[lbo-talk] Query

martin schiller mschiller at pobox.com
Tue Jan 29 11:41:06 PST 2013


On Jan 29, 2013, at 8:59 AM, Wojtek S wrote:


> To go back to the subject, the term "anti-intellectual" is a part of
> the jargon of certain academic and literary circles that identifies
> and assigns a value to those they perceive as their enemies. It is
> rather obvious that those 'enemies' would not use the reverse of that
> jargon word but rather come with their own, e.g. egg-head, book worm,
> nerd and so on.

Interesting that the wiki article that CC referred to in his original Query seems to disagree, suggesting that 'intellectualism' has a negative social connotation.

"Intellectualism denotes the use, development, and exercise of the intellect; the practice of being an intellectual; and the Life of the Mind. In the field of philosophy, “intellectualism” occasionally is synonymous with “rationalism”, that is, knowledge mostly derived from reason and ratiocination. Socially, “intellectualism” negatively connotes: single-mindedness of purpose (“too much attention to thinking”) and emotional coldness (“the absence of affection and feeling”)."



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