This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Why Intellectual Leadership Can Get Us All Killed
One can’t help when watching the latest news stories and shake one’s head in both amazement, as well as disgust. Whether it’s the latest political blunder or snafu, all the way through to some of the worlds largest corporations. One thing becomes crystal clear: Most “Intellectuals” can only remain looking smart if the world is calm, or a current business cycle is booming.
For once the tide turns and decisive action is needed during the turbulence: the dumbest choice of people to deal with an evolving crisis are “intellectuals.”
The problem with these people in key positions of power (both politically as well as business) is they know how to navigate internal office politics, they understand the how, when, and where of backstabbing. They can turn the hard work of others into their own as to curry favor as well as promotions. But what they can’t do is the actual thing needed most: the actual doing.
Let’s not mince words or thoughts here, what I’m directly speaking to is the difference between someone who can both be and/or act ruthless vs one that “believes” they are the same.
The intellectual prowess of the so-called “smart crowd” can not only be dwarfed by the truly ruthless leader, but can put both themselves as well as their company or followers in grave peril. For intellectuals think out processes far too much. Then do nothing.
They’ll over think why someone would do X, Y, or Z. They put themselves into shoes that don’t fit, then spend more time contemplating if their opponents should be wearing leather vs rubber soles. All the while their opponent laughs running circles around them barefoot.
The fallacy of their though processes remains hidden most of the time only by the veil of normalized cycles. But when those cycles have more in common with hurricane season, they’re the first to stare doe eyed at the flashing warning signs about what to do next.
Currently we have a crisis that is rapidly changing day-to-day in the Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is showing the world exactly what he is, what he wants, and what he will do to bring it about. The rest of the world’s reaction? Endless blither and blather on why he shouldn’t.
The problem for the intellectuals is they believe because Putin is reported to hold some $40 Billion dollars in assets that appealing to his 1%’er side should be sufficient to entice him from acting badly. They believe since they themselves are of the same 1% that they share commonalities.
They’ll intellectualize why they know what a 1%’er thinks, wants, believes. Again they mistakenly believe they should because after all – only they know best how to talk or treat another 1%’er.
Here’s an alert for the intellectual set. Vladimir Putin is a 1%’er. Just not yours. Putin has more in common with the other 1% crowd collectively known as outlaw motorcycle gangs. (Yes I mean all those you see sporting patches on their backs)
The trouble for the 1% “smart-crowd” is they have no idea or frame of reference this other group works or plays in, let alone any understanding of what motivates or causes them to rethink conquest.
However, the outlaw 1% know exactly how to frighten, extort, and run ruff-shot over the intellectual. All while laughing and enjoying the process.
Let’s just put one of the latest arguments splattered across the media to make a point. The argument goes something like this: “If Putin cares what’s best for his people and doesn’t want them to feel the effects sanctions will bear: he should rethink his position.”
Well, that sounds really threatening, but here’s what’s wrong with that whole premise: If Putin or any other communist leader cared about what happened to his people – they wouldn’t be living under his thumb in a dictatorial environment where people routinely go without proper food, medicine, clothing, rule of law, etc.
One of the most feckless postures any leader can do is make threats (no matter how large or small) then not follow through. Real tough guy’s feed on this type of false bravado, regardless if you may have the storehouse of weapons to decimate them or not.
You can threaten to lock up their bank accounts, throw them in jail, what ever, but the problem is they’ll willingly and laughingly, burn your house down, break your legs, pee on your shoes, and more before you blink.
Words and threats are meaningless to this crowd. Actually, the more one threatens them, the more embolden they become. Why? They actually like the idea of the fight.
Intellectuals are looking for ways as to not be left with egg on their faces. Real tough guy’s don’t mind breaking eggs to accomplish their goals. All one has to do for evidence is look back at another famous tough guy: Mao Zedong.
Mao famously stated when millions of his own people were dying: “Well you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.” Getting egg on his face, shoes, or anywhere else was just a part of the process in his eyes. Putin is cut from this type of cloth. And he wears his own colors proudly as any 1%’er would.
But don’t worry, they’ve got a broken egg diplomacy mindset on their side – we’ve got #hashtags to be served on ours.
- 38349 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


Attention all Intellectuals!
Check Your Dick.
When in doubt, assume it's a dick measuring contest.
Intellectuals are looking for ways as to not be left with egg on their faces. Real tough guy’s don’t mind breaking eggs to accomplish their goals. All one has to do for evidence is look back at another famous tough guy: Mao Zedong.
Is this article a joke?
Intellectual are dubm.
Tenured radicals, safe in ivory towers from the rough knocks if life.
Bernanke is perhaps the poster boy for the tower dwellers.
Perhaps Bernanke and Obama should have shown they could manage and turn a profit at a Quiki Mart before being given the keys to the kingdom. Otherwise let Abu give it a shot.
Not really sure why the intellectuals in the West really need worry about the goings on in the Ukraine?
I think that is their biggest problem.
I think it is called hubris. Lemme get a dictionary to check.
Funny when intellectuals write intellectual stories about how intellectuals can get us into trouble.
