Brilliant satire or offensive?

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Irvine511 said:
on that tangent, it seems as if it's the anti-elitists who seem to have the most problems -- it's in the Red States where citizens are more plagued by multiple marriages, multiple baby-daddys/mommas, smoking, STDs, abortions. and, conversely, it's the educated elitists who much more embody the June Cleaver ethics of the 1950s with lower divorces, children born in wedlock, etc.
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You're referring to Springer Nation which would turn Will Rogers into an elitist.

so, i suppose i'm reacting a bit to the "Obama is an elitist" charge is actually a reflection of anxiety over a huge strata of society that is actually in complete and total crisis right now.
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Yeah, and we're bitter and clingy about it too. :D
 
The New Yorker isn't an exclusive magazine. When I was growing up (when there were 2 racks of magazines, instead of 20), The New Yorker was there in the midst of the gun magazines and the men's magazines. My friend and I would look forward to a new issue so we could leaf through it and look at the cartoons. We got them. As I got older, I read the magazine. It was challenging enough, but it wasn't exactly rocket science.

I remember a couple of statements by Meryl Streep when she was in her political activism mode. At first, she thought the world should be ruled (intentional exageration)
by the intellectual/artistic elite. Then when she became a mother, she thought mothers should control. I remember noticing, the ruling category always included herself. And I thought, that is how the game is played.

I think you'd find more people than you know able to move rather seamlessly between the highbrow and the lowbrow. I don't know if there is as much a contempt for intellectualism as you might think, more a contempt for the attitude that often comes with it. A lot of us have read Aristotle and drunk lattes (then read a trash novel while eating fast food) Intellectualism is part of our lives, but not how we define ourselves. I wonder how much of elitism (or anti-elitism for that matter) is jockeying for image position.

I think why you sometimes might see a wariness toward the "elite" is both a lack of respect for the intelligence of those not considered in the elite (some lip service is paid, but it is often patronizing--unspoken but loud enough that it is a less valuable intelligence, almost primitive) and situational nuance. Beautiful nuance in what they know best and a faux nuance in what they do not, riding on their reputation. I think often the contempt fairly drips.

An expertise in one or two things is not an expertise in all things. Even brilliance has its limitations and not all of the elite are brilliant. I think there is a perception that the elite don't know their limitations. I think we have a lot to learn from the genuine elite. They have some to learn from the rest of us.
 
INDY500 said:
You're referring to Springer Nation which would turn Will Rogers into an elitist.
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That's pretty harsh--I don't think most teenage mothers, divorcees or smokers belong to those categories because they're notably sleazy or perverted people, assuming that was the implication.

On the other hand, I think to a degree both you and Irvine may be taking what are primarily class-linked trends and trying to spin them as products of regional culture.
 
BonosSaint said:
The New Yorker isn't an exclusive magazine. When I was growing up (when there were 2 racks of magazines, instead of 20), The New Yorker was there in the midst of the gun magazines and the men's magazines. My friend and I would look forward to a new issue so we could leaf through it and look at the cartoons. We got them. As I got older, I read the magazine. It was challenging enough, but it wasn't exactly rocket science.

I remember a couple of statements by Meryl Streep when she was in her political activism mode. At first, she thought the world should be ruled (intentional exageration)
by the intellectual/artistic elite. Then when she became a mother, she thought mothers should control. I remember noticing, the ruling category always included herself. And I thought, that is how the game is played.

I think you'd find more people than you know able to move rather seamlessly between the highbrow and the lowbrow. I don't know if there is as much a contempt for intellectualism as you might think, more a contempt for the attitude that often comes with it. A lot of us have read Aristotle and drunk lattes (then read a trash novel while eating fast food) Intellectualism is part of our lives, but not how we define ourselves. I wonder how much of elitism (or anti-elitism for that matter) is jockeying for image position.

