#intellectuals

[city-of-ladies]

In 1405, the French writer Christine de Pizan was finishing her Book of the City of Ladies. A response to sexist prejudices and literature, her writings highlighted women's contributions to history and society.

Advocating in favor of women’s education, she wrote of Novella d’Andrea, daughter of Italian jurist Giovanni d’Andrea (c.1275-1348):

To give you a similar, more recent example, without going back to ancient history, there is the case of the famous jurist Giovanni Andrea. He taught at Bologna not quite sixty years ago. He, too, did not share the opinion that education would corrupt women, so he had his lovely and cherished daughter Novella educated in literature and law. When he was busy with other tasks and unable to lecture his students, he would send Novella in his place to present the lecture. In order to ensure that her beauty did not distract her audience, she lectured from behind a small curtain. In that way, she complemented her father and sometimes lightened his load. He loved her so much that he wanted to commemorate her name, so he authored an important legal treatise and named it after his daughter Novella. 

Christine draws a parallel between hers and Novella's story. Her father was supportive of her academic pursuits but her mother wanted her to focus on more traditionally feminine tasks such as spinning and weaving. 

The veracity of this story has been disputed. While some scholars have doubted it, others consider it reliable. Christine’s father had been an academic contemporary of Giovanni d’Andrea at Bologna and was still in contact with his family by 1351. She could thus have learned of Novella through him. 

It is sometimes written that Novella’s sister, Bettina, taught law at Padua. This is a sixteenth-century invention based on Novella’s story. It is however true that Giovanni d’Andrea used to ask his wife’s advice on legal questions. 

Feel free to check out my Ko-Fi if you like what I do! Your support would be much appreciated.

Further reading 

Clarke Peter D., “Giovanni d’Andrea”, in: Condorelli Orazio, Domingo Rafael (ed.), Law and the Christian Tradition in Italy: The Legacy of the Great Jurists            

De Pizan Christine, The Book of the city of ladies

[philosophybits]

Some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game. It is as if the class from which independent intellectuals have defected takes its revenge, by pressing its demands home in the very domain where the deserter seeks refuge.

Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia

[machiavellian-sinner]

"Match my freak," this. "Match my energy," that. What about "match my intellect," huh? Huhh??? What about that????????

[phireco]

Why I think that voting is pointless. Vote with your dollar. Stop buying from Amazon and Walmart. And take the time that you spend trolling the internet to put out intellectual writing for others to absorb, instead of memes, that provide a unique point of view. We can't all possibly think either point A or point B is right. That motion is completely ridiculous if you have any respect for probability and math. The people that are running do not represent us and we have been stupid enough as a citizenry to put them back in office again and again.

I've been to over 20 countries and traveled all over this world and seeing all different ways of living it I'll tell you what, we are looking less and less like one of the Premier places to live. I give it 20 years before I would like the places I've been in Southeast Asia where you look to your left and right on the bus, and you see a goat in a chicken. There's already more tents in the major American cities than there are good jobs. God forbid the Democrats or the Republicans have a solution. The Republicans have the same man running in his third consecutive presidential election representing half of the country. The Democrats have a ANOTHER First time nominee that no one thinks is the best their party has to offer.

So I'm not even going to blame the awful selection of people that represent us. I'm going to blame the idiots that register Democrat and Republican which make up the vast majority of this country. All of you are willing to make up your mind on an issue before you even hear it based on which party is arguing in the issue's favor. Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear an issue is a moron. And our country, in both parties, is chock full of moron!

It’s not the politicians we should criticize anymore. Consider how they pander to people whose interests they consistently neglect. They represent none of their true needs, yet still, half of the population admires them while the other half despises them. The opposing figures experience the same divided loyalty—this cycle is fundamentally flawed.

The blame doesn’t lie solely with the politicians; it rests on us. We should have demanded better a long time ago, even rising up for change. It’s not the politicians who are at fault; it’s the public that deserves scrutiny. Let go of hope for a moment.

If the politicians were truly the sole problem, where are the bright and principled individuals who should be stepping up to lead this nation with integrity? In truth, we seem to lack such visionary leaders in our society. Most people appear consumed by trivialities, distracted in shopping malls rather than engaging with the critical issues we face. For my part, I’ve accepted a personal resolution: on election day, I stay home. I do not vote. My reasons are twofold.

First, voting feels meaningless. This country was bought and sold long ago. What transpires every four years is simply a reshuffling of the same rhetoric.

