This essay can be read in my 2020 book, Essays on Free Knowledge. Perhaps ironically, it is no longer free.
UPDATE: I’ve posted a very long set of replies.
UPDATE 2: I’ve decided to reply below as well–very belatedly…
This essay can be read in my 2020 book, Essays on Free Knowledge. Perhaps ironically, it is no longer free.
UPDATE: I’ve posted a very long set of replies.
UPDATE 2: I’ve decided to reply below as well–very belatedly…
I believe Google isn’t making us stupid, rather it’s freeing up brain power to be used elsewhere. Instead of having to memorize facts, we have extended our capacity to “remember” (virtually) things by using the vast amount of data available to us through our workstations, tablets, and “smart phones”.
Not having to store that data in our minds frees us to think about new ideas, concepts, and the future of mankind.
Matthew,
The brain cannot automatically make sense of every new piece of information it is exposed to. You have to have a base of knowledge to make sense of what you are finding on the Internet. The more factual knowledge you have in your brain, the more you can make sense of what you find on the Internet. I read an article that pointed out that most Americans could read the following but most would not actually understand it:
“Another two-hour rain delay again seemed to work in England’s favour as a refreshed Tremlett removed Mahela Jayawardene with a snorting delivery which moved away off the seam and took the outside edge.”
Understanding requires knowledge. The less knowledge you have the less you can understand. The more knowledge you have the more you can understand. Have you ever heard of Functional Illiteracy? Functionally illiterate people can read and write. But they typically lack knowledge and have small vocabularies, so they are often unable to make use of the information that they read. You are making a case for increased functional illiteracy. All the Internet can do is provide easy access to information. Whether we can understand and make use of it or not depends on how much we already know.
“Not having to store that data in our minds frees us to think about new ideas, concepts, and the future of mankind.”
How can one be so sure that these new ideas and concepts are actually new or pertinent in any way? And when talking about nothing less than the future of mankind, can we be so sure these “new” ideas are not deeply flawed in some way? We need only look back one century to see that many new and compelling ideas (at the time) about the future and how to run our societies had disastrous results. Know-nothing-so-you-can-think-a-lot is simply a recipe for rediscovering everything the hard way. A rather arrogant assumption that all these facts to be memorized are all just things thought up in the middle of the night by folks with adequately “freed up” brains and a can-do attitude… and not borne out of several thousand years of deep investigation and trial.
The internet can’t think for itself. It can’t combine two facts and find a new idea or invention. That takes time, dedication, discipline, and creativity.
This reminds me of a talk about “X-people” (=the disciplined) and “Y-people” (=the creative); can’t we be both?
We have to be both if we want to continue our progress in the sciences and in culture as before.
And since when does a crowd know more about a subject than a person who has studied it for years?
(There’s a flowchart that shows very well how a thesis extends beyond the boundaries of human knowledge. Problem is, I can’t find it right now, or I’d add a link. *lol)
[…] la question posée par Larry Sanger [en] (via […]
[…] This post was originally published on Larry Sanger’s blog […]
i wrote a full critique of Sanger’s essay here: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/07/01/larry-sanger-on-geek-anti-intellectualism-a-kind-of-critique/
i mostly agree with Sanger, but feel that taking another look at Hofstadter’s book (which he does cite) would improve the conceptualization. Sanger is convincing on the populist/anti-intellectual stuff, but misses the full scope of what anti-intellectualism means.
further, Hofstadter makes an essential distinction between intelligence and intellect, and Sanger conflates the two. Sanger’s critique of the geeks on memorization shows them to be anti-intelligence, not anti-intellectual.
that’s just a summary, see the link above for the full argument.