I think why you sometimes might see a wariness toward the "elite" is both a lack of respect for the intelligence of those not considered in the elite (some lip service is paid, but it is often patronizing--unspoken but loud enough that it is a less valuable intelligence, almost primitive) and situational nuance. Beautiful nuance in what they know best and a faux nuance in what they do not, riding on their reputation. I think often the contempt fairly drips.

An expertise in one or two things is not an expertise in all things. Even brilliance has its limitations and not all of the elite are brilliant. I think there is a perception that the elite don't know their limitations. I think we have a lot to learn from the genuine elite. They have some to learn from the rest of us.
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so help me out now. . .who are these elites again? Rich people? Famous people? Famous intellectuals? People who are just really, really smart? (That would make some apparently "regular" people. . .like say, you, "elite" :wink: ).

I have a feeling that maybe the "elites" are actually the pundit class--the columnists and talking heads and radio personalities. . .And they may not necessarily be that rich, famous, or intellectual.
 
BonosSaint said:
I think you'd find more people than you know able to move rather seamlessly between the highbrow and the lowbrow. I don't know if there is as much a contempt for intellectualism as you might think, more a contempt for the attitude that often comes with it. A lot of us have read Aristotle and drunk lattes (then read a trash novel while eating fast food) Intellectualism is part of our lives, but not how we define ourselves
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Yes

One thing I really can't stand is a snob in any shape or form. I read trashy magazines and I'm not ashamed to admit it-and I enjoy lots of low brow non-intellectual activities. So much alleged "highbrow" stuff is actually quite trashy, just dressed up in better packaging. It doesn't define who I am and I wouldn't really want anything to do with someone who thinks it does. It's quite stereotypical thinking that's not compatible with supposed intelligence, is it?
 
It's only a cartoon! But Obama adds that New Yorker cover insults Muslims

BY MICHAEL SAUL
DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Tuesday, July 15th 2008, 9:50 PM
Barack Obama says he’s “seen and heard worse” than The New Yorker cartoon (below) satirizing attacks on him and his wife by the political right. Monsivais/AP

Barack Obama says he’s “seen and heard worse” than The New Yorker cartoon (below) satirizing attacks on him and his wife by the political right.

Barack Obama to the New Yorker: It's your right - but you weren't right.

In his first substantive talk about the magazine's inflammatory cartoon depicting him and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists, Obama told CNN's Larry King the image fueled misconceptions and insulted Muslim Americans.

"I know it was The New Yorker's attempt at satire. I don't think they were entirely successful with it," Obama said. "But you know what? It's a cartoon ... and that's why we've got the First Amendment."

The presumptive Democratic nominee said he wasn't personally stung by the cartoon.

"I've seen and heard worse," Obama said. "[Still], in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead."

"But, you know, that was their editorial judgment," Obama added. "Ultimately, it's a cartoon, it's not where the American people are spending a lot of their time thinking about."

Obama has spent the better part of the past 18 months debunking false Internet rumors that he's Muslim and defending his patriotism. He's Christian, but Obama said he's been derelict in pointing out how hurtful these attacks are to Muslim Americans.

These fallacious e-mails and The New Yorker cartoon are "actually an insult against Muslim Americans," he said. There are "wonderful Muslim Americans" across the country, Obama said, and "for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate."

"It's not what America's all about," he said.

The magazine's editor, David Remnick, said the cartoon is satirizing the lies about the Obamas.

A spokeswoman for the magazine said yesterday she could not provide any data on this week's sales, but anecdotal evidence from magazine retailers suggests the controversy has bumped sales.

"We are selling them like hot cakes," said Laura Samuels, spokeswoman for the Hudson Group, which operates Hudson News newsstands.
 
Maureen Dowd:
May We Mock, Barack?

It would seem a positive for Barack Obama that he is hard to mock. But is it another sign that he’s trying so hard to be perfect that it’s stultifying?

Obama's campaign slammed the controversial New Yorker cover as "tasteless and offensive."
When I interviewed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for Rolling Stone a couple years ago, I wondered what Barack Obama would mean for them.

