More On Intellectualism And Common Sense

October 11, 2008 / 1:20 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Sarah commented:

Do the patients coming to your chiropractic clinic care about your education? Are they looking for the best, ie, elite care they can find based on your education as well as experience? Or is just seeing the title “Doctor” enough to convince them of your elite training?

Excellent question, Sarah! That example is perfect.

When I was in Chiropractic College, I stumbled across a wide spectrum of individuals:
There were the knobby heads who could memorize facts cold, did well on tests and had an amazing ability to integrate the knowledge into clinical experience.

Then there were the knobby heads who could memorize facts, did well on tests, had trouble with integrating the knowledge and were good intellectually but had a terrible time relating the knowledge to an actual hurting person.

Most people were above average intelligence, did pretty good on tests, could integrate their knowledge and were terrific clinicians.

Some people in this above average range could not relate to patients, either, but didn’t have the intellectual fortitude to do pure research. These people can make up for it with excellent business experience or they tend to suffer in practice.

And the there were the people who brought up the rear. Most of them struggled both intellectually and clinically. Some few in this category had a gift though–an innate ability to either diagnose or treat or both and it didn’t come from superior intellect or test taking power but some other place of their brains not yet fully understood. This person was rare and their gifts usually didn’t manifest until they had made it into their clinical rounds. I can think of one guy in particular who was this way.

There were docs in all of these categories that I wouldn’t let touch me with a ten foot pole either for personality or skill reasons. They might even be an intellectual giant, but that does not necessarily translate into being a good doctor.

The same goes for politics. There are people, Chief Justice Roberts comes to mind, who has a monster intellect and the incredible ability to translate the complex into language the common person can understand and grasp. That does not necessarily mean I will always agree with his opinions, by the way, just that I respect the mind and thought process that got him there.

Sarah Palin strikes me as bright, but not genius smart. What she also has is an ability to put the knowledge in context and grasp the effects of the policy. She has a gift for practical reasoning.

Some on the left seem to think we need an intellectual giant as president and that will guarantee smart policy. That is a non-sequitor of dismaying proportions–as anyone who spent time around the smarty-pants set knows.

No one wants an idiot for President. No one wants someone who despises intellectualism as our President. It would be nice, though, if the next President had a grasp of how the pointy-headed theories actually relate to real life.

Average American’s aren’t suspicious of intellectualism. They’re suspicious of people who think that intellectuals are the only ones with answers. Good sense is imperative for a President to succeed. He doesn’t have to be the smartest guy in the room–he just has to recognize the guy with the smartest ideas.

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  • Mr. Chuckles

    Melissa,

    The Chinese despised intellectuals as well – look at Mao’s cultural revolution from 1966 to 1976. Those with education and “intellectual” positions were paraded throught the streets, stoned and jailed. When you mock intellectualism, it smacks of the same type of disdain that Mao and his followers had. No one disagrees that the smartest people are often the ones lacking what we call “common sense”, but the reason many of us are supicious of electing the ordinary mary (her identification as one of us is hightly suspect anyway…)is simply the result of the last eight years. When we “elected” Bush, the theory was that he could relate to the average joe. Nothing has been farther from the truth. The Conneticut cowboy who seemed to be straightforward and plain speaking was not just simply full of poor judgement (and something else…), but moreover he was not able to recognize the guy/gal with the best ideas as well. Palin scares many of us because choosing “one of us” was the same argument that was used last time, and it has turned out to be a disaster on a number of fronts.

  • http://www.melissaclouthier.com Melissa

    What, in this post suggests that I am anti-intellectual? I am well aware of what communists and dictatorial regimes do when the get power–Chavez is a case in point. The very intellectuals who support the socialist’s rise are Lways shocked when they’re the first ones persecuted.

    Give one example of Bush silencing his opposition. The problem with your hyperbole is that it dimishes the real suffering that happens in rogue regimes.

    I am not con-intellectual. I am pro-intellectual with a healthy dose of sense. A president should be smart and have sense.

    The Left paints every Republican nominee as stupid except for Nixon who they cast as evil. That demonization reveals contempt for the average American. Republicans have won a lot of Presidential elections.

    Ultimately, what does that say about Americans?

  • Mr. Chuckles

    More than one example:

    September 2001:

    Ari Fleischer (mouthpiece of “annointed by God” leader): “Right now everyone should watch what they say” (or what????)

    Not sure of date, but Bushco tried to suppress gov’t findings (EPA I think – you know, the knobby heads) on climate change. When they wouldn’t get with the program, he simply replaced the department head.

