking stupid though.

[Beet]

The "snarky" attitude from crabcake and GoTfan are exactly what they are talking about. Instead of treating this discussion as a serious issue, they try to turn it into a punchline. Meanwhile the environment they claim to care so much about still gets polluted about carbon dioxide... but as long as they get to feel superieur, n'est pas? No, there certainly has been a decline on the left.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The "snarky" attitude from crabcake and GoTfan are exactly what they are talking about. Instead of treating this discussion as a serious issue, they try to turn it into a punchline. Meanwhile the environment they claim to care so much about still gets polluted about carbon dioxide... but as long as they get to feel superieur, n'est pas? No, there certainly has been a decline on the left.

Um, I made a joke about Peterson, who is talented in his field but makes various hamfisted and plain wrong inferences about evolution to back up his theories on the nature of society, most notably about lobsters (mainly because your initial comment was glib and meaningless); then I have a literal example of when the left walked down a very stupid path to satisfy ideological requirements. Overall the Left is a lot better in terms of its acceptance of the Scientific Method than before (although non-maoist communist states often loved the idea of science, a scientific mindset of curiosity inevitably comes to question the "scientific" concept of dialectical materialism; and the New Left was incredibly mad).

Regardless, this whole argument strand is bizarre. There is an entire wing of the Right dedicated to demonising the entire concept of higher education, that characterises entire disciplines as "propaganda" without even bothering to make an effort to seriously consider their views. There is an argument strand that is broadly more popular on the Right than the Left that the concept of higher education is irrelevant compared to the "university of life". That to me is a far more anti-intellectual mindset than bursts of pseudoscience and waffle or excessive coddling on campus.

More broadly I feel there is an anti-intellectual sentiment that has been metastasising for a while that has a decidedly non-partisan origin: that of corporatisation and commercialisation, two trends that have invaded universities and turned them into Gradgrindian factories for "skills", demonising the concept of education for education's sake.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

More broadly I feel there is an anti-intellectual sentiment that has been metastasising for a while that has a decidedly non-partisan origin: that of corporatisation and commercialisation, two trends that have invaded universities and turned them into Gradgrindian factories for "skills", demonising the concept of education for education's sake.

Correct. Though I will note that implicit justifications for this have o/c been provided - in a weird subconscious way - by harder Left and libertarian Right critiques of higher education and the university o/c.

[Beet]

The "snarky" attitude from crabcake and GoTfan are exactly what they are talking about. Instead of treating this discussion as a serious issue, they try to turn it into a punchline. Meanwhile the environment they claim to care so much about still gets polluted about carbon dioxide... but as long as they get to feel superieur, n'est pas? No, there certainly has been a decline on the left.

Um, I made a joke about Peterson, who is talented in his field but makes various hamfisted and plain wrong inferences about evolution to back up his theories on the nature of society, most notably about lobsters (mainly because your initial comment was glib and meaningless); then I have a literal example of when the left walked down a very stupid path to satisfy ideological requirements. Overall the Left is a lot better in terms of its acceptance of the Scientific Method than before (although non-maoist communist states often loved the idea of science, a scientific mindset of curiosity inevitably comes to question the "scientific" concept of dialectical materialism; and the New Left was incredibly mad).

Regardless, this whole argument strand is bizarre. There is an entire wing of the Right dedicated to demonising the entire concept of higher education, that characterises entire disciplines as "propaganda" without even bothering to make an effort to seriously consider their views. There is an argument strand that is broadly more popular on the Right than the Left that the concept of higher education is irrelevant compared to the "university of life". That to me is a far more anti-intellectual mindset than bursts of pseudoscience and waffle or excessive coddling on campus.

More broadly I feel there is an anti-intellectual sentiment that has been metastasising for a while that has a decidedly non-partisan origin: that of corporatisation and commercialisation, two trends that have invaded universities and turned them into Gradgrindian factories for "skills", demonising the concept of education for education's sake.

Your example of a time the left "walked down the wrong path" is something safely in the past. Few leftists today still argue in favor of the Soviet Union.

I seriously consider the views of higher education, and I have found the impact of leftist social thinking in the political sphere to be detrimental. For instance, higher education has given us gender studies and the notion that there is "privilege," which has corroded political discourse deeply. And even when I was a college liberal I saw how my professors in social studies were very liberal themselves and that many entire fields are hostile to conservatives. In fact, one young man once told me he was not going to be a Political Science major because the department was so hostile to his views. So I cannot blame conservatives for being critical of it.

But I don't deny that the Right wing is anti-intellectual, I only claim the Left wing is becoming that way as well. The unthinking insistence that the Scientific Method is the end all and be all of political debates is part of the problem.

[darklordoftech]

Anti-intellectuals, whether they be conservative or liberal, tend to vote more than people who trust intellectuals do.

[136or142]

There's an entire major political party in the US that denies climate change.

Don't lecture me about anti-intellectualism.

who is lecturing you?