Secondly, I’ve come to believe that those who vote relinquish their right to complain. Others often suggest that abstaining from voting strips one of that very right—a notion I reject. Where's the logic in that? If you cast your ballot and elect dishonest and incompetent leaders who mismanage the country, then you shoulder the responsibility for their actions. You bear the weight of our current state, the dismal future we hand our children, and the decline in intellectual capability that increasingly permeates society.

I, having not participated in the electoral game—staying home on election day—hold no responsibility for the choices made by those in power. I know that shortly, there will be an exciting election that many seem to relish. I’ll be at home that day, doing very little, but I know one thing: the only difference between me and the people that vote is that I'll actually produce something that represents my interests, even if in a small way.

I don’t vote. I see through the charade. It's a diversions that distract us from the journey of intellectual growth. When confronted with the issues of low intelligence and poor decision-making, people often leap to the conclusion that education is the remedy. They call for more funding—more books, teachers, classrooms—believing more resources will solve everything. Yet when we point out that despite these efforts, children continue to struggle academically, the response is often to lower standards instead. This results in a temporary boost in passing rates, making the school look good while the national IQ quietly declines. Before long, gaining access to college might just require possessing a pencil, and understanding the complexities of the end that writes versus the end that erases.

And then we scratch our heads, wondering why 24 countries produce more scientists than we do. We wonder why we are no longer in the top 25 and overall quality of education. Barely the best in this continent. We're just one slot above Mexico.

Politicians know how to wield the word “education,” and they often shield themselves behind three pillars: the flag, the Bible, and children. They tout programs like “No Child Left Behind,” yet it wasn’t long ago they were advocating for a “head start.” Are children gaining ground or losing it?

There is a fundamental reason why education falters, and it's not going to improve. Don’t expect a miracle; accept the reality as it is. The true owners of this country—wealthy business interests that orchestrate decisions and maintain control—are not interested in an educated populace capable of critical thinking. They benefit from a workforce obedient enough to follow orders, yet just intelligent enough to operate machinery and handle paperwork but not to challenge the deteriorating quality of their jobs, benefits, hours, or retirement security.

They have their sights set on your social security funds, too, seeking to reclaim that money to line the pockets of their Wall Street allies. They will achieve this eventually because they own everything—your future, your choices.

This is a vast, intertwined club, and neither you nor I are included. It’s a club that beats its members over the head with messages on what to believe and consume. The playing field is uneven; the game is rigged, and it appears that few notice or care.

Good, honest people from every walk of life—whether blue-collar or white-collar—continue to elect wealthy figures indifferent to their plight. The owners count on this ignorance, banking on the fact that Americans remain blissfully unaware of the injustices they tolerate.

The truth is simple: the American Dream exists because you must be asleep to believe in it.

When the terrorists attacked our country on September 11th 2001, we United as one and vowrd to never forget. Never in a million years did I think that's what we actually met was that, we're going to commemorate the anniversary of the year but they will accomplish their goal and destroy America and everything it stands for by knocking down a few buildings and killing a couple thousand people. Are teenagers have killed more since with guns. And don't mistake me. I'm not downplaying that tragedy. I'm saying that the terrorists knew what they are doing and we are playing right into their hands by standing here divided. Check out my video if you want to flash back to hell it felt To be an American in the weeks following that awful day.

[gregor-samsung]

L'avenir [Things to Come] (Mia Hansen-Løve - 2016)

[dimitrow]

I hate small talk.

I wanna talk about atoms, death, aliens, sex, magic, intellect, the meaning of life, far away galaxies, the lies you've told, your flaws, your favorite scents, your childhood, what keeps you up at night, your insecurity

and fears...

I like people with depth, who speak with emotion from a twisted mind.

I don't want to know "what's up".

[philosophybitmaps]

[thirdity]

Intellectuals are doomed to disappear when artificial intelligence bursts on the scene, just as the heroes of silent cinema disappeared with the coming of the talkies. We are all Buster Keatons.

Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories II

[philosophicalconservatism]

Response To Post On Intellectuals and Authoritarianism.

tmblrbye

It was creatives and intellectuals that pushed the whole of western society away from Monarchy and Aristocracy, into the present era of (yes totally compromised) democracies.

philosophicalconservatism

No it was not.