Wish I had my last 5 minutes back.
pods
Common sense isn't so common anymore and intellectuals are the worst at grasping the obvious consequences of stupid actions like backing Russia into a corner. They will get their wish, but I don't think they will like the results.
This author got it all wrong. It is not intellectuals that are the problem, it is the intellectuals who are allowed to make the big decisions that are the problem. With academia being an exclusive, insular, self-referencing institution the ideas that are allowed to prosper are deemed "correct" by those running the institution. All opposition to the status quo is crushed deemed inferior or as in the case of libtards, dubbed racist.
No thinking going on in those groups. They throw around variations of the same concepts referring it to them as intelligent ideas.
If Putin or any other communist leader cared about what happened to his people
lulz. Weekend Tyler strikes again.
Hayek understood why intellectuals should not run things. No one has the information needed, nor could they, but intellectuals think they can run things best,nevertheless.
yep, he talks about "Vladimir Putin, communists & 1%’er"
so has fallen for the MSM constant distractions blue vs red, us vs them foreigners, us vs the 1%’ers when clearly it's a tiny, tiny percentage of elites not the one in a hundred quoted = 3 million elites, how elite is that FFS!!
He thinks time to be tough but that just means send someone else's kids to fight (again).
It would be better use of his time to educate himself about the government corporate complex with laws fixed by corporations contributing to politicians and providing revolving doors between regulators and regulated companies.
There is ONE group just as dangerous ... the CONSENSUS builders.
They believe a DOZEN idiots always make a better choice than ONE informed, practical leader.
They believe a DOZEN idiots always make a better choice than ONE informed, practical leader.
Not a fan of the jury system lol
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Hyph_DZa_GQ/hqdefault.jpg
The article above is complete BS and paints Putin as a complete sociopath who has complete contempt for the Russian people. The problem with this characterization is that a leader in Putin's shoes who did care about the long run well being of the Russian people would be doing exactly what Putin is doing. After all, his aggression ends at the limits of territory inhabited by Russian speaking peoples, his fellow tribesmen. If he were entirely self centered then he would do a our western elites would do - flee Russia to preserve his 40 billion in the comfort of the French Riviera.
The fact that Putin is not acting to protect and enjoy his 40 billion tells you that his motivations lie elsewhere than his own personal interest. Perhaps the author has never met anyone who cares about his own ethnic or racial group. Perhaps the author thinks that deracincated self interest is normal and natural, and that the only legitimate calculation in avoiding agression is that of homo economicus.
Perhaps the author cannot fathom why the Japanese political leaders are suddenly visiting the shrine of the dead Japanese soldiers (called war criminals by the victors) of WWII.
This article is advocating that our policy be placed in the hands of a dangerous fool like John McCain to unleash the dogs of war.
To the author I say, you first, jerk!
I think the author's channeling Paul Craig Roberts for hate radio. Or trying to dress up the grab bag of foreign bogeymen and domestic scapegoats of the Tea Party with PCR's magisterial disdain for the bedwetters who have the helm. That's why the article reads like a series of drunken snarls.
Putin strikes me as an honest man. Very much unlike Obama or any other of our vast coterie of 'leaders'.
Had to look up deracinated. That's what you have to be to disregard any and all empathy for your fellow man. It reminds of the "Cremation of Care". Associated most closely with the Jewish faith, and/or its offshoots, it implies that the vast majority of humanity is simply cattle; A herd to be manipulated and farmed solely for the benefit of the illuminated few.
I have to admit, that most of what I see around me suggests that they are correct- but it's a chicken-and-egg question for me. Which came first? The manipulable, or the manipulators? Maybe they evolved concurrently. The question remains- why are the cattle so stupid?
Putin is a Statist, he's not really any different than Obama and the Democrat political platform of the US. Maybe Putin's a litttle more homophobic than Barry, but that's to be expected, as gays are the useful idiots leading us into global governance. THAT'S THE FUCKING TRUTH bitchez! AND THE FUCKING TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE!
Who are the paymasters? Would you publish something that didn't enrichen your boss? Call 'em the propaganda arm of their bosses. Real intellectuals exist. They just don't get paid much.
I built a new 10' x 20' house for my chickens today that is worthy of an engineering award. Built it in one day by the sweat of my brow and I felt great being creative and building what I needed, that's our nature, like the Lord who created us in his image. Reminded me why only lazy fuckers go hungry. Dig till you find water MOFO, work, don't sit around and go hungry, use your God given brain and strength to produce and prosper.
Well, good for you. This morning I was watering my hex inverters and I noticed that one of them had sprouted a Quad-2-Input-NAND chip. I'm hoping that with a bit of sunshine and fertilizer it will flower into a nice 64-bit processor before next summer, just in time for harvest.
They're not particularly tasty, but if I take one to market, I hear I may be able to swap it for a piece of chicken.
Intellectuals are fancy speaking, dart-throwing, monkeys.
Self-congratulation is defeat.
Also, weakness is a provocation, and yet these dweebs don't know it, despite having got their asses kicked on a regular basis in their nerdy youths.
I knocked out a dude last night who mistook goodness for weakness. If I were in a different circumstance I'd fuck his chick but I live within the law.