[…] anti-intellectualism Print PDF Thanks to Nathan Jurgenson for a thoughtful critique of “Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?” I wish I had more time to respond, especially since it is so earnestly intellectual […]
[…] Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, wrote a wonderful piece on the rise of a new geek anti-intellectualism. The essay sparked much discussion and Sanger has done a terrific job responding to comments and […]
Well, this describes my boss perfectly. 🙂
A book presents an invitation: with study, it will be possible to learn what is described. The internet, by contrast, presents a dangerous illusion: that there is always /someone else/ out there who knows whatever-it-is.
For many years now (since, say, the end of the Cold war) computers have been becoming less tools for /doing/ and more tools for /seeing what other people are up to/.
The last comment is very incisive. In fact, I’ve been working occasionally on really perfecting a long blog post that makes a similar point–that we really don’t get knowledge from the Internet, and that much of the activity on the Internet is driven by attention-seeking rather than knowledge-building. Of course, occasionally, these goals are in alignment…
[…] Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism? […]
I think we can all agree the humanities and social sciences tend to attract a certain flock of students that tend to be lazier and less motivated than those that choose to study something like engineering or biochemistry. You can’t bullshit your way through biochemistry in college, but you can sure as hell bullshit your way through a humanities or social sciences major, and this is coming from someone who had such a concentration as an undergraduate. This, however, is not the fault of the disciplines themselves, but rather of how they’re taught. Mastery is required for one to successfully major in a discipline like math or engineering. If someone graduates with even just a 3.4 or 3.5 in math from Carnegie Mellon, you sure as hell can bet your ass they’ll be great at math. Conversely, a philosophy major from Williams can’t exactly be relied upon to be an expert in philosophy. The problem is the humanities and social sciences (in the U.S. at least) tend to accommodate slackers and dilettantes whereas math and the hard sciences do not. People can bullshit their way through history and philosophy because institutions allow this, and I’m sure that’s part of why many math and science academics look down upon academics in fields like philosophy. I think any sensible human being would acknowledge the importance and necessity of humanistic and technical contributions alike. They both matter, and they both play a role in the development of mankind, even if the contributions themselves can either be negative or positive. The atomic bomb would be a bad technical contribution, and Mein Kampf would be a negative humanistic contribution, just as examples, but hopefully they could be fall backs from which the world can learn. Going back to what I was saying about science professors looking down on the humanities, do you honestly think a sensible, intelligent engineering professor would profess Shakespeare doesn’t matter? Probably not. Would he question the way in which students are allowed to bullshit their way through a Shakespeare course, which would fail miserably in an engineering course? Absolutely. I think it’s a situation where fields like engineering and biochemistry are difficult to learn easy to master whereas humanities and social sciences are easy to learn difficult to master. If philosophy departments placed the same kinds of demands on their students engineering departments placed on their students Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sarte and Albert Camus would be the only three people in the history of the world to have successfully received philosophy degrees. I know that’s an exaggeration, but…
On another note I’d also like to say technical or mathematical genius is quantifiable in a way that humanistic genius, which includes artistic genius, is not. Math and the hard sciences are seen as pragmatic and applicable in the real world, whereas the importance of humanistic genius is more abstract and is understood and experienced on a more sensory level, something pragmatists are too lazy and materialistic to understand. The fact is mathematical and scientific genius can fulfill the desires of capitalists in a way that most humanistic genius can’t. Not to contradict myself, but there tragically are people who view math and science as more important than the humanities, because it’s more practical and applicable in the ‘real world’, which I have been trying to get at since the start of this paragraph. Scientific genius is hijacked by capitalists, so their desires can be fulfilled. I don’t know if I’m making sense here. I’m having trouble putting all that’s on my mind into words. What I’ve written is just the tip of the iceberg, but this is what I’ll leave you with for now. Don’t get me wrong though. I’m not saying math and science doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. The issue is they’re accepted by anti-intellectuals unlike the humanities, because they can be utilized to fulfill the selfish desires of the ‘real world’ in a way humanistic genius can’t, since humanistic genius, by virtue of the fact that it’s humanistic genius, functions in opposition to the affairs of the ‘real world’.
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