The culture of Anti-Intellectualism needs to be talked about more

[WIA20XX]

What's your thesis.

https://www.thecoli.com/threads/the-culture-of-anti-intellectualism-needs-to-be-talked-about-more.1034367/#post-52772964

 

[Womb Raider]

The whole anti vaxx crusade was sad af

 

[the elastic]

Anti-intellectualism is a cornerstone of fascism and other dictatorial styles of governance

 

[Givethanks]

The whole anti vaxx crusade was sad af

One of my guy's who hasn't read a book since 2006 will swear up and down that vaxs are bad.

Never trusting a Mfkr that failed a grade 10 literacy test.

 

[get these nets]

There are no better means of education than reading. It's not only the most important, it's the first mean of education. Children whose parents read to them at young ages significantly out perform children whose parents don't read to them. Reading (and being read to) unlocks the brain at very young ages, greatly improves your understanding of language, and teaches you how to think. This is also a major reason why white children out perform black children from the get-go in school but that's a topic for another day.
...

Yeah. You having to explain this to another (assumed) Black man on a public forum is sad.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

There are no better means of education than reading. It's not only the most important, it's the first mean of education. Children whose parents read to them at young ages significantly out perform children whose parents don't read to them. Reading (and being read to) unlocks the brain at very young ages, greatly improves your understanding of language, and teaches you how to think. This is also a major reason why white children out perform black children from the get-go in school but that's a topic for another day.

Reading as an older child is the fastest way to open the mind to different ideas, people, thoughts, and places. So it not only benefits you intellectually but culturally as well. Youtube and "content" has no real intrinsic value because it doesn't stimulate the brain, it relaxes it. Which is probably why this generation of Youtube/tablet/tiktok kids are putting up near-historically bad scores across the board in school right now. We stopped reading as a society and the consequences will be devastating. People are sitting back laughing and ignoring the fact that we're witnessing the creation of a permanent lower class. Perpetuated by billionaires who seem hellbent on making sure people are as stupid as 16th century peasants via rabbit hole algorithms, SEO, and AI. All while supporting politicians who are banning books and attacking libraries. Funny...

It's deeper that just reading though. Kids aren't taught to extract information. They are taught memorization.

This is why its just as important to read fiction as it is to read autobiographies and history. People have no idea how to pinpoint themes or subtext. That's why online discourse is so fukked up. In a world of people who take everything literally and at face value, you make a world with no critical thinkers. And when you lack that ability you personalize everything because anything not related to yourself is invalid.

For instance, if I were to say "Hip-Hop" has a misogyny problem, people now would have an inability to separate "hip-hop" from "black people". So what they heard is "black people are misogynists"...which is a logical fallacy.

But beyond that, we've had this energy in the black community for decades. It's because ignorance and racism has caused too many generations to place scholarly pursuits in a closer proximity to whiteness. And if whiteness is "the enemy" then intelligence is the enemy too.

 

[Piff Perkins]

It's deeper that just reading though. Kids aren't taught to extract information. They are taught memorization.

This is why its just as important to read fiction as it is to read autobiographies and history. People have no idea how to pinpoint themes or subtext. That's why online discourse is so fukked up. In a world of people who take everything literally and at face value, you make a world with no critical thinkers. And when you lack that ability you personalize everything because anything not related to yourself is invalid.

For instance, if I were to say "Hip-Hop" has a misogyny problem, people now would have an inability to separate "hip-hop" from "black people". So what they heard is "black people are misogynists"...which is a logical fallacy.

But beyond that, we've had this energy in the black community for decades. It's because ignorance and racism has caused too many generations to place scholarly pursuits in a closer proximity to whiteness. And if whiteness is "the enemy" then intelligence is the enemy too.

While I agree with you, reading in of itself is the building block needed to get to higher level comprehension, critical thinking, etc. I'd argue a major reason so many people are unable to determine themes, context, subtext, metaphors etc in art is because they don't read anymore. When I was in high school we had to read Lord Of The Flies and discuss what the conch represented, for instance. Thinking about books/film/etc beyond just "this happened and then this happened and then this happened..." is key to development and used to be pretty common in education from middle school through high school (now it's basically just in college for many young people). So I generally agree with you, I'm just saying the first step of all this is parents reading to a child, the child starting to read, and then starting to develop more ability to comprehend themes.

I'd also argue that many people have replaced thematic understanding of art with surface level, brain dead obsession over intent and identity. Intent being that if a book/film/etc depicts misogyny, the work itself is misogynistic regardless of the theme; similar to your point about hip hop. Or if Do The Right Thing has themes about race/racism, the film must be racist. Similarly with identity, the inclusion or absence of an "appropriate" amount of diversity determines whether a film is inclusive or not, regardless of the setting/theme/context of the work, characters, etc. This is how you end up with Billy Porter deciding because he is black and gay, he should play James Baldwin in a film despite not knowing anything about his work/beliefs/ideals, and having no intention of depicting them in the film. We live in a world that constantly coddles these sentiments by not forcefully confronting them on an academic or personal level.