Those darts might look like they hit the board randomly to you, but the "intellectual" 's bosses made a shit-ton of money ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
The "intellectual" is not an "intellectual". He is the propaganda arm of his boss's organization.
+100
I suppose the author would prefer having Sarah Palin as President.
She would be an improvement. Maybe you zone out when Biden speaks?
Stalin did the same thing...
Author seems to have difficulty distinguishing insane psychopaths from tough guys.
Also seems to have broadly missed the historical context of 'omelette' Mao was referring to, as it had to do mostly with a giant misguided communist fuck-up and not anything ‘tough.’
This article is a fuckin joke.
"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest citation in English of the proverbial necessity of egg-breaking for the purpose of making an omelet is from a 1796 issue of Walker's Hibernian Magazine, an Irish monthly that billed itself as a "compendium of entertaining knowledge." Among the world's vast knowledge that Mr. Walker deemed entertaining that year were "some particulars reflecting the capture and death of Charette, the famous Royalist general of La Vendée."
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2013/12/30/english_idioms_it_m...
I'm trying to think of someone this idiom hasn't been attributed to ...
I always attributed it to Jimmy, the cook at my local eatery. Little did I know he's been guilty of plagiarism!
That 'eggs to omlette' quote has been attributed to Lenin since the 1970s.
ruff shot??? Bet he means 'rough shod', ie. hob nailed boots.
Who is this asshat?
I don't know, but he needs two more things: i) an editor, and ii) a clue.
Alpha-males in social hierarchies use violence or threats of violence to maintain their dominance. If they don't use violence to ensure compliance with the threats, they are not long from being ousted.
Six million years beyond the human-chimp common ancestor and man still behaves like a monkey. History may rhyme but evolution conserves.
"Alpha-males in social hierarchies use violence or threats of violence to maintain their dominance. If they don't use violence to ensure compliance with the threats, they are not long from being ousted."
They also won't get the hottest chicks in the tribe.
"Intelegencia is just POS and nothing else". Vladimir Lenin
POS=Point of Sale? Cool, let's all go to Mosselprom now! lol
So I guess he was another one that let the banksters off the hook then.
Exactly my thought !
Indian philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar theorized that nations go through social/political cycles characterized by the nature of the current ruling class. Boiling it down, Sarkar's hypothesis is that different people have an inherent & personal way of looking at and dealing with the world. The ruling class is made up of the Warriors, Intelluctuals, and Acquisators. The last social class are the laborers - made up of the unskilled labor, - not ambitious, & who do not rule. (BTW - the warrior class includes skilled trades & professional athletes. Those who use body & mind to make a living). The ruling classes take their turn leading society as the excesses of each group eventually damage the society and are replaced by the next type of ruling class.
Since its founding the United States has been ruled by the acquisator, money junky, merchant mentality. The pursuit of money was the driving force and everything is ultimately measured in money terms. Other types of societies, such as a warrior society, (example would be Japan at the time of the samurai) don't think in such terms and money isnt the central driving force. Honor, victory in battle, etc may be the driving motivations of the ruling class & thus the rest of the society.
Ours is a acquisator society. Those with money rule it. The money men hire intellectuals (who become acquisative intellectuals taking up many of the values of the pure money junky types. Examples of this include economists & lawyers. They do not rule; they are hired help. This pretty much reflects the true power of the lawyer politicians in Congress & other bodies, doesn't it ?)
Botttomline (an acquisator society term & viewpoint) - - - shopkeepers and their hired intellectuals think much differently than warriors. They may be in for a rude wakening.
The Early America must have been more Warrior, particularly the Andrew Jackson years through the Spanish-American War maybe? Maybe Aquisitors since ~1913? Which may indicate post-collapse, dominance by an Intellectual class?
Batra applied the theory to the USA - a small sub-set of Western civiliztion -and its been Aquisitor (merchant mind) ruled since the beginning. That doesn't mean such a society might not have many warriors (soldiers, adventurers, skilled craftsman, etc - those who use body & mind to meet their objectives ). But,the money interests on the East Coast (especially in NYC ) have ruled & determined the overall direction of the country. Wealthy ogligarchs had said that they 'deserved' to run the country because they had accumulated money and kept it over several generations. That is merchant mind thinking. (Of course, modern banking originates with gold smiths - who were merchants.)
In this theory the merchant minded eventually impoverish the entire society through their greed. What follows is chaos and anarchy. The 'rule' of the laborer/serfs - though it is not 'rule' in the way applied to the other three types of individuals. No one rules during the chaos. What follows in the cycle is the rule of the Warriors, who re-establish order and honor. In an optimistic future, for example, the warrior class could toss out the money junkies before they brought about the destruction of the planet, and create a society that might take on the great adventures of space and undersea exploration, for example.
Batra has written extensively of Sarkar's social theory and one of his best in this regard is The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism. First editions of this came out around 1978 and was released again in 1980. At the time, the fall of the USSR seemed very remote and the fall of the USA seemed a fantasy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Social_Cycle#Epochs_of_Social_Classes
Its just a theory - of course - but perhaps there is a glimmer of optimism in it for our times. As the banksters bring us to the brink of destruction in their quest for their corporate New World Order (an Aquisitor wet dream), maybe cooler heads will prevail. . . They would come from the Warriors.
