As posted last week, Tom Hanson and I will focus on some of more anti-intellectual moments in American politics, which has led to the demise of politicians in both parties who came across as too scholarly and intellectually aloof. We’ll focus on both history and modern trends. I’ve been accused of picking on the left too much lately, so we’ll pick on the right tonight – as well as the left. In fact, until recently I would say that the right has been producing more intellectual raw material in terms of political thought, although it seems to have degenerated as the Ann Coulters and Michael Hannity’s replace the William Buckleys and Thomas Sowells at the helm of right wing rhetoric. On the other hand, the embracing of emotional appeals to the detriment of critical thinking and reason is also rampant on the left, even when it is right, which is one of the reasons I’m not particularly enamored with most of the programming on Air America nor Pacifica Radio of late. And often, the peace movement in particular has degenerated into borderline anti-semitism (beyond merely criticism of Israel and Zionism) as well as off-the-wall conspiracy theories.
We’re going to be taking a different approach tonight. Tom and I are going to take up the first half sans callers in order to set the subject, so we don’t trail off onto specific topics and lose focus on the topic at hand. I may actually cut callers off who insist on focusing on their pet issues to the detriment of the discussion. I’ll play it by ear.
Calls will be welcome from 7:30 to 8:00, at 923-3911 or 1-800-KMUDRAD. The show is at 7:00 p.m. at 91.1 and of course you can listen in online at KMUD.ORG.
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August 31, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Heraldo
I look forward to the show and I hope the phone lines and studio mics are working, which they often aren’t at KMUD. For a radio station that has so many call-in shows, there are a lot of problems hearing callers or hearing hosts when callers are on the air. I’ve spent many an hour listening to “hello? can you hear me? Caller are you there? Heelllloooo??? Well I guess there’s a problem. Hello? Are you there?”
August 31, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Eric V. Kirk
It’s been happening in the past few months especially. They’re installing some new equipment, and their tech whiz Simon was out of the country for awhile, but the problems have been dragged out a bit. I hoped they’ve cleaned it up.
August 31, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Heraldo
They haven’t as of this afternoon. I caught part of a phone interview in which he (the caller) was audible, but she (the host) was not. I’m not even sure the person on the phone could hear her.
August 31, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Eric V. Kirk
Interesting. Well, we’ll see what happens.
September 1, 2006 at 2:21 am
Anonymous
The system will probably implode with all that …. intellectualism!
September 1, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Eric V. Kirk
We lost one caller briefly. The show went fairly well, though I think it was a bit too ambitious a topic for radio. But the callers mostly stayed on topic, which is refreshing! They did fine. I’m not sure my presentation was very clear.
September 1, 2006 at 10:40 pm
Anonymous
I have a question ? Is it Heraldo or Eric that bends over to pick up the soap ?
September 1, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Eric V. Kirk
It was more of a topic for a reading and discussion group than for a radio show.
The Black Elk thing was a kind of trap – unintentional, because to say he wasn’t an intellectual is to appear to slight him. But we definitely wouldn’t put him in the same category as Satre, or Ayn Rand.
The provincial vs cosmopolitan dichotomy I think is the wrong track. People are cosmopolitan by virtue of exposure and social influence as much by any thinking process, though a thinking process is generally necessary because cosmopolitanism doesn’t come naturally to most people. But there are plenty of provincialist intellectuals. Mencken comes to mind. Even Mark Twain.
The point we wanted to make was that intellectualism per se is value neutral, like anything else, and we hoped to explore the irrational objections to it as well as legitimate.
And I was hoping to make the point that any broad social movement requires intellectuals as one component of a multi-layered endeavor. And I wanted to argue that progressive movements have been lacking in them, where they haven’t been so in the past.
September 2, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Heraldo
Its a tricky subject because so many people, things and concepts brought up in the discussion are real button-pushers.
A friend once told me that after reading Atlas Shrugged they tore the book apart one page at a time.
September 3, 2006 at 5:52 am
Eric V. Kirk
I confess that I kept falling asleep. I can read through conservative material without getting upset, but I just couldn’t stay interested in the the story. I’m told that Fountainhead is much better written.