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/lit/ - Literature

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2674359 No.2674359 [Reply] [Original]

UK friends, am I wrong in assuming that it isn't frowned upon to have intellectual interests as a youth where you're from?

There is a lot of anti-intellectualism in the US (especially towards young adults), so I get jelly when I watch various UK programming where the youth seem well-read and immersed in politics like it's not big deal. I also get the feeling that a girl wouldn't scoff if she saw a stack of philosophy books on your coffee table, as many US girls might (not all, though, surely).

>> No.2674363

>>2674359
50% of the youth the UK is only well-read in the Koran and Islamic readings.

>> No.2674365

>>2674359
Why on Earth would it be; since when is one castigated for being intellectual in America?

>> No.2674370
File: 111 KB, 651x450, ca0Fv.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2674370

>> No.2674371

>>2674365
what

>> No.2674372

No, it's definitely not the bastion of intellectualism that you imply.

Honestly, I'm getting tired of Americans mistaking the British for being cultured and intellectual. No guys, for the thousandth time, THAT IS THE FRENCH.
FRANCE is the country where an intellectual can be a celebrity (Sartre). France is the country where it's hip to be smart.

>> No.2674375

>>2674372
There are intellectual celebrities though: Sue Perkins, Giles Coren, Stephen Fry etc.

I have the biggest crush on Giles, btw.

>> No.2674382

>>2674365

Since the 80's, maybe. Though it only happens up to the point that one's intellectual efforts brings them financial success; at which point, all derision is turned into praise.

It's gotten worse since 9/11.

>> No.2674386

>>2674372
I'd also like to add that in France young adults are more engaged in politics. It does happen in Britain but not as much as in France, I feel.

>>2674375
Those aren't intellectuals, they aren't comparable to Sartre in any way. Stephen Fry's cleverness is cute, it gives us a nice impression of British intellectual arrogance and smugness that'll allow us to feel better than the Americans, but nonetheless Fry is not an intellectual. The French have an actual "intellectual" culture. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the word "intellectual" only really makes sense when applied to French intellectuals; the Germans have philosophers, we Anglos have scientists, but the French have "intellectuals".

>> No.2674387

>>2674382
Do you have any examples?

>> No.2674394

>>2674386
What's the difference between a philosopher/ scientist and an intellectual?

>> No.2674398

>>2674386
I'm not really sure why you're pandering to Sartre, anyway. He firmly belongs in the existentialist paradigm; he is a quintessential PHILOSOPHER.

>> No.2674399

>American pov
You get bullied for trying to read a lot. At least I did. Fucking hate this redneck place, they rather watch American Idol then open a picture book.

If you're reading philosophy, you're a faggot and/or deadbeat. Good luck finding people who value your books

>> No.2674403
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2674403

It depends where you live, and what cultural level you are exposed to. If you grow up in a council estate, and everyone you go to school with and have the opportunity to meet is pic related. Then yes you will get your teeth kicked in for sitting outside of your block of flats reading a collection of Oscar Wilde poems.

As someone speaking from experience; I had to hide my interest quite well. I had to go out tagging while stoned instead of reading just to be able to have a social circle until I could escape to uni.

Actually it wasn't that bad, I kind of enjoyed my misspent childhood. But the circle of culture i was exposed to was quite anti-intellectual, "books are for faggots" apparently.

>> No.2674411

>>2674387

Examples of anti-intellectualism or anti-intellectual snubbing that becomes acceptance after success?

Because the former can be found anywhere on the internet. >>2674370 is a good example. If it's the latter, then look at Stephen King. I believe he was often mocked for reading and being into writing. Now he's one of the most celebrated authors on earth.

>> No.2674415

>>2674411
Imo, King is ridiculed because he writes inadequately.

>> No.2674423

>>2674415
Besides, the French have Kristeva (Bulgarian-born) and Lacan, both of whom were proven by Bricmont and Sokal to be full of shit.

>> No.2674428
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2674428

>>2674394
Honestly when asked this question I feel like answering the question, "what is the difference between Germans, French and Anglo-Saxons?"

The Germans are humourless and very severe, very dry, very "profound".
The French have more esprit, more verve, more intellectual vivacity and wit.
And the Anglo-Saxons are pragmatic.