It is an interesting way of looking at people and societies.
It reads like gov. sponsored propaganda, trying to paint Putin as the dangerous, unstable bad guy. Same thing they did before killing Saddam and then Qadahfi, for THEIR oil. Or, maybe, the author has fallen for the 'Putin is bad' BS that's being spouted constantly.
That's why so many americans want a hummer .... To compensate their small wiener size ...
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=3073
Hey, I'm in the green ;^)
four wheels instead of balls, baybee!
You can give me a hummer if you like.
You're so out of touch. These days they just want an affordable, warm place to sleep that that is close to where they work so they don't have to waste so much time travelling through heavy traffic.
We should all hope that out leaders are dumb as dubya? Idiocracy is already here in the US.
Everyone else - check your six.
These assholes aren't intellectuals they're bullies using the MIC and a fiat reserve currency.
I have never understood why the "Intellectuals" (whom I define for the moment as the "SAT 1600 - Ivy League" crowd) are so dim in understanding what happens outside the USA.
Or even within the USA. I know that many of these people travel, but they must be in a bubble or something.
The only thing they understand is how to bribe people, anything past that and they have trouble locating their ass with both hands.
Yeah, remember that the next time you read a good novel, turn on your computer at work, drive your car or wipe your ass with toilet paper. Smart people developed and invented all of those things. I don't think you have the slightest idea who you mean to be talking about.
Context is important here...
Quite right, Illi, but so is one's choice of words. Assuming you wish to enlighten our fellow man with your own thoughts, it is useless to make up your own definitions and vocabulary. As well speak Latin to Polish - they will not understand what you mean, or they will take offense.
The article was about the disconnect that our leaders have from those they claim to represent. Innovation was not mentioned or questioned.
Maybe you should read it again. The artice starts with a false statement and proceeds to say absolutely nothing which has any basis in fact. The disconnect you refer to is well-known, and nothing in this article expands upon it even a little bit. The article is bullshit, pure and simple.
Yup. Thus the 1 star rating.
I wonder the same thing myself, DoChen. I think it has to do with your bubble theory. They sit in places and talk with people who are essentially echo chambers. One does not learn much that way. I also believe there is a fundamental core visceral belief in their own superiority which is a form of arrogance. This makes it impossible to ascertain reality short of some traumatic experience on their part. This makes them dangerous when in power.
Some of it's a lack of common sense and some of it has to the fact that they were raised to be unaccountable in their actions.
I have seen absolutely brilliant men do some really stupid shit. Put an "intellectual" in front of a good stripper and watch the other brain take over, for example.
Lol! I will partially agree with you BandGap. Although with men I think there is another visceral primitive force at work that overrules all the other work the neurons might do. I call it the Primordial Brain (or sexual) which tends to overrule the rational brain.
Would someone kindly define "intellectual?"
Looking over the last few years, I will not hesitate to say that it is hardly intellectuals who have the sole credit for the shitstorm currently raging on Planet Earth. It seems very clear to me that dimwitted dumbfucks are the primary problem. Thanks to modern media and the mind-numbing ignorance (I use the word as it is defined in Webster's) of the mass of people who get all their information from the TV, schtupskopfs have gained the seats of power.
The deification of Dumbass is the epidemic of the age.
They all share one thing in common, enough self importance to get everyone around them killed. I would stay as far away from these clowns like Ochoom Boy and Pooty Poot as possible because when the collective conscience of the world finally wakes there will be a lot of hangings.
Personally, I look forward to living somewhere that doesn't matter to anyone...
Would that be DC or California?
LMAO! I was thinking of the Tuamotus, actually. I'd be surrounded by the descendants of cannibals, so no fear of being on the menu. I figure to make a living hacking the local accounts of tax-dodgers from Wall St.
I'm there with you.
I'd like to live anywhere a chicken could cross the road without having its motives questioned.
Or its every cluck recorded by the security apparatus.
Pol Pot defined intellectuals as people who wore glasses, spoke a foreign language, or read books. Before he killed them.
I'm an intellectual, but fortunately for me one of my areas of study is firearms and their employment.
This article is using an awfully large brush. Here's to hoping Mises, Locke, and Tocqueville and numerous others don't get swept up with the rest of them thar "intellecshuls".
The Tea Party Express is rolling across America and needs new enemies to get the populist rage boilding again. Schoolteachers and writers don't get the fawning press coverage the 1% buys. And they're a lot more local.
~"The intellectual prowess of the so-called “smart crowd” can not only be dwarfed by the truly ruthless leader, but can put both themselves as well as their company or followers in grave peril."~
I was thinking the same thing, Seek. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's bit regarding, "...A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes" who became "A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."
I bristle at the concept of "intellectuals". For some reason the word "asshat" is in my mind associated with it. Calling a group by that term, (intellectuals, not asshats), to me implies simply that they wasted more of their lives in academia than most. Notice that there are few non-academics recognized as "intellectuals". Academia is in and of itself insular, and insularity is detrimental to being able to see the "big picture".
