Intellectualism, Schools, and Laziness

There is a long-strand of anti-intellectualism in American popular life. At various points some version of the common man knows better than the expert has been extremely potent political currency.

There is nothing wrong with rejecting the notion that there is only one type of smarts. University education's don't teach how to be a good parent, or how to forgive people, or how to love. Ken Robinson is one of the best articulators of how our education has strip-mined our intelligences looking for particular goods, rather than cultivating all of our creativity.

But there is an angry, virulent, mean, petty, destructive strand of anti-intellectualism as well. This is the strand that was exploited so ruthlessly by Richard Nixon, and occasionally became policy under George Bush. This is the strand that denies and attacks science and fact (an attack which I would argue is quite different than understanding the importance of faith), and which seems to implicate and deny expertise in general.

Fast Company recently published two distinct but I feel related posts about intellectualism and learning. The first ponders whether Obama and his crew of extraordinarily brainy staffers can keep intellectualism interesting and cool, or whether there will be another push against it.

The second suggests that many members of the Millennial Generation are lazy, but that's it's because our schools have created incentive structures that don't reward learning but instead cultivating a mentality of gaming the system.

So much of what we seek to do with our social entrepreneurship involves shifts in mindset and shifts in behavior, I get very fired up about education and how we as a society validate people's passion. I think we all need to be dilligent in cultivating and encouraging the varied and beautiful talents of those around us.