Anti-Intellectualism: America’s mysterious downfall
Bullying statistics suggest that at least one out of every four kids will be bullied sometime throughout their youth. Children may be bullied for a variety of reasons, including attracting positive attention, being intelligent, having personal vulnerabilities, having few to no friends, popularity, unattractive features, disabilities, sexual orientation, uncommon beliefs, or even race. Among these reasons for bullying is a very important one many people fail to realize and this is anti-intellectualism. Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards, opposition, and mistrust of intellectuals or people with intellectual views. Anti-intellectualism basically believes that academics or any form of professionalism isn’t important to listen to because it doesn’t have much “common sense”. Intellectualism is usually expressed throughout education, philosophy, literature, art, and science.
Anti-Intellectualism never actually originated; it has always been around but there was never a specific word for it until 1963. In 1963, Richard Hofstadter, an American historian and public intellectual, wrote a book about anti-intellectualism called Anti-intellectualism in American Life. All of sudden there it was, the word Anti-Intellectualism. It simply came about and slid into the dictionary. It was evidently in invisible ink, since no one saw or even knew what the word was. Its meaning was unknown to most and irrelevant to others, so it became engulfed with a dust full of curiosity and mystery.
The most famous and excessive political case of Anti-Intellectualism was in the 1970’s in Cambodia under the rule of Pol and Pot and Khmer Rouge. People were killed for simply being intellectu...
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A famous quote by Martin Luther King states “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” The two articles “Hidden Intellectualism” and “Blue Collar Brilliance” both emphasis the author's opinion on the qualifications and measurements of someone's intelligence. “Hidden Intellectualism” focuses on students or younger people who have trouble with academic work because, they are not interested in the topic. Today, in schools students are taught academic skills that are not very interesting, the author mentions this is why children are not motivated in schools. The main viewpoint of this article is that schools need to encourage students
Author and Harvard graduate, Leonid Fridman, in an excerpt of his article, America Needs Its Nerds, points out America’s anti-intellectualism. Fridman’s purpose is to inform the reader of the contempt held for the intellectually curious and call for a change in the country’s attitude. He adopts a condemning tone to make the reader aware of the issue and encourage them to change their mindset.
They also relatably talk of the way that they affect students in their higher education. In Gerald Graff’s essay about hidden intellectualism it is implied that we all have intellect within us. It just may be show in different ways among different people. He offers the example that a love for learning about anything can later be converted into a love for learning about academic subjects. Where in the second essay we talk more about people who have feelings of anti-intellectualism which we learn is a negative feeling towards intellect or learning itself. You could say that those who feel anti-intellectualism tend to have dwindling desires to continue in school and gaining this so called intellect, leading them to complacency in their education. Whereas those who have increased desire to further their intellects will tend to stay on a path of fulfillment and
School is a frightening place. It is broken down into multiple social ranks, and many children find themselves at the bottom. With children trying to work their way to the top of the food chain, the actual learning portion is either set aside or forgotten altogether. In Grant Penrod’s essay, Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, he explains how modern children are growing to dislike intellectual children. The varying social ranks teach children to ignore low grades and try to be popular in school. Anti-Intellectualism is a trend which is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. People who only strive to be popular tend to tease intellectuals, but this is not half of the story. If the only goal children have in school
Graff, G. "Hidden Intellectualism." Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 1.1 (2001): 786-90. Print.
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
Gladwell and Graff, both agrees that education defines intellectualism. Both authors believe there are two types of educated people: street
Intellectuality needs to be redefined; what does the word intellectual mean? Typically one would describe someone as either “street-smart” or “book-smart,” in other words someone who knows how to live in the real world versus someone who has knowledge about academics. But is one more “intellectual” than the other? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff addresses this issue and brings to the audience’s—the audience being experts about the subject along with himself—attention that schools are missing the opportunity to fuse together street-smarts and book-smarts to increase overall academic performance. Graff definitively presents his opinion on this topic by manipulating ethos, pathos, and logos. Through ethos his credibility
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In Anti-Intellectusim: Why We Hate the Smart Kids by Grant Penrod he argues that intellectual kids are looked down on in today’s society and not respected. He makes a valid argument with good points, but he bases his opinions off of his high school experiences and the world is much different after high school. His idea of intellectual kids not being praised in society is false. This can be compared to the idea of social classes in society. The intellectual kids would be at the top of the social class ladder with the access to all the privileges.
One thing people in the society seam to overlook or pay no attention to is anti-intellectualism. What is anti-intellectualism? and does it exist in the society today. Anti-intellectualism is the hostility or overlooking of intellectually skilled individuals in the society. According to Grant Penrod, anti-intellectualism doesn’t only exist in the society but also in the schools today, which he showed in his essay "Anti-intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids". In his essay Penrod talked about smart student or people and how they are being overlooked or ostracized in the society. In this essay he made an argument that students or people who are intellectually
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Why street smart students are considered anti intellectual in academic area? In the article “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, he accounts the idea that street smart students are way more smarted than book smarts. He explains that street smart student will be able to solve an issue much faster than book smart because of his/her previous experience. According to author, the problems with considering street smarts as anti intellectual are they are actually much smarter that book smart students, they don’t equal opportunity , and schools along with colleges never challenge their mind get them to succeed in academic work.
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