
Anti-Education by Nietzsche, and why mainstream culture does our best thinking - drjohnson
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/08/anti-education-on-the-future-of-our-educational-institutions-friedrich-nietzsche-review
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jfoutz
It's a whole lot easier to write a convincing argument than it is to write a
correct argument. At the start, at the education phase of learning, stuff
needs to be engaging. It's totally worthwhile to invoke emotion, humor,
whatever rhetorical trick is available to convince the student.

Later though, when you hit the frontier, and start thinking things no one ever
thought about, stylized dry writing is easer to evaluate for correctness. You
don't want an emotional investment, you want an objective view so it can be
picked apart based on its own merits. If that stands up, seems correct, or at
least worth more investigation, then it can be dressed up in the easy to
communicate way.

Perhaps some ideas can't be evaluated without investing in their emotional
content. That's a tough place to find truth.

~~~
outlace
"At the start, at the education phase of learning, stuff needs to be engaging"

Perhaps this is true in primary school, but I think in secondary school and
definitely in university, education can be engaging while remaining completely
intellectually honest and devoid of outright appeals to emotion.

When education becomes about how to think and not what to think, it is
inherently more interesting. I remember taking my first moral philosophy class
in university, and much to my surprise, it was one of the most engaging
classes I ever took precisely because it challenged everything I thought I
knew. The professor could have spent the time teaching us what to think (e.g.
just what the major moral philosophy theories are) but instead she used the
socratic method and challenged each of us about what we already believed and
how those philosophers like Kant came to their theories.

Indeed, intellectual and moral relativism is dangerous because it does the
same thing religion does, it is a method of coming to knowledge/truth (an
epistemology) that no one else has access to and/or that relies on subjective
evidence (i.e. emotions/feelings).

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jfoutz
I don't think there's any dishonesty, i think we just like charismatic people
more, and are more inclined to believe them. Maybe we don't look quite so hard
for cracks in their arguments. Double blind peer review helps combat this,
stylized writing helps combat this.

We're just animals. we've got a million subtle biases. I agree with you, we
should challenge what we know and believe. That ain't easy.

~~~
outlace
I see this anti-intellectualism in the world as a major threat to human
advancement (and perhaps existence). I am concerned that scientific and
technological advancements are happening faster than intellectual and moral
progress. If you give a bunch of monkeys a nuclear bomb, it's not going to end
well.

This is why I think promoting reason, promoting awareness of cognitive biases
(as a result of our evolutionary past), and ridding ourselves of this notion
that "standing up for what you believe" (regardless of its validity) is
somehow a virtue, is among the most important (and difficult) projects of our
time.

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ely-s
> I am concerned that scientific and technological advancements are happening
> faster than intellectual and moral progress.

I couldn't agree more.

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rbrogan
If I am reading this right, the argument goes something like this: (1)
Nietzsche was anti-academic and did his best work independently. (2) He was
against academia being used as a means to nation-state ends, and he disliked
how that undermined independent, critical thought. (3) There are similar
problems today in academia where it goes against independent thinking. (4) The
best independent thinking comes through not in high culture, but mainstream
culture and it better explores issues than academia.

IMO, the problem is communication. If you read academic writing (especially in
the humanities) it can seem like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and the person writing
it is not really trying to communicate anything intelligent, but is just
trying to sound impressive. I believe this is mostly not true. Rather, the
problem is the same with technical documentation that is high in rigor and
detail, but low in learnability; the problem is that it is difficult to
communicate. The person writing will usually (IMO) have something in them they
are sincerely trying to express.

The goal of entertainment is to entertain, but it also has to appeal at least
somewhat to the passions of the creators and the intellects of the viewers. So
thinking finds its way through that medium and can reach a mass audience. It
is not that academia has no potential to do the same, it is just that there is
not a dynamic set up which brings it out very well.

~~~
zenogais
IMO (4) is a fatal and clumsy misstep for the entire article, and betrays a
profound lack of contact with Nietzsche's own writing on the part of the
author.

Nietzsche never would have uncritically claimed mainstream culture does our
best thinking any more than he would have given such an honor to academia. So
it's bizarre to see his thought appropriated to that end. He was, in fact,
extremely concerned with the difference between culture that is merely popular
and a genuine, healthy, thriving culture. He saw academics and journalists as
frequent accomplices in the destruction of a thriving, healthy culture by
their appeals to popular taste and public opinion. By their spinning rigorous
sounding tales that merely served to comfort (or discomfort) individuals and
reinforce their existing opinions no matter how deleterious or suspect such
opinions were (eg. about morality, the nobility of the common man, the
goodness/badness of state institutions, etc). Additionally, he was just as
concerned about the influence exerted by nation states on thought as he was
about the similar influence exerted by public opinion, common sense, and
mainstream culture.

To simplify the formula down to "mainstream culture" vs. "the state influenced
academics" is to be overly reductionist and to overlook the part every segment
of society plays in producing uncritical thought.

For more clarity here I would read Nietzsche's "Untimely Meditation" on
'cultural philistinism' \- "David Strauss: the confessor and the writer", and
"Beyond Good and Evil" namely the section "Peoples and Fatherlands" for an
idea of his approach to critique of mainstream culture in his time.

