Category: Knowledge
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On educational anti-intellectualism: a reply to Steve Wheeler
Suppose a student arrived at the age of 18 not knowing anything significant about World War II or almost any other war, barely able to do arithmetic, ignorant of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, and most other great writers, and wholly unschooled in the hard sciences (apart from some experiments and projects which made a few random…
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An example of educational anti-intellectualism
I’ve got to stop blogging quite so much, but I couldn’t let this pass without comment. One would expect Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of learning technology at Plymouth University in England, to be plugged into and more or less represent the latest academic trends in education technology. If so, I’m a bit scared. I came…
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A short manifesto for schools: time to focus on knowledge
Ever since I was an elementary school student myself, I have been chronically disappointed with the American education establishment. Don’t get me wrong–I get along fine with most of the educators I encounter, who are good people and full of all sorts of good ideas and real competence. But I also believe a sickness pervades…
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Reply to Nathan Jurgenson on anti-intellectualism
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 itself. The following will have to do. Jurgenson provides a definition (which he says is based on Hofstadter’s discussion in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life), which combines anti-expertism,…
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Geek anti-intellectualism: replies
My essay on “geek anti-intellectualism” hit a nerve. I get the sense that a lot of geeks are acting–quite unusually for them–defensively, because I’ve presented them with a sobering truth about themselves that they hadn’t realized. Consequently they’ve been unusually thoughtful and polite. This is quite new and startling to me–I mean, there’s something about this…
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Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?
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…
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25 Replies to Maria Bustillos
In a recent essay, in The Awl (“Wikipedia and the Death of the Expert”), Maria Bustillos commits a whole series of fallacies or plain mistakes and, unsurprisingly, comes to some quite wrong conclusions. I don’t have time to write anything like an essay in response, but I will offer up the following clues for Ms.…
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How the Internet Is Changing What We (Think We) Know
This speech is included and fully revised and updated in my 2020 book, Essays on Free Knowledge.
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The New Politics of Knowledge
Speech delivered at the Jefferson Society, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 9, 2007, and at the Institute of European Affairs, Dublin, Ireland, September 28, 2007, as the inaugural talk for the IEA’s “Our Digital Futures” program. I want to begin by asking a question that might strike you as perhaps a little absurd. The…