Anti- Intellectualism in American Life

Glad to know we both have similar tastes in Literature and storied places, such as Andalicia.

F. Scott Fitzgerald had a wonderful definition for intelligence - "the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in the mind at the same time".

I'd be quite happy to smoke a peace pipe here on the shared agreement (you can also have two goats and my next door neighbor's daughter) that the intellectual and the practical fellow are characters of equal and necessary worth in a healthy society.

I spend a week there one night. Loverly moon on the bay.

georgeob1 wrote:

Glad to know we both have similar tastes in Literature and storied places, such as Andalicia.

I like your typo, George! Would be a lovely place...

I've learned something about you in this, thomas. You have a clear affinity for the American experiment and perhaps particularly for the aspect of what you term "bottom up" social organization. I see it in your preference for states' rights over strong federalism, for example. It's an entirely justifiable preference and to a great extent, I share it with you and with george. There's a very good set of reasons why I would simply not fit in an hierarchical organization like a school, or a church (hi george) or the military (hi again). But my 'libertarian' streak leads me to defend the aspirations of the intellect, the Ichabod Crane love of ideas in books and in noggins.

I was fed up with your elevating sentiments, George. So I tried to divert the whole thing...

I indeed prefer your argumentative mode...

I'm speechless ! (This probably won't last,)

I was fed up with your elevating sentiments, George. So I tried to divert the whole thing...

I indeed prefer your argumentative mode...

I have found that in a perverse way there is more freedom of action and expresion to be found in military life than in (say) the business world. The required conformity in the military was absolute, but it didn't go very deep. The menagerie of characters I encountered in the Navy was far broader and more varied than the relatively monotone cast I have seen in a variety of companies since then,

A somewhat similar caveat is merited with respect to religion too. Much depends on which one and what frm. One could say that, among American practicioners at least, psychological guild begins for Reformed Jews when they decide to do it; for Protestants it starts when they actually do it; and for Catholics (certainly Irish ones) it doesn't start until you get caught.

The DeLorean DMC-12 of 1981-83, he writes, had an engine "so weak it would struggle to pull a hobo off your sister." Not since Raymond Chandler have I met a metaphor so much more powerful than would do.

By ROY BLOUNT JR.
Published: November 20, 2005
The captions to photographs of shiny automobiles are generally complimentary, I believe. In this book they are full of spleen. The effect is startling, and on the whole salutary, like a corporate report with text by laid-off employees. In their picturesque or showroom settings, the cars as illustrated call for ta-daaa. And on the facing page, the author, Richard Porter, a British automobile critic, goes plppp.

The DeLorean DMC-12 of 1981-83, he writes, had an engine "so weak it would struggle to pull a hobo off your sister." Not since Raymond Chandler have I met a metaphor so much more powerful than would do.

Which is not to say that Porter slings figures of speech around indiscriminately. The body of the G.M. EV1 (1996-99), he tells us, resembles "a snake trapped under a rock," and so it does. With regard to performance, Porter turns phrases the way sports cars should take corners. The Chrysler K-Car (l981-89) may have "pulled Chrysler from the depths of financial trouble," he concedes, "but did it have to be such a weedy little griefbox?" The handling of the 1974-78 Datsun B210 was "like trying to steer a wheelbarrow full of logs."

His take on the 1993-2002 Hummer H1 holds up on sociocultural grounds alone: "Imagine if there'd been some sort of hideous Pentagon mess-up and someone had decided that the Army would go into battle driving a fleet of Camrys. . . . So why in the name of all that's holy is it somehow acceptable to cruise down to the mall in a military vehicle?"

We find a "stubby and square" Maserati here, a "bandy-legged" BMW, and a Cadillac Seville that "started in fine Caddy style with a long, flat hood and high, proud passenger cabin and then just fizzled out into an apologetic bustle." I do wish Porter hadn't likened the Suzuki X-90 (1996-98) to "a vomit omelet," because I can't get that epithet out of my head. But judging by the photograph (in which the car is set against a red-rock butte), he is not overstating the case by much. And it's sound advice he gives in connection with the Geo Metro Convertible (l990-93): "Don't buy a car that's smaller, and indeed less comfortable, than your shoes."

Which brings us to the original Volkswagen Beetle, shown here with miniskirted women frolicking around it. In my youth I had a VW Bug, $400 used, and it seemed O.K. at the time. But Porter is right, its heater was "pathetic." And one look at those frolickers should remind us what its interior failed to provide for: legs. This is a function of the critic, to make us realize that something we thought (or assumed) we liked, we really didn't.

One other personal note. My father worked for Edsel, and always maintained it was a good car. No Edsel here. This is another thing the critic can offer us (but seldom does): implicit confirmation that our dads knew cars.

Roy Blount Jr.'s most recent book is "Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans."

Blatham - Sorry if I messed up your thread...

I'm only a neophyte onlooker...and quite unaware of trapper anecdotes.

I went out back (pause) to find my snowshoes (pause) and DERE DEY WERE...GONE!

Francis should be pardoned seeing as how he is a friend of mine, but then so should bernie although he is inclined to deny such an affilation.