It was radical 18th century intellectuals who fomented the French Revolution and its bloody Reign Of Terror, on the basis of abstract ideological passion alone. This was abstract ideological passion not anchored or grounded in history or experience. Its result was anarchy followed by the replacement of a king with an emperor. It was not Democracy. By contrast, The American Revolution was not an endeavor by intellectuals to entirely reinvent a society from scratch, it was in fact an attempt to preserve a way of life that had organically evolved over time on the North American continent from an outside threat. It was therefore the antithesis of the French Revolution; an attempt to preserve not overthrow an existing order. This was why Edmund Burke, the father of political Conservatism supported the American Revolution but opposed the French.

Today intellectuals are at the forefront of the movement against free societies and in support of Socialist/Statist ideologies. And their opposition to American style liberal Democracy did not take long; their initial affection for the American Revolution died quickly. Fourier and Marx were attacking that system just a decade or two after the death of Jefferson. This was never what those utopian intellectuals had in mind.

[halfawillowtree]

Who are You

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Intellectual, spiritual, and artistic initiative is as dangerous to totalitarianism as the gangster initiative of the mob, and both are more dangerous than mere political opposition. The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable. Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

—Hannah Arendt, On the Origins of Totalitarianism, pt iii, ch x, p 461 (1951). As Arendt states in a footnote around this passage, the reason is that the first-rate talent who agrees with you, no matter how much he or she agrees with you, does so from having made his or her own assessment and decision (free initiative)—that is, does so in a way that reserves the right, even if only hypothetically, to disagree with you. Even the very fact of free agreement with totalitarianism is a danger to totalitarian authority: what the wannabe totalitarian demands is helpless agreement, agreement that could not be otherwise.

[Robert Scott Horton]

[ajumbleoffk]

I wish I had the wherewithal to get on Twitter, find some ridiculous tweet from some online intellectual, and just destroy them so badly and thoroughly that all that looked upon it would be filled with awe. Not so much because I want to be Mr. Big Stuff or feared, but just because .... I don't know why. I just feel so insignificant.

However, when you take a more cosmic view of things, none of this really matters to the universe. We and the solar system are but grains of dust.

Then again, I think of something that Eddie Murphy's character said in that movie "Holy Man". He tells of story of a girl picking up starfish that had washed up on the beach - throwing them back in the ocean. "You can't save them all," he said to her. She responded, "No, but to each one that I save it matters its whole world."

I'm paraphrasing of course. It's just something to think about, I guess. Things matter in different ways from different perspectives.

It takes both microscopes and telescopes to bring new things into view. We can change our whole outlook by zooming in and zooming out.

I matter to myself. I guess that is good enough for me.

[philosophybits]

The man of powerful intellect runs over with ideas; he scatters them by the handful. He is wretched if he cannot share them with others, cannot scatter them to the four winds, for in this is his life.

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality

[infinitysisters]

“There has long been a tendency in some intellectual circles to believe that the justice of a cause must be proportional to the lengths that people are willing to go to promote it. Only very desperate people, the argument goes, would do such things; therefore, since they do such things, they must be desperate.

The truth is otherwise. As one of the most efficient genocides in history-that of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994-proved, genocide can be fun. People in Rwanda hunted and killed their neighbors and then spent the evenings celebrating, feasting, singing, and dancing. They were happy with their day's work and couldn't wait to resume it. In fact, it was the time of their lives.

Intellectual support in the West for the Soviet Union was at its height when the regime was at its worst. Its atrocities were known and obvious. It was only when the Soviet Union moderated its repression and seemed to have lost the courage of its brutality that support for it in the West waned. Moscow was no longer a model for intellectuals that they deemed worthy of imitation once they had attained power. It had become grey and banal rather than vivid, exciting, and experimentally utopian.”

//Theodore Dalrymple

[burningvelvet]

Mary Shelley’s Journal Entry from July 27th, 1816: she, Percy, and Claire return to Byron’s villa and to their child and nanny after visiting Mont Blanc.

“Saturday, July 27. — It is a most beautiful day, without a cloud. We set off at 12. The day is hot, yet there is a fine breeze. We pass by the Great Waterfall, which presents an aspect of singular beauty. The wind carries it away from the rock, and on towards the north, and the fine spray into which it is entirely dissolved passes before the mountain like a mist.

The other cascade has very little water, and is consequently not so beautiful as before. The evening of the day is calm and beautiful. Evening is the only time I enjoy travelling. The horses went fast, and the plain opened before us. We saw Jura and the Lake like old friends. I longed to see my pretty babe. At 9, after much inquiring and stupidity, we find the road, and alight at Diodati. We converse with Lord Byron till 12, and then go down to Chapuis, kiss our babe, and go to bed.”