Gore Vidal, and similar pseudo intellectuals

[JP226]

This is one of my favorite clips of William F Buckley threatening to knock Vidal out. What is it about these so called intellectuals that make so many bow down? More often than not it's them making an opinion on their own lack of knowledge than some kind of advantage in knowledge that they maintain over the "plebs." Granted I"m a conservative and biased, but that doesn't detract away from results. And their arguments, the Vidals and Chomsky's of the world illustrate if anything their gross incompetence for being so intelligent. Are we to pity the fool for being the fool when they can't can't help, or these guys when they are smart enough to not just look at the heart strings of the argument, but really the results when (which is usual) they are wrong?

[removeduser_487563287433]

I can't relate to any stand point where intellectual is a negative word.

[JP226]

I can't relate to any stand point where intellectual is a negative word.

It's a negative when the intellectuals such as these consistently make the wrong choices based on their own glorified opinions. Kinda like Paul Krugman with his Keynesian mindset.

[Каие]

It's a negative when the intellectuals such as these consistently make the wrong choices based on their own glorified opinions. Kinda like Paul Krugman with his Keynesian mindset.

You've contradicted yourself and engaged in gross double standards.

[chilon]

It's a negative when the intellectuals such as these consistently make the wrong choices based on their own glorified opinions.

This goes both ways.

Another example is of the 'intellectual' Milton Friedman who was so caught up in his own glorified opinion on Russia post-glasnost that he gave them advice (based on his confidence in his abstract beliefs not empirical reality) that turned out to produce quite horrible results.

[removeduser_487563287433]

"Wrong" choices.

[JP226]

"Wrong" choices.

Plenty of intellectuals back in thirties, if not really until the late seventies, adovacted a more authoritarian based government and hell flat out planed economies were all the rage by the seventies. Clearly we've realized what was wrong about that and have sensed amended our ways. Atleast in the practical world, I'm sure enough "intellectual's" still think in their coffee and wine bars that such ideas are a good thing despite the results. Which is essentially what Ol' Vidal and Chomsky's position on the matter is.

Just because the thought process is a bit more complex doesn't make it necessarily correct.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Their fancy foreign drinks and fine ways!

All you've done is with the benefit of hindsight selected individual's who happened to be wrong (but of course not on the topic of the Vietnam war, in this case). What's your point? And hang on, what's the results of coffee shops and wine bars?

[JP226]

All you've done is with the benefit of hindsight selected individual's who happened to be wrong (but of course not on the topic of the Vietnam war, in this case).

Hindsight? It was pretty much established that many of the ideas that radicals like Vidal maintained were incorrect well before any result. It doesn't take a genius to tell you that say something like the soviet union wouldnt work out, Mises predicted it about 70 years before fruition for the exact reasons it collapsed. Yet Vidal, Chomsky even Paul Samuelson (who was an incredibly bright economic mind) was wrong. And still people put so much faith in those own opinions and seem to miss the fact that they are really nothing more than opinions.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Again, with hindsight you've selected an individual that happened to be right and somehow used it as an illustration of divine inevitability, coincidentally conforming to your own opinions. Now, what's wrong with coffee shops?

[JP226]

Again, with hindsight you've selected an individual that happened to be right and somehow used it as an illustration of divine inevitability, coincidentally conforming to your own opinions. Now, what's wrong with coffee shops?

Hindsight? They're still wrong preaching the same ideas despite the results we've seen. And people still take them seriously. Nothing is complex about this, I don't see your hangup.

Nothing is coincidental about my opinions, they aren't based on feel good but rather what works and what has worked in the past.

[removeduser_487563287433]

You say your point is people putting stock in opinions - but you then go on to enshrine the opinions you agree with.

[JP226]

You say your point is people putting stock in opinions - but you then go on to enshrine the opinions you agree with.

There was a difference between results and opinions last I checked. Yet knowing you all too well, you're just one of those members that likes to argue for the hell of it.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Last time I checked the Vietnam War was a complete disaster that accomplished nothing and slaughtered a not insignificant proportion of an American generation, yet you attack the man with that opinion. How's that for results?

[Gromovnik]

It's bad enough that these traitors drink coffee, but wine? WINE!? They deserve to hang for that!

[Phier]

Sometimes, you are too smart for your own good and don't understand your limitations.

This seems to be especially true with politics where some very smart people just assume that their system will work because either they don't understand that most people don't think like them or that they assume people like them will be in charge.

I think it relates to the social ineptitude that corresponds with higher intellect.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I think it relates to the social ineptitude that corresponds with higher intellect.

You should have left this attitude behind in the school playground.

I guess it's just a difference between knowledge acquired from books and lectures vs. that from experience. I guess what I mean to say is it's always a battle between Academics (intellectuals) and people who are more exposed to whatever it is the issue may be.

I think that's absolute nonsense and based on redundant stereotyping of a sort of bookworm character.

[Phier]

You should have left this attitude behind in the school playground.

Someone has never been to a MENSA meeting I see.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Someone has never been to a MENSA meeting I see.

And you have?

[Phier]

And you have?

Yes.

I decided not to join.

Funny, how often the opposite statement can be just as valid as the original...

And?