"It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than these guys," I said.

"Are you kidding me?" Stewart scoffed.

Then he and Colbert both said at the same time: "His dad was a goat-herder!"

When I noted that Obama, in his memoir, had revealed that he had done some pot, booze and "maybe a little blow," the two comedians began riffing about the dapper senator's familiarity with drug slang.

Colbert: Wow, that's a very street way of putting it. 'A little blow.'

Stewart: A little bit of the white rabbit.

Colbert: 'Yeah, I packed a cocktail straw of cocaine and had a prostitute blow it in my ear, but that is all I did. High-fivin.' '

Flash forward to the kerfuffle -- and Obama's icy reaction -- over this week's New Yorker cover parodying fears about the Obamas.

"We've already scratched thrift, candor and brevity off the list of virtues in this presidential cycle, so why not eliminate humor, too?" wrote James Rainey in The Los Angeles Times, suggesting "an irony deficiency" in Obama and his fans.

Many of the late-night comics and their writers -- nearly all white -- now admit to The New York Times's Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing "buffoonish" about Obama -- and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered -- he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry.

"There's a weird reverse racism going on," Jimmy Kimmel said.

Carter also observed that there's no easy comedic "take" on Obama, "like allegations of Bill Clinton's womanizing, or President Bush's goofy bumbling or Al Gore's robotic personality."

At first blush, it would seem to be a positive for Obama that he is hard to mock. But on second thought, is it another sign that he's trying so hard to be perfect that it's stultifying? Or that eight years of W. and Cheney have robbed Democratic voters of their sense of humor?

Certainly, as the potential first black president, and as a contender with tender experience, Obama must feel under strain to be serious.

But he does not want the "take" on him to become that he's so tightly wrapped, overcalculated and circumspect that he can't even allow anyone to make jokes about him, and that his supporters are so evangelical and eager for a champion to rescue America that their response to any razzing is a sanctimonious: Don't mess with our messiah!

If Obama keeps being stingy with his quips and smiles, and if the dominant perception of him is that you can't make jokes about him, it might infect his campaign with an airless quality. His humorlessness could spark humor.

On Tuesday, Andy Borowitz satirized on that subject. He said that Obama, sympathetic to comics' attempts to find jokes to make about him, had put out a list of official ones, including this:

"A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, 'I was expecting the farmer's daughter.' Barack Obama replies, 'She's not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.' "

John McCain's Don Rickles routines -- "Thanks for the question, you little jerk" -- can fall flat. But he seems like a guy who can be teased harmlessly. If Obama offers only eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness, he becomes an otherworldly type, not the regular guy he needs to be.

He's already in danger of seeming too prissy about food -- a perception heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama's convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to "measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed."

The "lean 'n' green" catering guidelines, The Journal said, bar fried food and instruct that, "on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include 'at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.' (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70 percent of the ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation."

Bring it on, Ozone Democrats! Because if Obama gets elected and there is nothing funny about him, it won't be the economy that's depressed. It will be the rest of us.
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Maureen Dowd: May We Mock, Barack? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
 
BonosSaint said:
I think you'd find more people than you know able to move rather seamlessly between the highbrow and the lowbrow. I don't know if there is as much a contempt for intellectualism as you might think, more a contempt for the attitude that often comes with it.
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I agree with the first one, and it's actually the trademark of very successful people. I remember very well at the end of my undergrad, when the Harry Potter books started coming out, a really distinguished English professor saying that she felt they were not great books or great literature by any means, but she'd really strongly encourage people to read them. When a student asked why, she said, you have to understand that even if you have a PhD in English Literature, there is great social value in being able to transition between that and the latest Danielle Steel. I thought she made an excellent point. I can't tell you how many times in a corporate lunch, the topic of conversation turned from whatever complicated transaction was going on at the moment to the latest episode of The Bachelor or something like that.

