Towers of Learning

“And Occupy’s educated morons are the end product.”
Well, it’s interesting just how many Occupiers are recipients of, or peddlers of, this kind of pseudo-education. But they needn’t be morons as such. Many of them have relatively high IQs. It’s more that they’ve been schooled in a far-leftist worldview, which generally requires that one avoid thinking about certain, rather obvious things in certain, rather obvious ways. Despite the guff about “critical thinking” and “critical theory,” there’s a remarkable shortage of autonomous mental activity. The Occupiers don’t seem very knowledgeable or sceptical; they’re typically ignorant and credulous. And more often than not, they’re also narcissistic and bizarrely arrogant.

Dan,
Glad you liked. It explores a lot of the themes we’ve touched on here over the years.
As Horowitz says in the lecture, this kind of narcissism and stupidity exists – and flourishes – because it’s institutionally supported. The people he mentions (and the dozens of academic clowns noted here) don’t exist in a vacuum. However incompetent or unhinged they may be, almost every one of them has enjoyed endorsement and approval from their peers. You don’t get tenure, or get to be a Distinguished Professor or a department chairman, without some institutional backup. They’re not just random anomalies; they’re expressions of a culture, a fiefdom – one that’s become dishonest and dysfunctional. And, as Horowitz says, exposure and embarrassment are apparently the only tools to have any effect, however temporarily.