What is "intellectualization" and what's so "white" about it — "white" in a bad way? Am I intellectualizing — in a bad, white way — just by asking? I don't know, but I looked the word up in the OED. Is this white of me — caring about language and using this traditional reference source that was probably written mostly by white people?
"Intellectualization" is — according to the OED — "The action of intellectualizing something; the condition of being intellectualized." To "intellectualize" is "To make (a subject, concept, etc.) intellectual; to give an intellectual character or quality to (something)." It's layers of an onion! "Intellectual" means "That appeals to or engages the intellect; requiring the exercise of understanding." And "intellect" is "That faculty, or sum of faculties, of the mind or soul by which a person knows and reasons; power of thought; understanding; analytic intelligence."
So "Intellectualization" is the action of making something appealing to the human mind. I was struck by one of the historical quotes for "intellectualization":
1887 Harper's Mag. Oct. 807/2 Is this intellectualization of women beginning to show, in the conversation of women when they are together, say in the hours of relaxation?I was able to find the entire essay, and I thought you'd find these ideas about women and conversation quite interesting:
I'm distracted by those "P" words: "penetralia" and "persiflage." "Penetralia" are "The innermost parts or recesses of a building; spec. the sanctuary or inner sanctum of a temple" — figuratively, "secret parts, mysteries." What a fantastic word! I don't remember ever seeing that before... and yet, I blogged about it in detail in 2016 — blogged and forgot. "Persiflage," a more familiar word, has never come up in the history of this blog.
Anyway, that long quote I've given you, from Harper's Magazine in 1887, was written by Charles Dudley Warner. I'm reading his Wikipedia page. He was a friend of Mark Twain's. Charles Dudley Warner said something that Mark Twain liked to quote (and that has been consequently misattributed to Twain):
Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.There. Is that an intellectualization? Have I made the world more beautiful? Have I made it more interesting?
ADDED: I forgot to inform you that "persiflage" is "Light raillery or mockery; bantering talk; a frivolous or mildly contemptuous manner of treating any subject." Let me make it up to you by amusing you with this poll:
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84 comments:
Do NOT be smarter than black people. Be niggardly with your words.
I think that the antonym of "intellectualization" must by something akin to "emotionalization" which is to appeal to the emotions.
Like, waving a bloody shirt. Remember when that was considered a shameful thing to do?
Althouse, you aren't supposed to understand why the heavy boot of marxist oppression is on your neck, you're supposed to tolerate it, even praise it, no matter how hard it is stomping. This technique of oppression works best when the things you are told to believe, to celebrate, to practice, do NOT make any sense. Then you are forced to do senseless things for no reason. That is true submission to the power over you. And of course is meant to be celebrated even more!
Think of the whole thing as a fixed game you must play, which wants you dead one second after you don't want to play any more.
It's called "Acting White" when blacks do it.
What is "intellectualization" and what's so "white" about it — "white" in a bad way?
If it's about white race, it's bad. Apparently badthink is any thinking at all.
Is my interpretation reasonable?
Persiflage is usually airy, much as inadequacy is usually woeful.
There is an interesting insight to the Church's diversity doctrine that denies individual dignity and individual conscience (i.e. color judgment), which is that the antonym of "intellectual" is "foolish, ignorant, stupid, simple, physical", perhaps "deplorable". They can't help but reveal their character in their treatment of people that they perceive to be inferior, "flyover", nonviable, etc.
I was more struck by 'objectivity' being a characteristic of whites. How the hell can you renounce objectivity????
I need an all of the above option on this one.
""intellectualization" as an aspect of "Internalized Racial Superiority""
So progs are saying the project of treating blacks as intellectual equals has failed, and that all whites can do now is to deintellectualize to the level of Blacks? Or that Black sentimentalizing is better than white intellectualizing?
Complaining about persiflage and penetralia ... is this the “How Meade Lost Me” post??
To me the word "Penetralia" seems like a portmanteau of "penatration" and "genitalia". So, yeah... it's somewhat evocative.
