I used Gore as an example. He is intellectual enough to understand that in general, society is anti-intellectual and easily steered. He's a politician...not an expert on global warming. And, the function of religion (if I remember correctly) is to establish social mores or control, explain the unexplainable, and redistribute wealth. Within this context, global warming as religion fits nicely in an anti-intellectual society. Global warming could just as easily have been championed by Madonna or Bono, or Hannah Montana for that matter. At this point, if anyone could scientifically prove global warming as natural they would probably be ostracized. He has an advantage because he will probably be dead and gone before the next Ice Age:)
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd [Passages from an Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, Bertrand Russell (1943)].
----- Original Message -----
From: "geoff carver" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 7:59:23 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: NY Times article
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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