But I do think that there is a certain contempt for intellectualism that goes beyond attitude. Just thinking of most of my brothers' friends who came from lower middle class families or lower class families - you might be shocked at how many of their parents told them that going to get a university degree (or worse yet, a graduate degree) was a waste of time, that was for boring academics who weren't capable of actual work. They actually preferred for their sons to go do drywall or other backbreaking work, both because they thought it was a much better way to make money (I don't think they thought long term) and because they were inherently suspicious of any kind of intellectualism. So while at times people could be resentful of the attitude that you mention, a lot of the time, I think that certain people really do hold intellectualism in contempt as Irvine has stated.
 
yolland said:
On the other hand, I think to a degree both you and Irvine may be taking what are primarily class-linked trends and trying to spin them as products of regional culture.
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to what extent does regional culture affect class? are there not regional values that actually perpetuate poverty (or near poverty)?
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
Yes

One thing I really can't stand is a snob in any shape or form. I read trashy magazines and I'm not ashamed to admit it-and I enjoy lots of low brow non-intellectual activities. So much alleged "highbrow" stuff is actually quite trashy, just dressed up in better packaging. It doesn't define who I am and I wouldn't really want anything to do with someone who thinks it does. It's quite stereotypical thinking that's not compatible with supposed intelligence, is it?
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to make myself more clear -- what i am talking about is the view of some "elitists" is every bit as patronizing as the assumed view that said "elitists" supposedly have about "real Americans."

it cuts both ways. the rural red stater can think that his values and lifestyle are entirely superior to those of the urban blue stater, and he can treat him with every bit as much disdain. i hear this all the time. there are those in the punditocracy -- Mary Matalin, Carly Fiona last sunday -- who keep talking with disdain about "those inside the Beltway" and the "latte liberals" and contrast them with "normal Americans" who don't turn into MTP every sunday morning. what they're doing is creating a narrative of "real" -- i.e., red state, christian, rural-ish, anti-intellectual -- Americans as being authentic.

it's Spiro Agnew and his "effete, intellectual" (i.e, gay, jewish) snob slurs.

i agree that many people do move seamlessly through high and low culture. i think most of us would agree that, if we were to take music, that there's really only two kinds: good music and bad music. i see no reason why a pop opera masterpiece like, say, "Like A Prayer" is any less appreciable and transcendent than any 18th century classical so-called "masterpiece."
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
It's only a cartoon! But Obama adds that New Yorker cover insults Muslims


In his first substantive talk about the magazine's inflammatory cartoon depicting him and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists, Obama told CNN's Larry King the image fueled misconceptions and insulted Muslim Americans.
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Wait a second how does the above match up with this:

MrsSpringsteen said:
"I know it was The New Yorker's attempt at satire. I don't think they were entirely successful with it," Obama said. "But you know what? It's a cartoon ... and that's why we've got the First Amendment."
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And this:
MrsSpringsteen said:
The presumptive Democratic nominee said he wasn't personally stung by the cartoon.


"But, you know, that was their editorial judgment," Obama added. "Ultimately, it's a cartoon, it's not where the American people are spending a lot of their time thinking about."
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That last bit sounds exactly like what Indy was saying!

Now I think I know where the furor is coming from. It's the media! Compare the headlines to what Obama actually said and you've got too different impressions. Same goes for Maureen Dowd's column.

At the end of the day, it's all about the dollar bills, and "Obama slams cartoon" sells a lot better than "Obama wasn't personally stung by cartoon."
 
