Rubbish. That's what Steven Pinker's lecture was on Saturday. Rubbish. Drivel. Pandering drivel. Motivated obviously by the desire to sell his new book (something I should have foreseen and been aware of), Pinker gave a lecture at about the intellectual level of a fourthgrader...funny thing was, I seemed to be the only one who noticed. Enraptured applause, supine in their questions, the audience which seemed to be populated with a fair number of older intellectuals were disgusting in their sycophancy.
Pinker, it seems, understands the limitations of even "intellectual" crowds. I don't blame him, he's just a guy trying to sell his book...I blame the audience for settling, more than settling, being satisfied by it. Popular intellectualism is about the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. Ruined my night...couldn't think about the greater implications at the Which One's Pink show, but was simply numb with the experience of such shallow stupidity.
Gone are the days when the public intellectual had a worthy audience to be held accountable to. All gone. We are left with a bunch of retards masquerading as semi-competent, critical human beings. Even intellectualism, it seems, has succumbed to the superficiality of the marketplace.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
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