Edward Tenner: The Myth of Anti-Intellectualism
[Edward Tenner is a historian of technology and culture. He was a founding advisor of Smithsonian's Lemelson Center and holds a Ph.D in European history.]
Was Elena Kagan's tactful performance in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings proof of American anti-intellectualism, as Judith Warner has argued in the New York Times Magazine? I find it hard to believe Ms. Kagan really needed all that coaching. Had she raised so much money for Harvard Law School by talking down to prospective donors and impressing them with her scholarship?
What most people want in a judge, or legislator, is not necessarily the most brilliant or learned person, but the one who will support their values most effectively. Otherwise the higher the intellect, the greater the danger.In an extreme case, the legal theorist Carl Schmitt, and countless other stellar German academics, used their gifts in the Nazi cause. Writers around the world served Stalinism well into the 1950s. That's why so few people, rightly, list intelligence as the first qualification for the Presidency, as mentioned in a Times sidebar. If it had been up to America's most mentally powerful science advisor of the early Cold War, John von Neumann, we would have launched a preemptive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Fortunately, the less educated Harry Truman did not agree....
Read entire article at The Atlantic
Was Elena Kagan's tactful performance in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings proof of American anti-intellectualism, as Judith Warner has argued in the New York Times Magazine? I find it hard to believe Ms. Kagan really needed all that coaching. Had she raised so much money for Harvard Law School by talking down to prospective donors and impressing them with her scholarship?
What most people want in a judge, or legislator, is not necessarily the most brilliant or learned person, but the one who will support their values most effectively. Otherwise the higher the intellect, the greater the danger.In an extreme case, the legal theorist Carl Schmitt, and countless other stellar German academics, used their gifts in the Nazi cause. Writers around the world served Stalinism well into the 1950s. That's why so few people, rightly, list intelligence as the first qualification for the Presidency, as mentioned in a Times sidebar. If it had been up to America's most mentally powerful science advisor of the early Cold War, John von Neumann, we would have launched a preemptive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Fortunately, the less educated Harry Truman did not agree....