I don’t know, esr seems to be stretching the point here. His two “good” types of anti-intellectualism, Hayek and Sowell, I would probably call internecine warfare. Both his examples were intellectuals and I doubt they would object to more intellectuals like themselves.
One handy definition of intellectuals is that people who expect their opinions taken seriously in field X based on prestige built in an unrelated field Y. A classic example is Einstein writing about socialism based on the prestige he acquired in physics. More general example is writers, people-of-letters, literature and poetry folks engaging in politics. If we would accept it, Hayek and Sowell were not intellectuals, they never wandered too far from the field they actually had expertise in.
But why accept such a quirky definition? They logic behind is: when you are, say, an economist, and pontificate about economics, you are acting actually as an economist. When you are a physicist or writer and pontificate about politics or economics, you are obviously not acting as a writer or physicist but as a Generic Smart Person. Being a good writer or physicist proves you are smart (roughly: true enough), and you expect people to accept your opinion because you are smart. The unspoken assumption is that smartness matters more than expertise in forming correct opinions. Thus people who expect people to accept their opinions about economics because of their expertise are called economists, and people who expect people who accept their opinions about economics (or anything) because they are smart are called intellectuals: people whose defining (social) feature is the intellect, not the expertise.
On a more broader view, ideally, people should expect their opinions to be accepted because they are actually well evidenced and argued, not based on authority. But the “masses” tend to accept views based on authority. So the expert uses the authority of expertise and the intellectual uses the authority of generic smartness (which is proven by success in an unrelated field.)
A very vague one. Bold is a bit stronger than italics, plus italics are overloaded, they are used to signify other things than emphasis, too. In the grandparent post there are both italics and bold because the emphasis is somewhat different so I wanted two different ways to emphasize.
I don’t know, esr seems to be stretching the point here. His two “good” types of anti-intellectualism, Hayek and Sowell, I would probably call internecine warfare. Both his examples were intellectuals and I doubt they would object to more intellectuals like themselves.
One handy definition of intellectuals is that people who expect their opinions taken seriously in field X based on prestige built in an unrelated field Y. A classic example is Einstein writing about socialism based on the prestige he acquired in physics. More general example is writers, people-of-letters, literature and poetry folks engaging in politics. If we would accept it, Hayek and Sowell were not intellectuals, they never wandered too far from the field they actually had expertise in.
But why accept such a quirky definition? They logic behind is: when you are, say, an economist, and pontificate about economics, you are acting actually as an economist. When you are a physicist or writer and pontificate about politics or economics, you are obviously not acting as a writer or physicist but as a Generic Smart Person. Being a good writer or physicist proves you are smart (roughly: true enough), and you expect people to accept your opinion because you are smart. The unspoken assumption is that smartness matters more than expertise in forming correct opinions. Thus people who expect people to accept their opinions about economics because of their expertise are called economists, and people who expect people who accept their opinions about economics (or anything) because they are smart are called intellectuals: people whose defining (social) feature is the intellect, not the expertise.
On a more broader view, ideally, people should expect their opinions to be accepted because they are actually well evidenced and argued, not based on authority. But the “masses” tend to accept views based on authority. So the expert uses the authority of expertise and the intellectual uses the authority of generic smartness (which is proven by success in an unrelated field.)
Completely off-topic, but do you have a policy for when you emphasise with italics and when you emphasise with bold?
A very vague one. Bold is a bit stronger than italics, plus italics are overloaded, they are used to signify other things than emphasis, too. In the grandparent post there are both italics and bold because the emphasis is somewhat different so I wanted two different ways to emphasize.
He is talking about how the phrase “anti-intellectualism” is actually used in practice.
Don’t think I’ve seen it used in practice much and those times it was clearly derogatory.
In particular, it’s used in a way that intentionally conflates the various meanings.