Anti-Climacus

LINK: Proof, if you needed it, that brilliance in the academic realm does not translate into brilliance in the political realm, from Kwame Appiah:

"Part of the truth here, I think, is that American anti-intellectualism contains a seam of intellectual insecurity. It's not that the no-nothings are sure we're wrong, it's that they're afraid we'll win the argument, because we're better at arguing. They feel about us the way many Greeks appear to have felt about the Sophists: sure they won the argument but that was not always because they were right. But they're also not sure that we're wrong. The discussion about what we ought to be doing about the cultural divide seems sometimes to presuppose that they'd want to talk to us if we showed up respectfully and offered, as we now say, to "dialogue." But they don't want to talk to us, a lot of them."

Because, as we all know, evangelical Christianity requires you to check your brain at the door. I mean, for a guy who says:

"What would not be helpful would be a new form of condescension..."

and yet makes his side the 'intellectual' one and the people who oppose him the 'anti-intellectual' side. It's certainly not the case that people might reasonably disagree about matters of ontology and epistemology (which seems to be the big divide to me--what is the case in the world, and how do you justify that belief); it was always made clear to me in my philosophy questions that there were some opinions which were out of bounds (belief in God, or in nonmaterial aspects of the world). This is just one of those things where certain* folks want to applaud themselves for not just being right, but being more noble and more open, too.

*but by no means all people who share their political convictions. I agree with SIAW, Norm, and the Harry's Place people quite a bit even though we have different ways of getting to the same outcome. I think the much more intelligent way is to note that there are many ways one can get to a good answer for a policy outcome, and so long as that way isn't really beyond the pale, it's okay.