The term intelligentsia entered into the Lexicon from Russia in the 1850s. Here's a definition from The Russian Tradition by Tibor Szamuely
"The Russian Intelligentsia was a social stratum composed of those politically aroused, voracious and radical members of the educated class who felt totally estranged from society, who rejected the social and political system of tsarist autocracy, and who single-mindedly nurtured the idea of the imperative downfall of that system - who, to use a Russian expression common at the time, had taken a Hannibalalic Oath" of opposition to the state"
The complete inversion of our cultural values is almost complete. The old Judéo-chrétienne-Christian concept of virtue— thrift, modesty, prudence, integrity, education— the things that made the civilization the most prosperous in history— are now symbols of “racism.”
This is the kind of stuff that explains why they went after Scott Alexander's blog SlateStarCodex. It isn't even politics, it's that so many of them don't even understand the language or the ideas being spoken.
Thinking is like nails on a chalkboard for them. No wonder they shriek out in pain as they strike you.
Never heard those words before, and I don't want more of them because I can think of no good use for them that other more well known words would do.
A philosophy professor I had was fond of saying, "We must eschew pomposity" whenever he thought one of his students were trying to show off by using overly obscure or complicated language. Garner would have annoyed him no end.
Aristotle never made it into the African tribal areas. Don’t expect painful thinking In categories by our new Black overlords. They want bowing submissive whites that never think, and they want them now.
Does this mean that the University of Washington, the largest employer in Seattle, is a major source of racism? Should the UW adopt the tried and true methods of Evergreen State College in Olympia?
I grew up in a secular Jewish family where being an "intellectual" was part of the Traditional legacy. Another, very subtle, Blood Libel.
2+2=4. Racist enough for you.
"I'm afraid the training could just as well backfire as cure people of the problem they are presumed to have."
You mean, that instead of making white people hate themselves, it might make white people hate Black people? That is considered equally desirable. Especially if they can be goaded into expressing that hatred where the Woke can get at them.
McCarthy was right about the insidious, progressive march of leftism through our institutions.
I associate "intellectualization" as much as anything with critical theory people, who deliberately make their arguments so intellectualized that they completely lose their attachment to physical reality, allowing them to "prove" and believe anything they want.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/pelosi-on-destruction-of-columbus-statue-in-baltimore-people-will-do-what-they-do/
BTW, I don't think it is really accurate to say that the City of Seattle made that identification. The sorts of scum that go into municipal management don't make such determinations, they hire wretched vermin with "Studies" degrees to do it for them. They therefore have no idea what sort of insane garbage they are forcing their employees to consume. Or rather, they have an idea, but they leave the details to the vermin. The main point is to drive all the sane people out of government. Just as the goal of BLM is to get large numbers of good cops to quit or retire, leaving only cops who will nor enforce the law against Blacks but will be happy to oppress whites. Like the insufferable pigs in the UK.
Hostile work environment based upon race?
That's why college debates can be won by orators like this:
https://youtu.be/fmO-ziHU_D8
"Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."
See? Not even Mark Twain believed in anthropogenic global warming.
I wish there was a fifth option on the pill, the proportion of penetralia and persiflage does not matter to me. At least not if those terms are going to be used.
Thinking about stuff is racist.
Feelings are what matter.
Althouse thinks.
QED: Althouse must be re-educated according to the Leftist Collectivists.
That said, Althouse, you might want to reconsider your political leanings before the alligator gets to you.
Clearly, Orwell needs updating. Dystopia is Utopia.
I was more struck by 'objectivity' being a characteristic of whites. How the hell can you renounce objectivity????
@Original Mike, I dunno. Ask Crack.
"I'm afraid the training could just as well backfire as cure people of the problem they are presumed to have."
If it doesn't exist, they'll create it.
Then they can earn even MORE money for 'fighting' it, with even MORE crap like they've used to this point.
"Acting white" is a big no-no in the black "community" despite the advantages that come with it.
Muslims have their "acting Western" no-no in order to keep themselves in the 7th Century. They've been very successful in staying there.
Before I retired I had the privilege of working with a brilliant black geneticist researching genetic markers for childhood cancers. I guess that he wasn’t a genuine black person, notwithstanding his skin was darker than actor Yaphet Kotto.
Sorry, I can't think about penetralia without it being dirty.