"Liberals", as a group isn't anti-intellectual, but there are many that are.  Most anti-GMO stuff comes from the left, the same with anti-nuclear power.  The "gender" issue...really any time a field has both biology and social sciences together the left is often there to put to limits on it.

There is no independent science that backs up the safety of GMOs.  The science on the safety of GMOs is actually more analogous to the industry 'science' that backs up the view that global warming is a myth.

[dead0man]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

[DC Al Fine]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

This is an important point.

Left wingers frequently criticize the right for being anti-intellectual and they're often right. However, when the right points out similar issues on the left, we're often met with a bunch of special pleading. It's rather irritating. At least the fundamentalist creationist doesn't hold himself up as a supporter of the secular academy while opposing it.

Some examples of this of varying popularity with progressives include the existence of Jesus, the relationship between science and religion historically (e.g. the Galileo affair), and GMO's.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

This is an important point.

Left wingers frequently criticize the right for being anti-intellectual and they're often right. However, when the right points out similar issues on the left, we're often met with a bunch of special pleading. It's rather irritating. At least the fundamentalist creationist doesn't hold himself up as a supporter of the secular academy while opposing it.

Some examples of this of varying popularity with progressives include the existence of Jesus, the relationship between science and religion historically (e.g. the Galileo affair), and GMO's.

Oh yeah, all sorts of conspiracy theories about early Christianity are considered credible by a large number of people.  People say that Jesus was married and had kids, that Paul fundamentally changed Christian doctrine. and that Constantine changed Christian doctrine as well.  I've heard people say that Christianity wasn't a religion until Constantine.  This is Lost Cause level bad history.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

? I support GMO crops? The only thing I routinely say about them is that that each new transgenic organism should be carefully tested to ensure you aren't coding for potentially allergenic proteins (which is supported by all peer reviewed reserach that I know of), and that they certainly aren't the cure-all their proponents believe them to be? Plus that farmers should be given some for of economic compensation for the effects of Terminater mechanisms preventing them from using their own seed and forcing them to remain reliant on seed companies?

I honestly don't understand how you can argue that I've argued that "we don't know etc" in multiple occasions. If I've come across that way, I obviously haven't made myself clear enough so I'll say this: genetic engineering is no different (and in some ways quite a bit safer, especially if you're simply knocking out genes) than conventional plant breeding technologies.

(I also don't know why you're even talking about monocultures here: they aren't hugely relevant to this topic, given a cisgenic based acrosystem will also normally be monocultural, for better or for worse).

[136or142]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

Show me the independent studies then.   

[dead0man]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

Show me the independent studies then.   

before I waste my time, tell me true, will it change your mind if I show you studies showing their safety?  Or will you nit pick, dodge and weave or just never come back, continuing on with your ignorance.


'cause it seems to me if you care about this issue you would have Googled by now and found out on your own.  So I assume you've seen the science and still came to the other conclusion....probably because the people you assume are telling you the truth really really REALLY hate Monsanto and thus you do to.

So have you decided already?

[dead0man]

? I support GMO crops?

sometimes, but you're way softer on it than I remember

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do you want this for all new foods or are GMOs special?

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there is nothing stopping farmers from using their own seed now (they can even purchase new seed like this...they don't though....want to guess why?) and seed companies were operating under this model long before GMOs

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I must be missremembering, my bad.  Let Adam know though, k?

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the last few times I've hoe'd this row have been elsewhere and for some reason "monoculture:how bad it is and why the GMO companies invented it are all evil" have kept coming up.  Of course it's not bad (or at least not not good....what?) and existed long before GMOs.

[136or142]

Well Beet thanks you Adam, an easy win for blue Beet.

..but I want to play too.

What part of the GMO fearmongering got to you?  Please say "because monocultures are bad", I don't think we've done that one here yet (or if we have, not very good).  If it's just the one Crabby likes (we just don't know, more study needs to be done, ya can't be too safe!) save your breath and search through past threads.

Show me the independent studies then.  

before I waste my time, tell me true, will it change your mind if I show you studies showing their safety?  Or will you nit pick, dodge and weave or just never come back, continuing on with your ignorance.


'cause it seems to me if you care about this issue you would have Googled by now and found out on your own.  So I assume you've seen the science and still came to the other conclusion....probably because the people you assume are telling you the truth really really REALLY hate Monsanto and thus you do to.

So have you decided already?

Show me the independent studies and I promise you I'll make an honest assessment.  

I have a local friend who has a degree in agriculture and another who is a soil scientist and they both say GMOs are unsafe.  Of course you can find a few experts on opposite sides of an issue, there are even a few genuine climate scientists who are genuinely skeptical of global warming, but these are two individuals I regard as very credible.  Certainly more credible than you.

You are arguing by bullying: "anybody who doesn't agree GMOs are safe is antiscience." They don't do that.  The science, for instance, is far more robust on the reality of global warming than on the safety of GMOs.