Anti-Intellectualism

humaninity's always been lost. it's nothing new :P

I agree on some parts of what you have posted. However, its not always just because people dont want to be informed. The media we have is anything but informing. It is based on scared tatics and ratings. If you question said stories countless people are going to bash you and degrade you in any way they find possible.

Another is people are scared. When you do dig down and find some interesting information that upsets what has be told on a subject before it can be mind boggling even more so when you try to share this information and what I posted above happens. It can down right drive you nutty.

I have much respect for thoose that point out and raise  very interesting questions and facts. However, I am also one that when I learn said facts I get ver very upset. Not at the people that shared them, but of what is actually going on. Many of us do try to make some difference even the smallest amount helps. Sooner or later others will join in. Though I must say its more on the later part. People in general only seem to care if it hurts them. If it does not they tend to just turn a blind eye. It's why so many helpful companies lack volunteers for any of their out reach programs.

The main point of this article is from the government point of view. Your points are very valid and agreeable. As you stated, put in another way, would be that most Americans have a "it must happen first before we care" attitude. They don't even attempt to fix something till the issue arises.

This is why as an environmentalist I shake my head at people who are so "OMFG California passed some law that prevents companies from doing this or that. It will raise costs!!!!" Yet fail to realize that the law actually helps keep people safe and makes things safer.

As I have explained before, I am a bit odd being a small government libertarian, yet support things like environmental policy. Sadly, corporations would fall back to dumping crap into our waters and destroying ecosystems and the environment so the EPA and such are the only parts of the government I believe needs to never be cut.

This article raises some interesting issues. However, it's silly to say that this all started after 9/11. This is a phenomenon that goes back all the way to the begging of the previous century. You should read Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. He argues that a "refeudalization" of the Public Sphere started occuring in the 20th century (the public sphere started losing it's critical democratic aspects and returning to a similar form of the one in the Middle Ages).

There are several reasons why this occured, and you can place some of the blame on media outlets themselves. Games4Fun is right that it's not just people's fault, but the media's aslo, because they lost their critical component. Now they just care about sensational news (that also happens to be trivial).

PR is also to blame for this downfall. Now the media, instead of doing their own research, get their news from the PR of corporations, politicians etc., leading to representative publicity (the politicians, corporations create their own publicity, and create the image that they want to have).

The quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four was nice, but modern society doesn't resemble the one from that book (unless you live in North Korea). Most people just referece taht book due to it's commercial success and popularity, however it's very inaccurate. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World presents a much more accurate illistration of what Western society is becoming, especially when we're talking about "anti-intellectualism".

I presume this shit was written by someone living in a time warp, since I'm pretty sure that Fox News isn't exactly "pro-White House" these days. Also, isn't the Tea Party against corporate welfare?

Honestly, this seems like a pretty impressive exercise in anti-intellectualism in itself - and therefore, an exercise in irony as well.

While the article seems a little hysterical (and thus probably satirical) on a few points, i would say that anti-intellectualism is a big force in grounding the Tea Party movement, which is sad because Conservatives used to be realists, so they would sacrifice ideology for reality when the numbers didn't crunch the right way (and thus open to comprimise when necessary)

Tea Party conservatism is just about sticking your fingers in your ears and humming "Stars and Stripes Forever," to block out the noise of these pretentious east-coast intellectuals who want to care about meaningless shit like the environment or health-care or non-revisionist history, or how the government should keep their filthy hands off your medicare.

Not exactly, that was the original thing when they first started, which was when Raud Paul and such first joined. It was where republicans who didn't like what the republican party was becoming went. Now they are mostly an right extremist party with a few that hold true to what the party was originally supposed to be, which was what the republican party was becoming.

So yes, as a party, they are for corporate welfare.

Uh... link? You're making a pretty specific claim, so it should be easy to substantiate it: show me where the Tea Party suddenly became for subsidies and tax loopholes. And if they are indeed such sellouts, why does your boy Rand still talk about how madly in love he is with them every chance he gets?

http://georgedonnelly.com/libertarian/tea-party-corporate-astroturfing