Just out of curiosity do Gore and Bush now qualify as "historical
Archaeology"? To some extent both are "dead and buried" but...
Also I suspect that many voted for Bush not because he was "someone
they could drink beer with" (I for one am a wine drinker), but because
they thought he would make a better president. And to date no one has
demonstrated that we were lied into Iraq. There was poor intelligence,
still is. But the job of a commander is to look at what there is and
make decisions. Bush did, you are free to disagree with them. I, as a
former intel professional, would argue that to a large degree he did
the best he could with what he had. If even the Iraqis thought there
was a WMD program, how the heck were we supposed to figure it out. And
by the way WMDs have been found, admittedly only a few thousand (last
count I saw). But it was chemical, not nuclear.
I would also add that while it is reasonable to work to reduce
pollution, I remain a little skeptical of the human parts of global
warming. After all the global warming that allowed for the Greenland
Vikings had little to do with the industrial revolution. There have
also been wild swings in the global climate over the past 200 million
years that clearly had nothing to do with us. And to some extent
global warming has achieved "religion" status. They used to burn
heretics, now they pillory or ruin the career of, anyone who doesn't
support global warming. Science is not about facts, it is about
theories. And it is not unusual to find that everything you know is
wrong. 30 years ago everyone was all worried about the coming ice age.
Where did that go?
On the other hand I would agree that there is an anti-intellectual
aspect of world, and perhaps US society. This is the same society that
remains glued to the boob tube watching absolute drivel. Subscribes to
an incredible degree to the cult of the celebrity.
Part of the problem is that intellectuals come off as incomprehensible
snobs. I have an Anthropology BA from U Penn and MA in Historical
Archaeology from WIlliam and Mary and frankly many conference papers
are just incomprehensible jargon. There are very few "popular"
archaeologists. Unfortunately we need a few Indiana Jones'. And often
the few that manage to come to the fore, Like Ivor Noel Hume, are
shunned by REAL professionals. The result is that we, and other
intellectuals, produce stuff only comprehensible to a small fragment
of the population. And incomprehensible to the "common' people who
provide our funding. Any wonder that they are anti-intellectual?
On Jul 23, 2009, at 8:59 AM, geoff carver wrote:
> But that ties in with the whole inversion: people voted for Bush
> because he was supposedly someone they could drink beer with, while
> Gore was too much of the intellectual elite, but now you claim he's
> anti-intellectual?
> Most probably going off-topic, but I was trying to suggest some
> relation between the "global warming is religion" discourse with
> Orwell's "war is peace" slogan in 1984, and his idea that material
> culture (in the form of a photo, but also snatches of song, remains
> of old buildings, human memory) was the only "fixed point" upon
> which we could build our philosophical foundations. Then I also
> remember the lies that started the war in Iraq & such things as
> Reagan's claims that trees cause the most pollution, so... I find
> your comment really paradoxical, coming from an historical
> archaeologist... are you making an argument or is this an example?
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> In general, we live in an anti-intellectual society where you don't
> really have to know the facts anymore...simply pretend you know,
> like Mr. Gore.
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