    2004:
    Ordered “free speech zones” for convention protesters (this one pissed me off more than most of his shenanigans – I spent nearly five years in the military helping defend our freedoms and this jackass essentially jailed protesters who were excercising their right to free speech).

    There are more, but to address your other point:

    I am in NO way trying to diminish the suffering of people under brutal regimes. My wife and I spent our time in the military as Chinese and Vietnamese translators respectively, and we both have first hand accounts of what went on in those countries. Some of the ordeals that my instructors went through defy imagination. This is exactly why I am scared shitless of blind nationalism, anti-intellectualism and patriotic fervor. Mcain and Palin’s slogan is “country first”. Over what? Individual freedoms? How about “think first, consult the knobby heads and act with good sense”. Bushco all but crushed opposition into going into Iraq with nationalistic jingoism and contempt for the “intellectuals” who dared question his judgement. Sorry, I don’t need more of the same, and neither do my brethren who are getting their legs, hands and heads blown off.

    Lastly, while I can’t speak for the so-called left, I have never painted republican presidents as stupid (current monkey being the exception). W’s father was a highly intelligent man, but he was caught up in trying to curtail the excess defense spending of his predecessor. Eisenhower was also a brilliant man – Westpoint grad, president of Columbia University, excellent tactician, etc.
    Nonetheless, you will have to concede some boneheadedness on the part of some of them. Frankly, the best republican presidents have also been some of the best educated (I realize Lincoln was not “formally” educated, but he was well read nonetheless).

    A lot of Democrats have won elections as well – what does THAT say about the average American? Do you really believe that only the pointy headed types and welfare recipients vote Dem?
    Demonizing a republican president does not show contempt for the average joe anymore than demonizing a dem pres. does. Clinton was spit upon by the right from day one. He had one of the highest approval ratings in modern history – this means the majority of people in this country liked him. Do you hold the majority in contempt for thier approval of him?

    P.S. What gift for practical reasoning does Palin posess over her competition?

  • http://www.melissaclouthier.com Melissa

    I haven’t made the argument that Dems are dummies or that Americans are stupid about who they elect. I do think Americans have been deceived and regretted their choices. You may be the exception, but every Republican President of my lifetime has been vilified as stupid or evil–often both.

    Stupid is defined as disagreeing with leftist policy, because only idiots wouldn’t see the intelligence of limiting gun rights, opposing abortion, limiting government, lowering taxes, fill-in-the-blank.

    There seems no room to respectfully disagree.

    You mention contempt for intellectualism, the bigger problem, in my book, is the contempt the entire ruling class has for the average voter and taxpayer. The MSM also shows unbelievable disregard for their consumer.

    Sarah Palin, if I had to guess, at least matches.Obama’s intelligence. I don’t necessarily believe that says much. Bill Clinton is without A doubt the smartest executive we have had in recent history. Unfortuntely, his moral compass wasn’t as finely tuned as his mind. His behavior undermined what could have been a triumphant presidency.

    Sarah Palin’d impulse is to see how the political affects the personal–she is not so far removed from how government policy affects the individual to forget what the co sequen we can be. I think there is a reason why Clinton and Reagan were such admired Presidents. But Reagan was painted just as Palin is–a stupid rube. With Palin, we get the lovely White Trash slams,too.

  • http://www.melissaclouthier.com Melissa

    I” posting from my iPhone by the way. Sorry for the misspellings and weir re t correction.

  • WayneB

    I don’t have contempt for intellectualism, I have contempt for “intellectuals” who have no real-world experience. How many times, back in the ’60s and ’70s did the scenario of the businessman who expected his son to take over the company make that son start in the mailroom so he could get an idea of how the company worked? There’s a REASON for that. People get educations in THEORETICAL business scenarios, but in practice, theory never survives the first crisis, or sometimes, the first shift change.

    McCain and Palin have experience in the real world that Obama and Biden do not. Obama and Biden have theory, while McCain and Palin have experience.

  • http://mkfreeberg.webloggin.com Morgan K Freeberg

    I see a lot of things happening when democrats tell us one among their own is “smart”:

    First of all, the process by which they decree Bill Clinton or John Kerry or Al Gore or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to be “smart,” is a depressing exercise in anti-intellectualism itself. All the sins you can make against brain-smarts, are in that process. They think something because someone else told ‘em to think that; they’re bullying YOU around, trying to make you think this third-party (neither one of you have met) is smart, just because they’re bullying you; they’re confusing gift-o-gab with across-the-board smarts; the list goes on and on. These are all anti-intellectual things to do, and they’re doing them, toward the goal of defining who’s smart and who isn’t.