As far as ruthless leaders go, they know they have no use for intellectuals, as these are exclusively leftists/socialists/communists, who although handy for rousing of rabbles, worthless in all other aspects, especially if said leader is in the process of being ruthless. They are also, interestingly enough, good fodder for being recipients of ruthlessness, but that's another matter.
There is no easier man to manipulate than the ignorant, and this article is all about promoting ignorance by criticising people for being knowledgeable.
The truth is, most of us here ARE "intellectuals" in that we actually keep informed and use our intellect to think about things (notable exception for the couple of idiots here who just parrot their indoctrination).
That said, having a lot of specialized knownledge in one specific area (i.e. the Ivy League type intellectual) doesn't make one Wise, quite the contrary: the hyperfoxus on one thing alone creates a peculiar form of blindness to most dimensions of life.
Wisdom comes putting yourself out there and experiencing everything, from actually thinking about everything and from questioning yourself and your own assumptions (the last bit is maybe the most important and the least practiced, which is why there are so many morons around who think themselves as being geniouses).
That said, it weren't the Ivy League intellectuals who got us in the shithole we're in now: they are but the pawns, the hired help of far more manipulative people.
The essential characteristic of our age is the worshiping of that most psychopatic of characteristics - greed - and the complete and total disregard for traditional qualities such as honor, moral and ethics, hence the leaders of our time are overwelmingly the unempathic, sleazy manipulator salesmen types, not the brainiacs.
The author confuses the term intellectuals with the political and media whores who suck up to the owners of this country for money.
I am unaware of any intellectual actually saying the nonsense the author claims they say. The whores however are out in force making up bullshit.
I also pose, that since Economics is a psuedo-science, Economists are psuedo-Intellectuals. I mean, it's not like the country is being ran by Astro-physicists and Quantum Theorists.
That last line is a keeper. I think the writer may have fallen for the fallacy that all assholes who attend Ivy League are intellectual. That's how they sold BHO to the voters, after all.
Common sense, and intellectualism seem to be mutually exclusive things. My family is full of college "chairs",so I know this from personal experience for a fact.
Some are quite brilliant but I would never ask any of them
to boil an egg, or make coffee, as it would be a disaster.
Most in earlier times, may have been burnt at the stake
for being non human or witches.
Oligarchs , from personal experience also, are not intellectuals, usually just very single minded(almost compulsive) alpha types.
Neither type should be trying to run this world, but here we are, fucked.
Winston Churchill: "Lady Astor, you are ugly."
Lady Astor: "Winston, you are drunk!"
WC: "True, my lady. But in the morning when I wake, I will be sober. You will still be ugly!"
Here we jolly well are! ++ WC!~
Well if you start with a bad definition, you won't get anywhere, just like the author of this craptastic article.
A good historical definition for intellectuals is something like: people whose stock in trade is ideas in general, who research, debate, read, write, and lecture for a living. It's non-judgmental and all-encompassing. The percentage of Ivy League grads who are actually intellectuals is quite low, maybe not even double-digits. Some professional classes that are not generally intellectuals: writers and poets, artists, scientists, engineers, politicians, mathematicians, economists.
And yes they are in a bubble. Just like everyone else. Nine out of ten intellectuals, just like nine out of ten J6P, are moral midgets, hypocrites, liars, bullies, apologists for the status quo, defenders of the faith, statists, and leftists (even the so-called conservative ones, like Buckley). They are paid big bucks to devise elaborate justifications for and defenses of the statist status quo, that's all.
There was a great video on Youtube of Noam Chomsky explaining this, but it has disappeared.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chomksy+intellectuals
As usual around these parts, have to disclaim that I don't endorse Chomskian politics or political economy.
+1 Great comment. I have gotten tired of the intellectual circle jerk myself.
Speaking of Chomsky, he really spells it out as to how it works in black and white. Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions says it all.
To paraphrase Socrates, admitting ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Most intellectuals are reluctant to take that step, and pseudo-intellectuals like Obama are totally unwilling. That's why he's constantly making rash statements and "drawing red lines", he thinks he's in control of every situation.
As awful as Bush II was, there were several foreign policy crises in his administration (e.g. Liberian civil war, Georgia-Russia, Israel-Lebanon) where he stepped back and made noncommittal statements while waiting for events to unfold because he knew the situation was too complex for him to know the best course of action.
< Choomboy is an intellectual?
< Choomboy is a pussy.
He is not an intellectual. I leave to others to decide his pussyhood. Please accept a "virtual + 1" from me, as I DO NOT WANT to dignify Obama by greening you!
:)
Steaming pile of dog shit. In HD!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdnm4MA5_DI (0:37)
Why Intellectual Leadership is worried about being Killed.
Title fixed
Mental masturbation.
Clarence Carter- Strokin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7gMkiOPSeA (4:38)
Yeah, well the powers behind the public faces of the west are also cut from this kind of cloth. It takes a special kind of self-serving, self-centered ruthlessness and disregard for the population you nominally belong to/serve, to pull off a good false flag attack.
Another totally useless article. Here's a better one explaining Putin.
