http://neoneocon.com/2008/01/12/ah-those-clever-literary-intellectuals/

Big words can usually contain more than one meaning to them when used in an abstract or policy manner. Thus it allows for the mind to branch off unto various different avenues by using words that are ambiguous when writing. It can shorten thoughts down and compress them, so that each line has multiple meanings that all apply. Whether a person can connect those multiple ideas into a coherent whole or not, depends really on how close their thinking aligns with the author’s. If you don’t think like the author, then the author’s method of transcribing his thoughts on paper via the interconnections of one big word together with another, becomes its own puzzle game.

g really had only one thing to say, so his attempts to use big and incorrectly spelled words was really a waste.

Also the ability to retain vocabulary and to accelerate one’s abstract thinking abilities is aided by using large words that require a large portion of your own brain power to effect. Holding multiple meanings of multiple different words so that they can be chained together in one uber sentence does indeed require something akin to doublethink. Which is why intellectuals are the only ones capable of true mastery of doublethink. Idiots cannot really hold too many thoughts in their head simultaneously, let alone too many contradictory thoughts at once. To be foolish and unwise, one must have a supreme amount of intellect. Just look at Kerry or g, both malignant and intelligent narcissists.

I said that they, by mumbling, are saying either that they have nothing worthwhile in their heads or they are insulting their audience by implying that they’re too stupid to understand any way. I have the same theory, actually, about legible handwriting (and my handwriting is very legible).

There’s also ego in using big, unintelligible words, but that type of ego is mirrored by a corresponding disrespect for the audience — i.e., you’re so unimportant, I don’t care if you can’t understand me, so long as you are awed by my mental magnificence.

Oh, did you bring back memories, Danny. When I was an undergrad at a fairly prestigious university, I decided to take a rhetoric course. It was taught by a very puffed up graduate student who was steeped in the language of academe. Since I’m quite confident about my own language skills (and was even as a 19 year old), I had no embarrassment at all about raising my hand each time he used one of those terms and asking what it meant. He came to hate me with a passion because, at least 50% of the time, he was incapable of explaining what he was saying.

I am with Friend of USA on this one, too – most are simply intellectual wannabees. Academia is rife with them. A telltale sign is when they use big words and convoluted arguments when simple words and logic will do. This, to me, signals, that their intent is not to communicate but to obfuscate. Usually, what they obfuscate is bad logic and ideas. Noam Chomsky is a great example.

Also, real intellectuals don’t go around telling others that they are intellectuals. That’s for others to decide.

The irony here is that what they see as the “intellectual” viewpoint can often be overturned by more research. The “intellectuals” in the 1980s fell head over heels for the Sandinistas. There was much documentary evidence against the Sandinistas, which the “intellectuals” were not aware of. Example: in March 1980, Pravda published a joint USSR- Nicaraguan (Sandinista) proclamation that “resolutely condemned” the “reactionaries” who were against the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. Example: in 1984 a Polish national authored “De Polonia a Nicaragua.” This book told of his being arrested upon entering Nicaragua with a valid visa, and being imprisoned for nearly 6 months before being freed. His crime? Suspicion of belonging to Solidarity.

Back in the 1980s even the liberals were for Solidarity and against the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. That many liberals held these positions while still supporting the Sandinistas was a result not so much of cognitive dissonance as it was of ignorance – and being too lazy to investigate the issues.

This is why politicians are said to be cunning rather than intellectually orientated. Their abilities concerns manipulating humans with skills, not emulating the skills themselves. In our case, the intellectuals’ only skill is producing more disasters.

One of the reasons so called “intellectuals” support the worst causes is that
most intellectuals are not all that intelligent.

Many so called “intellectuals” are not really intellectuals,

they do not have a better understanding of anything,
they just have bigger words and longer more complicated sentences to tell us what they think.

Their only talent is the ability to say simple things in very complicated ways.

They may sound intelligent and intellectual but it is all wrapping and no content.

It is also a way for them to separate or elevate themselves from the masses.

If the common man eats ground beef and hates the Nazis, then the intellectual eats foie gras and admires the Nazis.

It makes them feel superior,

and the more we are puzzled by their strange behavior, the more intelligent they feel.

If we can not understand why they admire the Nazis it must be because we are simple minded.

I say we because I do not have a university degree, I’m the street guy some intellectuals would lift their nose on,
but in an IQ test I score 20 points above most of them.

Then there are people in love with Marxism when Cuba went socialist. They give money and power and influence to the revolutionaries like Che and Castro, with the belief that either they will always remain in power or that the lower classes will be made to serve their ends. Course when the revolution no longer has need of them, most of them run away given that they aren’t poor or powerless like the people they sent to die under Castro/Che.

These folks would probably be called useful idiots, but they still satisfy the intellectual criteria even if they are not the leading intellectual and spiritual leaders of their ideology. Hillary Clinton’s idol, Saul Alinsky, would also be an intellectual leader.

To pare things down to the fundamentals, an intellectual is someone that believes thought is al lthat is necessary to change human nature into whatever. That you don’t need to dirty your hands actually killing somebody or whatever, all you need is the “thought” Allen.

The less actions you undertake, the purer your thought and thus the purer your ideology. The purer the ideology, the less need for war and suffering.