Lets hope that those stupid Seattle officials don't learn that Pol Pot labeled anyone wearing glasses as an intellectual, and had them sent off to the Killing Fields.
But I suspect that's coming too.
I should like to make an open religious argument here. What we have is a clash of ideologies and fundamental religious beliefs going on. By that I mean fundamental questions of "what is mankind? What is moral? What are virtues? How should I treat my fellow man?"
The United States and indeed western civilization in general has been based on Judeo-Christian values. Even the Deist types like Jefferson fully subscribed to the values, if not the ideology, of the Christians and the Jews. So did most Atheists--kindness, tolerance, charity, the exalting of rational, logical thought over emotional, illogic, --these were all accepted.
Now, we have BLM and the racist woke folks explicitly rejecting all of the above. Oh, they demand that you tolerate and put up zero fight, but they have no interest in any of the values of western civilization being applied to them.
What we need here is a Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty moment, for those with a passing familiarity with the Book of Mormon. That was a time when creeping dissent was met by one man who stood up for the truth and for the right, and catalyzed an entire movement to defend the culture. Who will be our Captain Moroni today?
Welcome to the Planet Claire, suckers.
Planet Claire has pink air
All the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head
I love how your tags have 'rationality' and 'Seattle' side by side.
You left out "Ha, ha" as a choice.
Crackas al wayz be reedin theym bookz an sheeit thinkun thay so smar!
"Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them." Attributed to George Orwell.
Seems to have sort of a dual application here. Only an intellectual could believe that intellectualization is racist? Or stupid people aren't stupid enough to be intellectuals? Maybe those "I'm with stupid" t-shirts were on to something. It's a compliment!
narciso I watched that Legal Insurrection video of Nancy Pelosi on the statue destruction.
Wow. No wonder the Dems think that Biden is a paragon of mental acuity.
Aside from the general rambling incoherence, the one thing that she did say which is clear is that she thinks that the "protesters" should be assisted in taking down whatever statutes they deem offensive because of "safety concerns." Get the public works department out there with some lifts and cranes, and nobody gets hurt!
Yeesh.
stevew,
"A philosophy professor I had was fond of saying, 'We must eschew pomposity' whenever he thought one of his students were trying to show off by using overly obscure or complicated language."
Oh, that is beautiful. I am so borrowing that. I grade a lot of lab reports. Somewhere along the line, someone took all these people aside and told them to be as stilted as they possibly can.
In 1887 Charles Dudley Warner observes that people complain about weather but don't do anything about it. In 2020, we all should know that there is nothing we can do about weather or climate change, for that matter, and complaints constitute nonsensical small talk but such talk hardly represents "intellectualization" in any way. Nobody can hide from weather forever.
Bob Smith said...
2+2=4. Racist enough for you.
Winston 'Intellectualizes'
“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’
‘Four.’
‘And if the party says that it is not four but five—then how many?’
'Internalized Racial Superiority,' was defined by...imposition, arrogance, paternalism,... intellectualization*, control,...appropriation, cognitive dissonance,...and 'anti-blackness.'"
So - Barack Obama?
*does not pass spell checker in bloger.com
Could, as Harper's opined some 133 years ago, women's penchant for penetralia and persiflage of the gayest sort make this world more interesting?
Turns out no.
Titania McGrath made a list of things that are racist this week:
• Golf
• Bedrooms
• Jesus
• Chess
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Cartoon characters
• Milk
• Roads
• Band-Aids
• Coronavirus
• Orcs
• Rice
• Skincare products
• Nurses
• Butter
• Applause
• Mathematics
• Front lawns
• Breakfast cereals
• Finding Asian men attractive
• Soap
• Toothpaste
• White people speaking
• White people not speaking
• Hiking
• Climate change
• Ice cream snacks
• The Golden Girls
• Hiking
• Climate change
• Ice cream snacks
• The Golden Girls
• Cycling
• Breweries
• Air pollution
• Abolishing slavery
• The countryside
• The suffragette movement
• Fish
• Pancake syrup
• Salt
• Traffic signals
• Earthquakes
• Classical music
• Horse racing
• Trying not to be racist
• Being nice
• Anglo-Saxons
• Toy Story 4
• Mary Poppins
• Jogging
• The Lake District
• Wives
• Fawlty Towers
• Reaction GIFs
• Botany
• Sandwiches
• Environmental activism
• Women
• Science
• Western philosophy
• Libraries
• Dogs
• Dieting
• Yoga
• Country music
• Scrabble
• Wine
• Shoes
• Having sex with black people
• Not having sex with black people
The woke Left doesn't seem to understand that their post-modernist mentors were intellectuals of a sort.