.
Putin: The Last Man Standing
"In this interview, Mr. Flores explains why Vladimir Putin was the most appropriate individual to perform the functions required by the Russian state, through the KGB. He delves into psychological profiling, the pertinent biographical background on Putin which helps to substantiate this, and several of the tasks he was assigned. The following is an adapted transcript..."
The problem with many who are called "intellectuals" is that they are not men (or women) of action. They are often parasites on the system. People who know how to "do" stuff are generally preferable and more balanced. The founders of the USA were actually engaged in commerce, men of letters/debate and in the economies of the time. They were not parasites making a living off of government and government connections like the modern crowd. They were men of principle and it cost many of them everything.
The other problems with modern intellectuals, especially leftist self styled intellectuals is that they work backwards from either what they want to believe or want to justify. This is a form of arrogance and positioning, not a form of inquiry which true intellectual types use.
Since so many in the media are of the same simplistic mindset they have a ready army of lemming head nodders and propogandists disquised as news people.
Self styled intellectuals? Parasites living off government? Well, I kind of agree with part of what you are saying, but your classification of people lacks definition, boundary and continuity. Yes, there are smart people who game the system - it takes smarts to do so after a certain level.
All the same, I think you confuse the ignorant masses of poorly-fed lamebastards who have lifetime subscriptions to welfare with smart people.
It might benefit you to actually inform your thinking and writing skills, because the way you have that bit done, it just seems like you really don't know what you are talking about.
Yes, I am not writing a grad thesis here, although I enjoy the debate.
There are people who are smart and even capable in some areas and not others. I see this in corporations a lot. How many truly "smart" and motivated individuals went through GM from it's height as the largest corporation in the world during the 50's to a welfare case by about 2010? Seriously, how many advanced degrees, people working 80 hours a week and doing wonderful spreadsheets? Tens of thousands, I wager. And they were wrong, consistently wrong, wrong for decades. They did not turn the auto leviathan around despite all their advantages and "smart" people.
This begs the question of what type of person made it through the corporate heirarchy to lead the company and make all those wrong decisions that lead to failure? I have my theory on this and it involves three phases of every company, but my main point is to question the unrestricted application of the words "intellectual".
In the arena of government and cental planning which is where all nations are firmly planted in 2014, I posit that you had better pick your "intellectuals" and whom you will follow and support carefully. They had better be right.
That is the melding of the groups I mention and that you in fact, do not seem to understand very well. It is the melding of leftist "intellectuals" who are essentially government parasites and proponents of ever more powerful states and those who support them. You might note that this is necessary in a pluralistic society at least up until the formation of an openly autocratic society.
Our culture has, for some time, delivered its biggest paydays to organizations who design and implement marketing. The breadth and depth of the data sets collected by advertising and marketing firms dwarfs the NSA, for now anyway. An enormous percentage of highly intelligent people have been sucked into this vortex, and their job is to separate you and me from our earnings at every turn. A tenet of capitalism, you might say. Despite the useful, temporary benefit we derive from seeing hawkers at work, this huge pool of intellect produces absolutely nothing of intrinsic or lasting value. This much intellect, imagination and mathematical skill would be better employed dealing with the various elephants and gorillas in the room, than diverting us into hating what is different and playing up emotional issues which are better settled when the forest fire has been put out.
There isn't any need for people who are good at everything - last I checked, we kill them as soon as we see them anyway. Saying, "There are people who are smart and even capable in some areas and not others." is so obvious that it makes no point. The examples you refer to are a result of many things, history not the least. The data and technology sets opf the last decade are lightyears ahead of the data anyone had to work with in the 1950's. In 1968, the financial services industry produced less than 3% of the US GDP (GNP in those days). It is, measured in dollars, one of the top three industries on the planet today. Again - many highly intelligent people sucked into a vortex that produces nothing of intrinsic value. Its a machine designed to produce wealth, full stop. Its corruption in the last 30 years is a result of human consciousness, ignorance, and a complete failure to consider the medium and long-term consequences of chasing immediate profits. The auto industry of today answers to shareholders, not customers. Industry today is largely run by psychopaths and megalomaniacs who quite clearly are unmoved by the wrack and ruin they spew upon the planet while in power. Whether they are 'intellectuals' is utterly not a part of the argument. Whether they are 'ethical' or 'moral' has a lot more to do with it. Killing the planet and its species are a cost of doing business today. Corporations employ millions of people, whose jobs are to do the will of the shareholders, so they are sucked in too.
Globalism is inevitable in a technologically advanced society. The trouble with the leadership is that they never imagined that there were any consequences that mattered. All they saw was profit. They didn't see the overcapitalization, the wave of wage resets, the destruction of the status quo. All they saw were profits. The foundation of this, however, was not a built thing-it was and is debt. Massive continents of it. And the trouble is, the Real Bill has to be paid. I promise you that finding solutions to the Pandora's Box that globalism opened is not a task for the meek of mind-but neither is it a job for arrogant MBA's with tickets from Yale.