Irvine511 said:
to what extent does regional culture affect class? are there not regional values that actually perpetuate poverty (or near poverty)?
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Perhaps you could flesh out what some of those regional values might be, so I have a better sense of what I'm addressing. I used "to a degree," "may" and "primarily" for a reason--I don't think you can ever fully extricate culture from material circumstance, but on the other hand, particularly if you aren't very familiar with the full social spectrum found in some particular region, its economic history, how various 'social ills' statistically associated with it are distributed within its various subdemographics etc., then it can perhaps be a bit too easy to pounce on one or two cultural traits that seem prominently characteristic of it from a distance and say (perhaps a bit smugly), 'See, that's what's holding them back.'
 
yolland said:
Perhaps you could flesh out what some of those regional values might be, so I have a better sense of what I'm addressing. I used "to a degree," "may" and "primarily" for a reason--I don't think you can ever fully extricate culture from material circumstance, but on the other hand, particularly if you aren't very familiar with the full social spectrum found in some particular region, its economic history, how various 'social ills' statistically associated with it are distributed within its various subdemographics etc., then it can perhaps be a bit too easy to pounce on one or two cultural traits that seem prominently characteristic of it from a distance and say (perhaps a bit smugly), 'See, that's what's holding them back.'
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the resistance to birth control and then abortion that leads to many pregnancies between 17-21, that lead to quick marriages, that lead to a divorce not long after.

it's also not my thesis, it's the thesis of the book i was referencing, Grand New Party. basically, they're blaming elites for having lots of sex in the 60s and 70s and setting a bad example for those without the resources to cope with pre-marital sex, contracepted intercourse, re-marriage, child care, etc. and today, the children of all those elitists live fairly conservative lives, they get married later, they have protected sex, and they don't have a surfeit of difficult-to-care-for children in the way that the poorer Red Staters do.

i haven't read the book, but have read about the book, and brought this up more as an idea than as a thesis.

or, and to boil it down to one single thing, could it be that Red State opposition to abortion -- and the abstinence-only sex education that usually walks hand-in-hand with such values -- perpetuates poverty?
 
anitram said:
But I do think that there is a certain contempt for intellectualism that goes beyond attitude. Just thinking of most of my brothers' friends who came from lower middle class families or lower class families - you might be shocked at how many of their parents told them that going to get a university degree (or worse yet, a graduate degree) was a waste of time, that was for boring academics who weren't capable of actual work. They actually preferred for their sons to go do drywall or other backbreaking work, both because they thought it was a much better way to make money (I don't think they thought long term) and because they were inherently suspicious of any kind of intellectualism. So while at times people could be resentful of the attitude that you mention, a lot of the time, I think that certain people really do hold intellectualism in contempt as Irvine has stated.
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I grew up Middle Class, in The Bronx. My entire neighborhood was Irish and blue collar (Firemen, cops and construction mostly), with my Dad a rare white collar exception (He never got higher than middle management and did that with no degree...and we were one of the only Jewish families in the area.). I feel like I have a decent handle on how such people view "intellectuals", as I experienced it first hand in myriad and impactful ways. What Martina talks about above was true in my experience. Many friends of mine were told flat out by their parents that college was a total waste of their time. Most heeded that advice and live there still, and they perpetuate the same cycle, for better or worse. That surprised me then, the attitude towards furthering your education, but surprises me less now.

What I did not know then, but certainly have learned as my career has progressed, is how that disdain works both ways, and how people of a "higher class" simply cannot relate to someone pursuing a passion or simply pursuing manual labor as opposed to chasing upward mobility/upward savings. I mean, sure, that guy who breaks his back, who did not think long-term about his financial portfolio, he's to be looked down upon....that is, until you need him to come to your house because you cannot even screw in a fucking light bulb on your own. If people from my old neighborhood ever had to deal with some of my old neighbors back in Los Angeles, they would probably want to kick their asses within 5 minutes of meeting them.

Both attitudes rub me the wrong way, because I've walked in both worlds, and consider myself lucky that I can, in many ways, still relate to both without falling victim to the negative stereotypes that might plague both outlooks. I'm sure I'm guilty of all sorts of other horrible things, but I do ok here. I, too, refuse to apologize for consuming what posters here might deem to be lowbrow, nor will I apologize for consuming what the parents of my old friends might regard as "snooty".

Also, I know plenty of University educated people, succesful people if one measures success by wealth, that are still complete dolts and as far from being an intellectual as it gets....and I know people like my Dad who did not go to college but are self-taught adults and know a great deal more than one might initially assume.

