Which is my experience as well.
> Intellectuals are concerned with ideas, so find it surprising and frustrating that their deeper interests aren't widely shared, which can lead
to a loss of perspective and an exaggerated and unwarranted contempt for the
mass of the population, usually quietly held but sometimes rising to the surface.
And intellectuals also tend to gravitate toward each other with geeks marrying geeks, etc. Terrance and I have deeply similar value systems, but totally different tastes (which was a learning experience for me since I had always believed that for a relationship to be successful two [or more] people had to have many interests in common). He loves horror movies; I prefer Fassbinder. He knows popular culture intimately and can tell you who won American Idol, why they won, and who should have won. Yet he can also argue progressive politics convincingly (as those list members who have met him know). The difference between us is that his erudition is in a different area than mine.
I think sometimes people not only want others to agree, but to agree for the same reasons and by using the same logic. I do not consider this a realistic expectation. In fact, such insistence might even alienate people who would otherwise be allies because of its authoritarian aura.
Brian
PS: The one exception to this observation is the fact that GYPSY is the greatest piece of musical theater ever written. A person who rejects this truth (no matter how progressive) is a lost cause.