Have a look at the great advances made by humans over the last 300 years. Many of those 'founding fathers' were arrogant psychopaths as well (Newton not the least). It was, however, the freeing of the individual to BE a socio/psychopathic genius that gave us many of the very things that we take for granted here and now. In the gilded ages of the Pharaoh-Popes, none of these Marconi's, Tesla's or Edisons would have survived their first experiments - they'd have been burned at the stake. It was the birth of individual liberty-be one liberal or conservative, black, green, red or white-that gave rise to the collective phenomenon we know as modern society.
Our challenge is to preserve and enshrine those liberties as we move forward. It ain't happening while the only people paying attention are also running around calling each other names. That liberal knows something that conservative needs to know, and the conservative -knowing that thing- is going to make something that betters the world. That old agenda don't play in Peoria anymore, and we need a new agenda, founded upon new ideas. Got any?
Well, it's natural for successful companies to eventually grow ossified and die (as GM and Chrysler should have done in 2009), but what killed the American auto industry in general was regulation and collusion between the Big Three and government (but I repeat myself). It's essentially impossible to start a new auto manufacturer in the US with all the CAFE standards and overburdensome safety regulations.
Remove the coercive hand of govt from the picture and you'll see a lot less time spent on marketing and more on making customers happy.
Well, I hope you're right-and that any of us live long enough to see what you're talking about. Not holding my breath, though.
You're right. The vast majority of post grads(85%) work in gov., because no one else will hire them. Today's Intellectual is the High Priest of old times. Spouting lies to further the growth of parasitic gov.
Good observations, freedomguy. Interesting to me that it's become close to impossible for a person with any real-world capitalism experience to ascend to high government office. BTW, that person would not need to be a multibillionaire crony capitalist, but a regular hardworking dude who started and grew his own business. People like that don't tend to say things like "debt doesn't matter." They also have a deep understanding that currency and productivity need to remain closely associated, and printing fiat destroys that assocation.
Running a large nation has NOTHING to do with running a small business. In fact, it is the whole mentality of Bidness as Gawd, that has everything all screwed up. The worship of money and power are anathema to good governance, but it is all that is used to measure anything anymore. Pity the banknotes - whatever will they do for fun when we are part of the fossil record?
Spumoni, I will meet you half way here. You are half right and half wrong.
I will assert that the half right part is that the dynamics of running a government are very different from business. There is no necessity for profit which is to also to say there is not the discipline of profit to keep government efficient or even effective. You can pay workers any amount you wish and tax the public for it. There is no necessity to please the public as the relationships are by force and not voluntary. This is why the atmosphere in Starbucks and your doctors office is generally more pleasant than the DMV. One relationship is voluntary and the other is by force. Starbuck's cannot issue you twenty pages of rules to get a latte'. The government can as it makes latte's mandatory, or registering your car, or paying your "fair share" of taxes or crossing the street. Government can even make a latte' or Big Gullp illegal with no direct consequences to itself.
Where you are wrong is that running a business does supply useful information as to the consequences of unlimited government. When you suffer strangling regulations, crippling taxes or find that your competitor got a new law passes to handicap you, then you have a real world sense of the price of government.
BTW, do those bank notes come from government rule or the private sector? The worship of power accrues to government. The admiration of wealth (not worship) may be an indicator of economic success the same way a hundred yard dash time is used as a measure of success in running. It is "worshipped" in running, right?
Starting at the bottom and working up: yes, that can be considered a form of worship, but only in an absolute-value kind of way.
I do not disagree with you at all that regulation is costly, irritating and many times difficult to correctly interpret. Without regulation, however, we are right back to the East India Trading Company days (which may be true anyway, now I think of it).
The government you describe in paragraph 2, is sadly accurate. Perhaps what we need to focus on is how to alter the role of government so that it performs services which actually improve the plight of the average citizen instead of robbing him blind.
As for your opening statement, I say this sir: I am not a fast captain. I am not a slow captain. I am a half-fast [phon] captain!
I care not whether I be right or wrong - only whether you can convince me of information which I do not posess, or I you. Conversing only with folks I agree with is fine for church, but does nothing for what I actually know.
Actually, the East India Trading Company is a perfect example of the coercive hand of government. It was a government protected and essentially owned enterprise. The Crown used the coercive power of law to give it monopolistic power. This is exactly the problem with government power and regulations cannot cure it. They are on the same side. They are one in the same. Remove this government intervention and no one has to trade with that company except voluntarily. GM should have been out of business. Ford could have bought most of the factories and brands for 40 cents on the dollar and prospered even more. Ford and it's investors should have been rewarded for excellence in management and superior cars. However, government intervened and saved GM, at least for awhile. This is a fixed game when this happens. The market abuse comes from the very people we supposedly trust to protect the free markets and make things "fair".