So, while I do think that using "intellectual" as a pejorative term is disturbing and insulting, I think it cuts both ways and is no better or worse than looking down on those that don't qualify as intellectuals, whatever an intellectual is in the first place.
 
Cover-McCain2.jpg


Vanity Fair Covers The New Yorker
by Vanity Fair
July 22, 2008, 12:10 PM
We here at Vanity Fair maintain a kind of affectionate rivalry with our downstairs neighbors at The New Yorker. We play softball every year, compete for some of the same stories, and share an elevator bank. (You can tell the ones who are headed to the 20th floor by their Brooklyn pallor and dog-eared paperbacks.)

And heaven knows we’ve published our share of scandalous images, on the cover and otherwise. So we’ve been watching the kerfuffle over last week’s New Yorker cover with a mixture of empathy and better-you-than-us relief.

We had our own presidential campaign cover in the works, which explored a different facet of the Politics of Fear, but we shelved it when The New Yorker’s became the “It Girl” of the blogosphere. Now, however, in a selfless act of solidarity with our downstairs neighbors here at the Condé Nast building, we’d like to share it with you. Confidentially, of course.
 
:lmao: Vanity Fair wins this round. I like that McCain has the same expression as the Dramatic Chipmunk.
 
Irvine511 said:
the resistance to birth control and then abortion that leads to many pregnancies between 17-21, that lead to quick marriages, that lead to a divorce not long after.

or, and to boil it down to one single thing, could it be that Red State opposition to abortion -- and the abstinence-only sex education that usually walks hand-in-hand with such values -- perpetuates poverty?
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I understand the desire to whittle down causation to those specific issues with which you have a problem, but the reality is far more complex than that. Reducing Red Staters to a bunch of hicks who don't know how to put on a condom (or don't want to) minimizes the rather serious -- and far more damaging -- socio-economic factors that have been at play in what we traditionally refer to as "the South", going back to the famines of the 1870s.
 
nathan1977 said:
I understand the desire to whittle down causation to those specific issues with which you have a problem, but the reality is far more complex than that. Reducing Red Staters to a bunch of hicks who don't know how to put on a condom (or don't want to) minimizes the rather serious -- and far more damaging -- socio-economic factors that have been at play in what we traditionally refer to as "the South", going back to the famines of the 1870s.
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i agree, there are many socio-economic factors at play that go into the resistance to putting the condom on, but at the end of the day, someone didn't put the condom on. but could you dispute my central premise: the resistance to comprehensive sex education combined with an anti-abortion cultural ethos leads to poverty. wash, rinse, repeat. ultimately, these kids aren't equipped with either the education or the resources to deal with some of the consequences of extra- and pre-marital sex.

as i said, this is just the gist of the problem. being in effect married to a southerner with several dozen cousins, i think i have a far better understanding of some of this than a quick reading of my post might suggest.

could you, then, delineate for me the various socio-economic factors in "the South" that lead to this particular generation (born post-1970) -- note, not the parents, they might have had babies at 19, but at least they were married -- being notably more prone to unwanted, early pregnancies. this is a cycle that urban black women are beginning to break (and have been improving on since 1990) but one that rural white women seem to be falling into more and more.

could you dispute -- not complicate, for it certainly can be complicated, but actually dispute or refute -- my central premise: resistance to comprehensive sex education combined with an anti-abortion cultural ethos leads to poverty.
 
Irvine511 said:
could you dispute -- not complicate, for it certainly can be complicated, but actually dispute or refute -- my central premise: resistance to comprehensive sex education combined with an anti-abortion cultural ethos leads to poverty.
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I think you're putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

In Africa, poverty is a direct result of governmental corruption and exploitation. A lack of proper sex education is the result. People cannot afford condoms -- or are ignorant about them, but either way, this ignorance is a result of structural systems of corruption, exploitation, racism and violence which have created the system of poverty Africans face. A lack of sex education is a symptom, not the cause.