 

[Wild self]

Anti intellectualism became a huge problem, back in the 00s when George W Bush made the "No Child left Behind" act.

The same time period, southern Hip Hop came to be and discourage various forms of lyricism that displayed intelligence and innovation.

 

[Wild self]

It's actually been like this for decades. I remember as a kid grown brehs saying stuff like "I can't stand a smart nikka" and they'll be serious.

Grown folks nowadays say shyt like "I'm no square" and "9 to 5ers are lames".


Like, who does their taxes? Who checks up on their health in doctor's appointments?

Being 'cool' came at the expense of everything else from the human experience.

 

[DetroitEWarren]

It's deeper that just reading though. Kids aren't taught to extract information. They are taught memorization.

This is why its just as important to read fiction as it is to read autobiographies and history. People have no idea how to pinpoint themes or subtext. That's why online discourse is so fukked up. In a world of people who take everything literally and at face value, you make a world with no critical thinkers. And when you lack that ability you personalize everything because anything not related to yourself is invalid.

For instance, if I were to say "Hip-Hop" has a misogyny problem, people now would have an inability to separate "hip-hop" from "black people". So what they heard is "black people are misogynists"...which is a logical fallacy.

But beyond that, we've had this energy in the black community for decades. It's because ignorance and racism has caused too many generations to place scholarly pursuits in a closer proximity to whiteness. And if whiteness is "the enemy" then intelligence is the enemy too.

But as you sit up and watch MAGA, they are the dumbest people in the world, bar none. No other group of people are close to the ignorance of white America. White America is based off ignorance, and feeding masses of people that ignorance.

 

[Piff Perkins]

Grown folks nowadays say shyt like "I'm no square" and "9 to 5ers are lames".


Like, who does their taxes? Who checks up on their health in doctor's appointments?

Being 'cool' came at the expense of everything else from the human experience.

It's like a perpetual state of adolescence where people are so invested in extending their childhood to avoid doing adult things that they simply stop progressing mentally. End result is a bunch of people in their 20s/30s whose personality revolves around Harry Potter/Star Wars/Marvel/etc, are going broke ordering Door Dash because they neve learned how to cook, and aren't doing any adult shyt beyond maybe having a part time job.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

But as you sit up and watch MAGA, they are the dumbest people in the world, bar none. No other group of people are close to the ignorance of white America. White America is based off ignorance, and feeding masses of people that ignorance.

Thing is there's enough buffer in White America to off set their idiocy. For every Maggat, there's a doctor. For every Klan member, there's a college professor. That's why the "American Experiment" hasn't completely fallen apart already.

With us, there's not enough buffer, on top of that the worst of the culture with White America isn't placed on a pedestal as if it was the dominant school of thought.

 

[Paradoxical Tiger]

I'm gonna say this once and hopefully someday it will sink in but I doubt it based on the attitude shown.

There is a huge difference between PASSIVE learning and ACTIVE learning. Watching a video is passive you are not ingraining anything into your long term memory. Yes it is easy and that's why you like it..... You don't have to truly think. You don't have to struggle with tje material. All you are gaining is the ability to regugitate what was said in the video. Will you be able to take the skills presented in the video amd apply them?.. No, because it requires application.

REAL learning does not take place in your "comfort zone" it takes place at the edge. The edge of what you comprehend and what you do not. The place where it is going to be mentally taxing to undsrstand the whole argument presented. The place where you are going to have to go over the material more than once. Reading and reading challenging material does that.....That also requires putting in muthafukkin single focus work....It is not comfortable. Every person in this thread talking about the issue of anti-intellectualism has gone through it and go through it every day because the pursuit of enlightenment never stops.

You say you read, but I don't believe you. You make that claim as if you are a serious reader. But every person in this thread has already been where you're at making the claim of "videos are better", and now know better. Videos COMPLEMENT what you read but can never replace it.

You sound like you have an intellectual curiousity, so I won't disparage you with ad-hominem attacks. But if you want to progress you are going to have to get comfortable in "deep waters"

If there is anything I want you to take from this it is the idea of PASSIVE vs ACTIVE learning. And funnily enough you can watch videos on the concept. But in the end to elevate, you are still gonna have to put in the work.

And if you really get to being about it, I suggest the book:

How to Read a Book - by Adler and Doren.


I've done my part...

I disagree. I majored in Compute Science and did Deep Learning/Machine Learning research for my university. Needless to say, I graduated at the top of my class.

With that said, some of the concepts I had to learn, namely calculus, was best learned via videos as opposed to other mediums. I do agree that in a general sense reading is probably the best medium to learn, but still, there are instances where videos are astronomically more beneficial.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

These are great responses rn. People really not understanding that this anti intellectualism shyt is damn near a zombie plague.

 

[Still Benefited]

Its alwys been here, just now its louder than ever thanks to the internet.

I still remember a teacher back in the late 90's talking about AIDS not being a diseased but a pest from god to punish fakkits and thats why it will never be cured, hell some here probably believe that today.

Well,God is nature. Ill leave you to think out the rest