>>2674398
>I'm not really sure why you're pandering to Sartre

Only because he was so famous.

>He firmly belongs in the existentialist paradigm; he is a quintessential PHILOSOPHER.

Yes but there's some difference between a German philosopher and a French philosopher. German philosophers are more like priests, they're kind of aloof and searching for great truths. A French philosopher is more connected with social movements and youth culture, they're more hip and transgressive, that's what makes them "intellectuals". They're edgy. If you're wondering why I'm focusing so much on these social distinctions it's because the word "intellectual" when applied to a person is usually meant to distinguish them as some social category in the first place.

Pic related, it's Sartre looking edgy brooding on the metaphysics of being.

>> No.2674432

>>2674403
>"books are for faggots" apparently.

>he thinks books aren't for faggot

U WOT M8

>> No.2674433

>>2674428
I honestly have no idea where you're coming from. What about an incredibly dry semiologist, such as Saussure. Is he 'edgy'?

>> No.2674436

>>2674428
>pandering to someone because they're famous

Fucking hell, you might as well make a tumblr or something.

>> No.2674442

>>2674428
>studies philosophy
>has a baby stormfag's view of ethnic stereotypes

>> No.2674444

>>2674433
Nah, he lived before the time of edginess. Honestly, it's because I think that the word "intellectual" today indicates a certain kind of attitude, it's not just the substance of your work but also your personal fetishes, your style, your social group. I'm not sure when that started but it was some time during the 20th century in France.

>>2674436
By pandering to him and meant using him specifically as an example to prove my point. I'm not praising his work, hell, he could be a complete fraud and what do nothing to diminish the point I'm trying to make about what it means to be an intellectual.

>> No.2674446

>>2674442
I don't study philosophy, I read wikipedia articles and play video games all day.

>> No.2674459

>>2674446
Sartre: 'To understand a sentence spoken by my companion is, in fact, to understand what he is trying to say-that is, to espouse his movement of transcendence, to throw myself with him toward possibles, toward ends, and to return again to the ensemble of organized means so as to understand them by their function and their end.'

I'm reminded of a certain quotation from Macbeth:
>It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing

Sounds about right. Ironic how Sartre blathers on about signifiers, and yet, he can write aptly nor coherently.

>> No.2674462

>>2674459
*can write neither

>> No.2674470

Trashy people exist in all countries, OP. Chavs in England, dirtbags of all sorts in the States, the list goes on. No country is an exception.

>> No.2674472

>>2674444
>t's not just the substance of your work but also your personal fetishes, your style, your social group.

I feel like expanding on this a little bit more.
The ROLE an academic plays in society more determines if they're this kind of intellectual I'm talking about.
France is the country where this idea of an intellectual began I think, and by intellectual I mean you're the kind of person that sits in coffee shops and broods on metaphysics for a living. It's like, being intelligent for intelligence sake, for being deep -- that's what you are, you are an "intellectual", you have deep thoughts.

Look at this video of Lacan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=874fNhM4QV4&feature=related

That scene right there is so fucking French. I can't possibly imagine it taking place in an English University, for example. It's not a lecture where you go to make notes for an exam. These are French teenagers and people in their early twenties assembled round this figure listening to his Sermon, he's more like a religious figure than a University lecturer. They're there to share in his profound insights, not to study for an exam.
This is the intellectual culture I'm talking about and the culture I think is peculiarly French. You can see videos on Youtube of Zizek giving lectures to all kinds of people that are not French, but his lectures don't have that brooding melodrama of French intellectualism. That's what I mean, that the word "intellectual" has some Frenchness in it. That to be an "intellectual" means to make yourself a little bit more French.

Whereas in Germany philosophers

>> No.2674475

>>2674472
>Whereas in Germany philosophers

Forget that, decided not to make that comparison.

>> No.2674477

In the UK anti-intellectualism is as bad as in America. The word 'Intellectualism' even makes intellectuals cringe.

>>2674403
This guy describes what every practical 'smart' kid does until uni.

>> No.2674487

>>2674472
You've lost your point now; you made that clerical comparison to the Germans like two posts ago. Lacan always speaks gibberish; that video is no different.
>Questions interest me very much

He knows he has no substance; he knows he has nary a clue; he delves deep into his esoteric facade and hopes no one calls him out.