In the South, you're dealing with a culture whose economy has always been primarily agricultural. The end of the Civil War brought a dramatic reorganization of the economic systems of the South (cheap labor, mass-produced goods), as well as economic penalties that benefited the northern states, who increasingly moved towards industrialization in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This had a direct impact on Southern economies, as did the rise of globalization, the cost of growing and planting, etc. Additionally, the rise of crises of climate and supply and demand, as well as globalization throughout the late 1900s, created a system where Southern state economies were squeezed far more than their northern counterparts, creating a system where Southern flight was inevitable. Those who could afford to leave did, leaving those who could not afford to behind.

So in looking at the South, you're dealing with a history of a turbulent economy, the ravaging affects of industrialism which has led to substantial economic inequity, racism, and shifting market needs (as well as the inability to adjust to those needs), all of which -- I would argue -- has a far stronger impact on poverty than whether someone knows how to put on a condom or not.

One might also consider the great state of MA, which has one of the highest concentrations -- if not the highest concentration -- of Catholics in the country. As we all know, contraceptions and abortions are illegal in the Catholic church. Based on your logic, MA should be one of the poorest states in the country. Clearly, it is not.
 
anitram said:
I agree with the first one, and it's actually the trademark of very successful people. I remember very well at the end of my undergrad, when the Harry Potter books started coming out, a really distinguished English professor saying that she felt they were not great books or great literature by any means, but she'd really strongly encourage people to read them. When a student asked why, she said, you have to understand that even if you have a PhD in English Literature, there is great social value in being able to transition between that and the latest Danielle Steel. I thought she made an excellent point. I can't tell you how many times in a corporate lunch, the topic of conversation turned from whatever complicated transaction was going on at the moment to the latest episode of The Bachelor or something like that.

But I do think that there is a certain contempt for intellectualism that goes beyond attitude. Just thinking of most of my brothers' friends who came from lower middle class families or lower class families - you might be shocked at how many of their parents told them that going to get a university degree (or worse yet, a graduate degree) was a waste of time, that was for boring academics who weren't capable of actual work. They actually preferred for their sons to go do drywall or other backbreaking work, both because they thought it was a much better way to make money (I don't think they thought long term) and because they were inherently suspicious of any kind of intellectualism. So while at times people could be resentful of the attitude that you mention, a lot of the time, I think that certain people really do hold intellectualism in contempt as Irvine has stated.
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I posted the following on another forum a while back:

When I scan the business sections of various newspapers, I come across interviews with various prominent business figures and sometimes there's a section where they're asked about recreational activities (to allow them to demonstrate what rounded personalities they have, presumably) - their favourite films, books, and the like.

Their answers here are very often - not always, but depressingly often - the most banal, the most obvious, the most dumbed down you can possibly think of, e.g. 'Titanic' for favourite film, 'The Da Vinci code' for favourite book, that kind of thing.

Now I used to think this was simply because they have sacrificed their intellectual life or their 'inner life' to their careers to such a great extent that they do honestly think 'The Da Vinci Code' is the height of literature, but it occurs to me that, in some cases at least, they're not actually that stupid.

It occurs to me that some of them don't want to 'scare' their public by appearing in any way 'intellectual' or 'elitist'. Because, to be honest, of the self made people I've met, one or two seriously wealthy, they are not stupid individuals. Quite the contrary.

I am reminded of the part in 'Brave New World' where Mustapha Monda admits to Helmholtz Watson that he has actually read quite a few of the banned classics himself, but insists that the masses, even the Alpha class, must not be allowed the same opportunity, as that will only make them think too much.

C.P. Snow wrote in the 1950's about the division between science and the arts:-

The Two Cu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well now we have a whole cadre of so-called educated people who know nothing of EITHER the sciences, OR the arts, but whose SOLE interest is in asset accumulation.

"Art, science, you seem to have played a fairly high price for your happiness. Anything else?" as the Savage asked the World Controller.
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