This reminds me of our recent fires in the Catalina mountains. The fires consume all the flammable material and then they go out.
The left will consume itself in that manner, I hope.
Seattle Public Schools has a long and glorious history of racial idiocy.
Planning-ahead-is-considered-racist
I don't know if I understand that...
... or even want to understand that
In order to "understand" this there would need to be a substantive idea underlying the assertion.
More badinage, please.
Ann: I mentioned this in the last thread but intellectualization seems to be being used in the freudian/psych sense of a defense to dealing with your "true feelings" that will help you with your therapy
Wikipedia says of "Intellectualization"
"Among the intellectual defenses against analysis are a refusal to accept the logic of emotions, **attempts to refute the theory of psychoanalysis**, or speculating about one's own problems rather than experiencing them and attempting to change."
seems to fit White Fragility: attempting to refute white fragility is a sign that you are trapped in white fragility
Warner and Twiain wrote The Gilded Age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gilded_Age:_A_Tale_of_Today
If only TWain were here to assess our current gilded president.
This has been ongoing for decades--the speed and openness are new.
Doc M K -- "acting white" is already an insult among some young wypipo.
tim maguire, yes! Critical [race] theory is a point-scoring game for intellectuals who don't want to face the challenges of empiricism.
Narr
They can not eschew obfuscation.
From one of my top 5 favorite movies, Topsy Turvy:
George Grossmith : [In rehearsals as Koko, and pronouncing a word wrongly] Is this a time for airy persiflidge?
Gilbert : *Persiflage*, Grossmith.
George Grossmith : Is it?
Gilbert : It is.
George Grossmith : Is this a time for airy persiflage? Doesn't sound right to me.
Gilbert : Persiflage, mirage, fromage.
So being smart is 'racist'.... ok.. sure buddy.
Is it intellectualization to think that when one uses a word, it means something at least close to what the dictionary definition is?
Black Lives Matter - black lives matter
All Lives Matter - all lives matter, including those who are shot by police, those who are murdered by someone of the same race matter, those who are murdered by someone of a different race matter; It doesn't mean that black lives don't matter, or somehow matter less.
Defund Police - take away money earmarked for the police; It doesn't mean 'take away just a little bit of their money and partner with social workers'
And from the Malcolm Gladwell's twitter feed discussing cancel culture... Saying 'Trans women are not biologically the same as women' (as JK Rowling said and is getting serious blowback) does NOT mean 'trans people shouldn't exist'.
"Original Mike said...
"How the hell can you renounce objectivity????"
They've already done it. A minority's "lived experience" is absolute truth and cannot be questioned. Sex and race are social constructs independent of biology. STEM must give way to intersectional "ways of knowing."
I think the general rule at play here is that, if your position is objectively wrong, it pays to renounce objectivity.
the problem with these "whiteness" studies is that they attempt to answer the question "What's wrong with being white?" and since the answer is never "nothing" then it must be something bad. In other words, there is something inherently wrong with being white that needs to be fixed or overcome like a handicap.
If one poses the question "What's wrong with be black?" any answer other than "nothing" would be considered terribly racist.
The problem, of course, is that it is racist to cast aspersions on white people for being white as much as it is racist to do the same to black folks for being black.
Some try to argue that racism is really about power, etc. but that's bullshit and everybody knows it. That's just another way of saying "our racism is OK" - which it isn't, but they believe it is.
eddie willers said, "Be niggardly with your words."
Cute comment. You sayin' White Folks talk too much?
Intelligence to me is Intel and ellegence.
A gentleman is of that basis to me.
When women share intelligence, I don't know. I think that is not a basic need, yet a mandatory need with modern times especially. I prefer overhearing women speak like construction workers, some but not all mind you. Funny to see a woman spit, curse and scratch. Endearing to that trust, sisterly maybe. Otherwise I'm of age to know better not to cross women and I do. Intellect = ouch.