>> No.2674529

>>2674487
I'm not saying Lacan is intelligent when I say that he is an intellectual.
You see, I think Isaac Newton was a smart man but I don't see him as an intellectual, whereas in this video I think that in an exaggerated way Lacan embodies the intellectual type.
I don't think the word "intellectual" is the same as the word "thinker" or the word "academic". They each have their own history and their own colours and implications. What I'm saying is that the word intellectual owes a lot of its history to things that happened in France, and that the word implies a certain attitude that I think the French more consistently embody than people of other nations.

Here I just found something interesting on the Wikipedia article for "Intellectual":

"In some contexts, especially in journalism, ‘intellectual’ generally denotes academics of the humanities — especially philosophy — who speak about important social and political matters; by definition, the public intellectuals who communicate the theoretic base for resolving public problems; generally, academics remain in their areas of expertise, whereas intellectuals apply academic knowledge and abstraction to public problems."

"The sociologist Frank Furedi said that ‘Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the values that they uphold.’"

"Jean Paul Sartre pronounced intellectuals to be the moral conscience of their age, their task being to observe the political and social situation of the moment, and to speak out—freely—in accordance with their consciences."

I think the French more than other nations engaged in the social aspect of intellectuals. They became intellectuals in their character.

>> No.2674556

Jung:
'Thus every normal person of our time, who is not reflective beyond the average, is bound to his environment by a whole system of projections.' (Dreams, p. 53)
Jung is clearly speaking socially/ generally in Dreams. That sense of generality is not exclusive to French writing.

>> No.2674553

You've clearly never seen Essex girls OP.

I saw some on the tube the other day..I was fighting back the urge to scream. Generally though, it depends where you live. If you live in a higher class area, you'll have more intelligent conversation.

And for the record, I envision Stephen Fry more as an academic. Fascinating to listen to, you can tell he's intelligent, but that's probably because I don't see the value of having intelligence unless you do something with it. I don't care how 'deep' someone is, if all they do is sit down and contemplate the universe than I'm not interested. Good for them, they have their place, but it's not my cup of tea.

>> No.2674561

Maybe intellectuals would be taken more seriously in general if they'd put more effort into distancing themselves from frauds like Lacan.

>> No.2674562

So, in summary, I don't think that being an intellectual is the same as being an intelligent or thoughtful person. Intellectuals are more akin to political protesters in that their engaged in a kind of social act, a kind of scene.
That's why I think that the US is "anti-intellectual", it's not because they don't value intelligence, it's that they despise the pretentious character of the common intellectual. It's their Francophobia I think, that makes them anti-intellectual. Like some guy above said, Americans do value intelligence when it's used for practical purpose like making money. If you're a very skilled engineer and you make some cool robot in your spare time, you might get looked at as a geek from some people but they would still value your intelligence and expertise. It's the idea of someone lounging smugly about in a coffee shop turning over metaphysical forms in their head that makes Anglo-Saxon blood rage.

>> No.2674565

>>2674561
thisthisthsithsithsihsithsithsihtistshtistishtishtsithsithsithsithsithsihtishithsithsithsiththitsths
ithsithsithsithsithsithisthishtishtishtishtihsithishtishtihsts

>> No.2674568

>>2674561
I find it insane that people still refer to and quote any psychoanalyst (except for maybe Freud, who did arguably make some useful contributions).

I think students get caught up in certain theories without really stepping back and realizing that most of them (especially those of the psychoanalytic variety) are groundless.

>> No.2674570

>It's their Francophobia I think, that makes them anti-intellectual.

Okay.

Your definition sounds more like that of a humanist.

>> No.2674572

>>2674568
Jung is good, too. Steer clear of Lacan and Kristeva, though. A lot of Sartre is bollocks, too. You're probably better off with literary criticism/ theory; you can't go wrong with Eagleton or Coleridge.

>> No.2674573

>>2674561
Maybe he isn't a fraud. Maybe he just clowns about like a fraud in his speeches because he knows that their isn't any other way to speak seriously on these deep subjects without seeming a bit ridiculous.
I mean, imagine your Jesus and you're giving the Sermon on the Mount: you don't just say it stiffly like an academic in a University Lecture Theater. You have to become animated. You might say then that Lacan is out of his place, that he should behave more like an academic, more "objective". But the thing is that the French intellectuals of the 20th century were all against this kind of "objectivity" and Positivism that is hegemonic in modern academia, so by behaving like this he's making a protest against this prejudice of objective, depoliticized belief.
There you go.

