Author Topic: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'  (Read 832 times)

Nearly Sane

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jeremyp

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2022, 04:22:56 PM »
Looks like envy to me.
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ProfessorDavey

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2022, 04:28:03 PM »
Looks like envy to me.
Looks like non-sense to me.

Academia is, first and foremost, about education. And education has always been, and remains, the key to social mobility.

jeremyp

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2022, 06:03:36 PM »
Looks like non-sense to me.

Academia is, first and foremost, about education. And education has always been, and remains, the key to social mobility.
What I meant was that the person who wrote the thread is envious of people who have intelligence.
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Nearly Sane

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2022, 06:14:46 PM »
What I meant was that the person who wrote the thread is envious of people who have intelligence.
Oh I think the person is, in most views of intelligence, very intelligent. That doesn't stop it being being bollocks.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2022, 06:32:49 PM »
What I meant was that the person who wrote the thread is envious of people who have intelligence.
Yes I understood that.

I just thought it was bollox - no idea whether the person writing it is inherently intelligent or not (sometimes generally bright people can think the most stupid things), nor whether she is envious.

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Udayana

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2022, 09:10:22 PM »
Seems to me that she might have a point, although tbh I can't get past the language to work out what it might be.

What is the proposition that is "bollocks"?

The social hierarchy we have is mostly ordered by wealth, though in academia the tendency is to order by education, supposedly corresponding to intelligence - although that is not very well defined. 

Are "intelligent" people intrinsically any better or more deserving, eg. in terms of education, than others?

People supposedly less intelligent can be marginalised, silenced or exploited - justifications of racism and slavery often started by claiming that some peoples were less "intelligent" than others. We know that they weren't but even if it had been true, exploitation would not have been justified.
 
Ah, but I was so much older then ... I'm younger than that now

SteveH

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2022, 10:51:41 PM »
"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."
George Orwell.
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Nearly Sane

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2022, 09:45:43 AM »
Seems to me that she might have a point, although tbh I can't get past the language to work out what it might be.

What is the proposition that is "bollocks"?

The social hierarchy we have is mostly ordered by wealth, though in academia the tendency is to order by education, supposedly corresponding to intelligence - although that is not very well defined. 

Are "intelligent" people intrinsically any better or more deserving, eg. in terms of education, than others?

People supposedly less intelligent can be marginalised, silenced or exploited - justifications of racism and slavery often started by claiming that some peoples were less "intelligent" than others. We know that they weren't but even if it had been true, exploitation would not have been justified.

Part of the reason it's bollocks is because of the problem you have with the language. For something trying to make a point about 'intelligence' being exclusionary, it's written in a deliberately exclusionary manner. It's an example of itself that then means that any real point is wasted.

There are lots of valid questions about how we think of intelligence as regards whether some of it is a cultural bias - Stephen Jay Gould wrote an excellent book on it called The Mismeasure of Man. It concentrates on IQ tests but the pounts it makes are wider. It's powerful, clear, and easy to read. It doesn't though end up with no idea of intelligence which the screed here does but argues that it's easy to miss the bias in cultural knowledge.


What is linked to in the OP is an example, imo, of the vacuously idiotic idea that all opinions and ideas are equally  valid because we have no method to determine any difference. It's where a lot of modern thought seems to be based on a reading of the problem of hard solipsism that says the only truth is subjective truth, which is an oxymoron.


Bad enough that the thinking is quite this worthless but to then dress it up in the faux finery of the worst obscurantist academic writing is laughable, which is why it's beyond parody.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2022, 09:49:57 AM by Nearly Sane »

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Re: 'The ableist fetishization of so-called intelligence in academia'
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2022, 05:38:48 PM »
..
What is linked to in the OP is an example, imo, of the vacuously idiotic idea that all opinions and ideas are equally  valid because we have no method to determine any difference. It's where a lot of modern thought seems to be based on a reading of the problem of hard solipsism that says the only truth is subjective truth, which is an oxymoron.
...

I didn't notice this when I first read it - and I can't be bothered to go through it again... 
Ah, but I was so much older then ... I'm younger than that now