Fatuous - all of it.
1+1=4 is white-mans math. Just ask Bucky
Does anyone remember "the soft bigotry of low expectations"? I think that's what is going on here.
So what they're saying is that "intellectualization" is White--because Blacks are dumb? That's what it sounds like. Run that by Thomas Sowell, won't you?
Cute comment. You sayin' White Folks talk too much?
Especially with those big, polysyllabic words.
It's a little Kafka, a little Pol Pot. What to infer from this aggressive behavior from the progressives: is it desperation in the jaws of defeat, or a show of arrogant strength, going around shooting the culture war's surviving opponents.
Ann Althouse is a known extrovert and practiced celibacy before marriage. Meade was known to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law. Ann matriculated with women in college. Meade's sister was a thespian and his brother is a practicing homo sapien.
And now we find out about the persiflage and penetralia. Was Ghislaine Maxwell involved?
Stanford is now running a "POC version of Math" so Howard could pass.
Vance, we don't need a Captain Moroni, we need a Charles Napier.
Let us respect this new and different culture. And require they also respect our culture.
The spread of literacy hasn't helped black people, it's saying.
too much persiflage, not enough penetralia
Howard’s first wife divorced him on these very grounds...
said...
Ann Althouse is a known extrovert and practiced celibacy before marriage. Meade was known to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law. Ann matriculated with women in college. Meade's sister was a thespian and his brother is a practicing homo sapien.
I recognize the late Rep. Claude Pepper's campaign tactics there.
Vice President of Zimbabwe Says Country Starves Because White People Didn't Teach Them Economics -
https://trends.gab.com/visit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnationalfile.com%2Fvideo-after-years-of-hyperinflation-vice-president-of-zimbabwe-blames-whites-for-not-teaching-them-economics%2F
To me, the funniest thing is that Althouse appears to assume that the trainers' knew enough about the term to have invoked it meaningfully.
"Ann Althouse is a known extrovert and practiced celibacy before marriage. Meade was known to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law. Ann matriculated with women in college. Meade's sister was a thespian and his brother is a practicing homo sapien."
This is a paraphrase from Mad Magazine. I quoted the original in Speech class and semi got in trouble. You left out that she is a known masticator.
I always thought that Harrison Bergeron was an over the top, reductio ad absurdum story to be read ironically. The “Handicapper General” indeed... Ha ha ha .... ha.... um wait a minute, the little red guards are taking it seriously.
One of my biggest disappointments in life was to find out that Kurt Vonnegut really was a lefty, and wasn’t writing clever parody all of those years.
The very, very, very cynical response to this is: white people have been more successful than black people (on average) because success requires smarts and they are smarter than black people (on average). Thus, smarts is oppressive and morally wrong.
gspencer,
I wouldn't say radical Islam has been successful in its quest; at least in recent decades, it's only been able approximate the 7th century for itself by poaching advanced technology from Western Civilization.
tim in vt,
Re Vonnegut: they're mostly all like that, see Viggo Mortensen or Josh Wheydon for example.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." -- attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but not clear who said it first
Women are more likely to talk in personal and emotional terms, men in more abstract terms, or so I've read in the past. (Remember "women are from Venus, men are from Mars?") Abstract, intellectual discussion has been seen as both male and superior. Now, apparently, it's seen as white and inferior.
In recent years, wokesters have declared the personal is superior: "Lived experience," intersecting racial/ethnic/gender identity and victim status trumps ideas. In the new view, free speech is worthless if straight white males are for it and it made a transgender POC feel "unsafe." I think this is a deeply stupid idea, and I speak out of lived experience as a thinking human being who's been around the block a few times.
How the hell can you renounce objectivity???
Objectivity too often leads to disparate outcomes for POC. Ergo.
Dammit!
Since setting out to increase my vocabulary, it seems that I'm not smart enough, to not use it.
These useless bon mots might work their way into my dialogue. I can't help it.
Well, maybe they won't. I'm getting older and often can't find my specs, or keys and such. Maybe I'll forget where I put these frivolities.
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