>> No.2674576

kristeva rules powers of horror is great

>> No.2674579

>Maybe he isn't a fraud.

No. He is.

>Indeed, we will not be surprised to realize that both hysterical neurosis and obsessive neurosis presuppose in their structure the terms without which the subject cannot accede to the notion of his facticity with regard to his sex in the one and with regard to his existence in the other.

Any faggot who claims that there is an ounce of sense or coherence in this can go suck a dick.

>> No.2674584

>>2674568
>I find it insane that people still refer to and quote any psychoanalyst (except for maybe Freud, who did arguably make some useful contributions).

Freud is a fucking god. Perhaps only Marx is above him in terms of the impact he's had. Just think for a minute how normal and everyday the term "unconscious" is. Then think about the impact that the idea of the "unconscious" has on the way we conceive of ourselves. I think it's of comparable significance to that that the idea of the "soul" had in more religious times.

>> No.2674588

>>2674584
Projecting is also a pretty common Freudian term.

>> No.2674590

>>2674576
>amg so funny xd

>Through oral-dietary satisfaction, there emerges, beyond it, a lust for swallowing up the other, while the fear of impure nourishment is revealed as deathly drive to devour the other.

What even is this?

>> No.2674593
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2674593

>>2674579
>Indeed, we will not be surprised to realize that both hysterical neurosis and obsessive neurosis presuppose in their structure the terms without which the subject cannot accede to the notion of his facticity with regard to his sex in the one and with regard to his existence in the other.

10/10, gj Lacanbro.

>> No.2674603

>>2674588
Check out this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOrUBQjPfhU

It's Allan Bloom talking about Nietzsche, but he also mentions how through Nietzsche's influence of Freud, Nietzsche has influenced American culture by introducing to it such words as commonplace today as "charisma".

>> No.2674618

>>2674584
Except the notion of the "subconscious" has existed since Plato.

>> No.2674617

reminder that labeling a critical theory a "fraud" p much constitutes an intellectually dishonest attempt to move a value neutral technique into the domain of legality/morality, and can be safely ignored as the reactionary thuggery it is :O)

>> No.2674624

>>2674618
fuk u

>> No.2674626

>>2674617
>tripfag
>shit grammar/ punctuation
>saging on-topic thread
>probably a buttmad OP
>emoticons

Yeah, fuck off.

>> No.2674630

>>2674359
honestly the worst that would happen is "haha nerd." not like theyre gonna put you in a camp.

>> No.2674633

>>2674626

implying my grammar isn't consistently on point

>> No.2674636

>>2674633
>implying you can use capitals, full stops and greentext

You just proved the obverse in the same post.

>> No.2674641

>>2674633
Next lesson: Periods and capital letters.

>> No.2674643

>>2674633
What the fuck is the point in tripfagging on /lit/, anyway?

>> No.2674645

>>2674579
>coherence

In other words,

It's not surprising that the structure of both hysterical and obsessive neurosis require terms which if we didn't have, the subject wouldn't be able to confirm any factual notions with regard to his sex (wrt to hysteria) or his existence (wrt to his obsessions).

Whatever that means.

>> No.2674646 [DELETED] 

>>2674643

Attention.

>> No.2674657

>>2674641
>>2674636

capitalization is a tool of the hegemon that has nothing to do with legibility and everything to do with defending so-called "property rights" through an imposed focus on the "proper noun"

>>2674643

for funsies

>> No.2674666

>>2674657
Exactly to what kind of 'property rights' are you referring? Since when is capitalisatiion relevant to imperialism/ cultural dominance?

>> No.2674667

>>2674657
You're a gigantic faggot, btw.

>> No.2674670

>>2674657
Not all sentences start with proper nouns, either, retard.

>> No.2675037

>>2674657

Richard has either finally flounced out of the closet in regards to being a troll or he actually is dumb enough to believe such drivel..

>> No.2675069

sage for tripfaggot