Rishon Rishon

Snobbery makes you stupid

John Ray has given me another eureka moment (the last one was here). Not long ago I wrote a post, wondering how it was that so many smart people in academia could so consistently be so wrong. My personal experience leads me to believe that academics on the whole really are smarter than average, and that they really do have far more than the average number of stupid notions. I hypothesized a culture of poverty to account for it, and attempted to define some of its characteristics. However, while I think that what I wrote is true, it didn’t satisfy me. I didn’t get that eureka feeling that what I said really accounted for what I saw. John responded to that post by saying:

I think there is only one main reason: Arrogance. They have to be pretty bright to get to be professors so they then think they know it all. And it offends their ego to realize that they have nothing to say on the big issues other than what plain folk have been saying for years. So most of what they say is just a pathetic attempt to be clever.

While I don’t disagree with this, it also didn’t give me that eureka feeling. I just didn’t feel that he explained what I saw. But now he has:

Ian McFadyen has an excellent analysis of what the calls the "Snerds" or "sneering classes" -- educated Leftists who dominate the media and cultural institutions. Some excerpts: "It is not a snobbery based on wealth or aristocratic origins. It is the snobbery of people, usually from modest backgrounds who have created sense of class superiority for themselves on the basis of possessing the right attitudes rather than property or wealth. It is a snobbery based on being "well informed", of being "concerned" and "having a sense of social morality."... What makes this class of people snobbish rather than simply pretentious is their tendency to sneer. It is a tone which implies that certain thing in life are so axiomatic that no discussion of them is necessary or even possible...

What is difficult about conversing with a Snerd is the degree to which their attitudes are locked down.... Any such challenge to the basic tenets of their beliefs will simply be sneeringly discarded and the questioner relegated to one of the baskets of ratbag, fascist, racist, right wing reactionary, capitalist, Philistine or ill-informed... The inflexibility of the Snerd arises from a personal arrogance that he or she is a well-educated, well-informed and intelligent person who has "worked all this out" and come to - what they believe to be - the only possible solution. Snerds are characteristically blind to the fact that their belief systems are based, not on an independent intellectual of the issues, but on attitudes received from a very narrow range of sources, and shaped by the prejudices of a sub-culture.....

When they express opinions on a matter they do so more to define the boundaries of their own class than to actually change anything in the community..... Thus, while Snerds are quick to opinionate in areas which they feel will enhance their image as culturally superior - politics, law, the arts, they have no opinions at all on, and are careful not to get involved with, matters which they consider down-market like agriculture. Primary production, manufacturing and manual labour simply do not exist in the Snerd universe.

I have always disliked fashion-consciousness. I was quite a young child when I was first exposed to it: the notion that dressing a certain way, talking a certain way, liking a certain kind of music, etc. made you a superior person. Even at a young age, there seemed to be a certain class of children who were born to it, were exquisitely sensitive to just what it was that one had to do to achieve superiority. The most amazing thing about it: their superiority seemed to be universally recognized by their classmates (not excluding, I am ashamed to say, me). They were the aristocracy. Needless to say, I was not one of them.

I think that many of these children went on to become the academic elite, but whether or not it was the same people; the phenomenon is essentially the same. To be a member of the self-described “cognitive elite” you must conform rigidly to intellectual fashion. It is the ability to conform to it that identifies you as a member of this aristocracy. It also destroys your ability to think. That, is why so many academics are so stupid: they are snobs – a kind of fanatic. Snobbery makes you stupid.

UPDATE: It’s characteristic of eureka moments that they lead to more eureka moments, in a chain reaction. Quite a few things have fallen into place for me, for example: Considering the success of the child Snobbists, it is clear to me that they are exploiting some kind of psychological glitch common to all (or most) human beings. I have to think some more about the exact nature of the glitch; clearly it must be linked to some kind of evolutionary advantage. But even without knowing its exact nature, I can predict with confidence that any institution which is independent of external constraints will inevitably be dominated by Snobbists. What are examples of such institutions? Academia (especially the humanities and social sciences), government institutions, the arts, the press: exactly where the Snobbists dominate.