~~~
krotton
I don't see the article claiming Nietzsche would praise popular culture - it
seems to claim otherwise ("Anti-academic Nietzsche may have been, but his
mistake was in pinning his hopes on “high culture”") and it's rather solely
what the author of the article thinks himself.

~~~
yohoho22
Yeah, that's how I read it. And that last bit seemed so shoehorned on there
that it almost seemed like it was an effort to give the story some kind of
hook that the author or an editor might have thought it lacked.

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RamshackleJ
the author cherry picks examples of "mainstream" culture to support his
argument.

It also feels like the separation between education institutions and
"mainstream" culture is a false dichotomy. Especially when 40%+ of the US
population now holds a degree from one of these institutions. While in
Nietzsche's day university was a rare privilege today it is not. Claiming that
something as prolific is separate from mainstream seems wrong.

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sogen
The author is wrong, Adorno for example heavily criticized mass culture
(Disney, E entertainment, celebrities gossip, etc) as pure garbage that
distracts the masses from real topics. Read The culture industry enlightenment
as mass deception Also: The Perverts guide to Ideology And if you're feeling
adventurous, John Gatto's books

~~~
bcook
That's the _worst_ of the mainstream. That is not a valid or logical argument
against the position that the mainstream's best is better than academia's
best.

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vonnik
The writing and thought in this piece is pretty facile. @rbrogan's comment
below sums it up well. Let's remember that Nietzsche received a _very_
rigorous education before his precocious career as a professor.

Sure, there are pressures on the university that push its members away from
independent and critical thought. But independent and critical thought has
threatened institutions with volatility for a long time. I don't think the
wilderness of pop culture is the best place to go looking for it.

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outlace
"...let any idea however offensive be freely expressed, so that it can be
challenged and where necessary rationally rebutted."

Amen to that. If only that were the case, we'd be so much better off.

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javajosh
Nietzsche's sister was a real bitch. Didn't know that.

As for the rest, I found the article concerning. Maybe it's more about the
humanities than the hard sciences, but it seems clear to me that academia is
doing a good job pushing the boundaries of what is known. As for 'culture', no
I don't think academia ever really had the ability or intention to _define_ it
- it seeks, perhaps, to _describe_ it. It's true that modern philosophers have
little effect on real culture, and that's perhaps for the best.

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carapat_virulat
Many of the seminal writers of what the author calls The American cult of
political correctness in universities, like Derrida, Foucault, de Bevoir,
Butler, Adorno have all been influenced by Nietzsche.

I haven't read any of those authors nor Nietzsche, and I have no idea
whatsoever about the political correctness that goes on in the USA so I'm not
trying to make any kind of point.

I just find it funny that conservatives have a certain pop idea of Nietzsche
as some kind of more serious Ayn Rand, while actual Nietzsche scholars have
actualized his ideas in all kinds of directions.

~~~
JackFr
The American cult of political correctness may have paid lip service to those
authors 20 or 30 years ago, but the current regime of trigger warnings and
safe spaces doesn't even pretend to have an intellectual basis. It's grounded
largely on the supremacy of the subjective experience, 'feelsies' if you will.

That being said, your complaint about conservatives is a bit of a straw man.

~~~
wfo
Pretty much dead on.

I don't think any conservatives think of Nietzsche as a more serious Ayn Rand,
rather they think of Ayn Rand as serious herself. Reading Nietzsche (or any
philosopher really) without the proper context these days he appears just
genuinely weird. I think non-intellectual people on the left read Derrida and
Foucault and it eventually turned into trigger warnings and safe spaces. Non-
intellectual people on the right read Nietzsche and it eventually turned into
books called things like "Atlas Shrugged" and polemics about "makers and
takers".