    Second, of course, is that it’s confirmation bias writ large. The message unspoken is that democrats are just plain smart. Find a guy who thinks John Kerry is smart…who democrat does that guy think is average intellect or below? The answer, invariably, is nobody. It’s not about smarts. It’s about democrats. It’s just propaganda, a lot of folks know it, but nobody ever says it.

    Third: The definition is sloppy. You quickly gather the impression, and you’re right, that the conversation/bullying-session isn’t really about *smarts*. These famous democrats aren’t presented as people functionally smart, above-average, IQ somewhere in the 125-135 range…if you’re working late and the deadline is tomorrow, would you want them working on it with you, or some big dummy. It’s not that kind of smarts. These are luminous beings. Barack Obama has wrinkles on his brain you don’t have. You should be squealing in delight to be breathing thet same oxygen as them.

    If you pay attention to politics for any length of time, you understand this to be a political gimmick, nothing more — that’s even if you agree with what’s being attempted here, even if you’re a leftist. It only works because most people don’t pay that much attention. Most people hear this discourse about smartness, they think the ideas are all about smartness and nothing else. They couldn’t be more wrong.

  • http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1849399,00.html Glynn W.

    You hate because Obama is smarter than Palin or McCain.
    This article is simply wordy justification for supporting dum-dums. Palin is ignorant and McCain is unhinged.

    Simply a matter of public record.

    Want proof? Read the recent ethics report about her “shocking incompetence”.

    http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1849399,00.html

    We have had enough ignorance in the White House to last generations.

  • http://mkfreeberg.webloggin.com Morgan K Freeberg

    ………I rest my case.

  • Pingback: Hatin’ Palin: The Intellectual Exercise In Action « Blog Entry « Dr. Melissa Clouthier

  • WayneB

    “We have had enough ignorance in the White House to last generations.”

    Yet you want someone totally disconnected from the real world of cause and effect to be put there. Yeah, that’s a good idea.

  • http://www.darleenclick.com/weblog Darleen Click

    Glynn

    if The One is so brilliant, where are his college transcripts? Where is one article he authored as a so-called Constitutional Professor or while he was the historic head of the Havard Law Review?

    The One has a wonderful grasp of rhetoric and he plays as dirty as any Chicago pol that ever oozed from the Daley playground, but “brilliance” doesn’t guarantee good values or morality.

    The Left is morally bankrupt and The One is one with them.

  • http://www.darleenclick.com/weblog Darleen Click

    BTW, Time is a Obama campaign organ.

    The “report” is from one investigator, hasn’t been accepted or vetted by the committee and the most important thing buried in 263 pages of tortured obfuscations by a political hit-man is that Palin did nothing illegal. Period.

    And most alarming in the report is that, regardless that trooper Wooten is a racist, a child abuser, and made murderous threats against the Palin family, the “investigator” says any “fear” by the Palin family was “not legitimate”.

  • http://photoncourier.blogspot.com david foster

    Why do self-defined intellectuals in the Democratic Party get so much support from the very un-intellectual celebrity class of our country?

  • Trish

    There is, after all, a difference between being “learned” and being “educated.” I’ve heard the term “educated fool,” but I’ve never heard anyone say “learned fool.” When you’re “learned” you know what you’re talking about.

    You can be both intelligent and sensible. You can be intelligent but not sensible. You can be sensible but not intelligent. And, of course, you can be neither.

  • Headless Unicorn Guy

    Chief Justice Roberts comes to mind, who has a monster intellect and the incredible ability to translate the complex into language the common person can understand and grasp.

    In French, this is called vulgarization, defined pretty much the same. My favorite example is Stephen Jay Gould, who in his essay collections was able to explain complex paleo/biological science in easily-understandable terms. Another example was Carl Sagan, whose popularity from this (largely due to Cosmic Connection and Cosmos) led to his being blackballed from at least one scientific academy.

    Some on the left seem to think we need an intellectual giant as president and that will guarantee smart policy. That is a non-sequitor of dismaying proportions–as anyone who spent time around the smarty-pants set knows.

    Or somebody whose IQ places them firmly in “the smarty-pants set”. I sure as hell wouldn’t want someone like me (IQ 160) running either the country I live in or the company I work for.

    There’s some sort of a conservation of mental energy taking place; you pay for that Intellect (TM) with neuroses, alienation, and attitude, “Growing up Martian” until you’re like some sort of Other Being looking in at a species of humans who think much slower than you. (But are able to focus enough to get the job done, at which point envy and jealousy set in. Then the snobbery and nastiness follow.)

    (One fictional allegory of this was in the novel Xenocide by Orson Scott Card, where the population of the world of Path are “crippled geniuses”, with uber-genius-level IQs accompanied by crippling obsessive-compulsive disorders.)