I've owned both. I still drive Fords. I think a lot of companies were bought on the cheap during the crashes from 1987 to present. Unfortunately, the financial services industries were the ones targeted - money laundered on a momentous scale here, with DC's blessings. Ever since 1987, we have had a steady erosion of such level playing field as there ever was. The downdraft after Enron allowed the purchases of major publicly-owned assets by people and institutions who we now see running the show. They didn't buy KPMG, Sovran Bank, Riggs Bank, Arthur Andersen, and others for the purpose of making the markets more fair or safe - they bought them with the sole aim of perverting the market itself. I guess, up to now, they have succeeded beyond their ambitions. But you know how it is with rain - falls on everyone just the same. Our governments today are propping up the logical disasters of misbegotten economic policies, and 'current' events are washing out the sand around the props. /sorry 'bout that.../
I can't help wondering if the thought has ever occurred to US policy makers that people with jobs and disposable income are less to be feared than those without them.
A good week to you, FreedomGuy. Off to sleep here!
FreedomGuy,
"so many in the media are of the same simplistic mindset"
Now, read the nonsense that you just wrote. You have a very distorted ‘simplistic’ view of US history.
I like to think that I could do a good job, both as an intellectual, and as a mass executioner. I am sure the blood of a thousand oligarchs would suit as material to inspire my first symphony.
...from the cacophony of civil discord, Sirens and the Angel of Death.
"Death's seed, blind man's greed.
Poet's starving, children bleed --
Nothing he's got he really needs, 21st century schizoid man!"
-- King Crimson
+100 for King Crimson
They think their so smart, in a free market system the markets dictates what is best, when the government get's involved we get this socialist hell hole.
DUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
Not to be too intellectual, "they think THEY'RE so smart."
Junked you for your disgusting avatar.
pods
He caught me off guard. First I thinks, "goodness, there's something coming out of her mouth..." Wait a sec... !!!
That ain't 'her' mouth.
FASCIST.
What is Fascism - John T Flynn - Von Mises - youtube
http://youtu.be/4Ml7-aDXrgQ
That's merger of corporation & government.
If you and your neighbors all saved up to own & then operate a factory as equal owners, that is socialism.
Can we just keep the black people out of the White House...
Please. That's all I ask.
As long as we can keep everyone else out who doesn't know enough to judge a man on his merits. Racist fucking know-nothing.
It's been said that any explanation of the New South eventually ends up with air conditioning. And any explanation of conservative successes ends up with racism. Probably an oversimplification.
Barry is neck and neck with Shrub for the Worst President Ever. Both owe their sucess at failure to taking care of the business interest that back them at the expense of the rest of us. Beyond black and white.
You might enjoy a recently published book called "The Unwinding" by George Packer. An interesting presentation of recent modern history in America
Has nothing to do with "black". Besides, why do you think Present Øbama is black?
I knew there was something about u I didn't like...
I would vote for a Walter E. Williams, Thomas Sowell or possibly Alan West or Ben Carson in a minute.
Let's keep leftists out of the White House.
There are no leftists - the whole sham keeps fooling generation after generation.
No left.
No right.
Only the same banksters & military manufacturers funding all "competing" parties.
I guess some of you clowns , don't follow the NBA.
Nope, but we follow cliffonomics.
How about we just burn the place to the ground, along with everything within a square mile of it. Then we might solve a few problems.
Permision denighed------
It'd be cool if they got an actual intellectual to write their convoluted anti-Putin war porn cat puke hairball.
No, they have advertising copywriters. The skill is to get people to 'yes' without knowing quite why.
I believe the man describes Barry and his buds pretty well. Putin is a KGB thug. Barry is your typical ball less liberal.
And IF O'Bummer ever does use force, he'll find a way to fuck it up...and get a lot of our people killed.
Whoever (the World Ruling Banking Oligarchy - WRBO) put Obama in the Office did not anticipate that the world will change so fast and so dramatically.
Neither China nor Russia are playing by the Old Rules.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia for all practical purposes became an American colony. However, US & NATO started to squeeze Russia more and more to a point when new Russia's oligarchy started to resist. WRBO tried to prevent the last Putin reelection to the Russia Presidency, WRBO were trying to keep Medvedev in power. At this moment a major confrontation between Putin and WRBO has started. Putin knows very well he has nowhere to run or hide. He does not want to follow Qaddafi footsteps.
As for China, it rightfully concluded that it was just matter of time before the USA would consider China as an American strategic enemy.
I expect that WRBO started to realize that it cannot afford any more a feebleminded President like GWB or an incompetent asshole like Obama. Obama and his neocon puppeteers pushed Russia too fast and too hard in Ukraine. There is no way back in Ukraine. To lose Syria is a bad news but to lose a fight over Ukraine might lead to a reemergence of a new Russian Empire. It will be a catastrophe for the USA and EU. Consequently, Obama must go and go soon. WRBO cannot wait for 3 more years.
Good take. Thing is, the USA isn't playing by the old rules either. You can't play by the old rules. They are obsolete, don't compute, access denied. No rule of law, 18th-19th Century France with a techno-twist is what we have now. Old Robespierre wouldn't be building any pyramids in downtown Paris these days (unless he was using, say, nudes or something).
Nationalism is fucked. We need the same business rules across the globe for global business to operate without causing wars. Look at Halliburton - stole the national treasury selling Cokes and laundry services in Desert Storm and Iraq, and then ran off to Dubai with it to avoid paying taxes or being tried for fraud. No more old rules. Time for new ones. And Oh-Brahma can't even imagine how to start the discussion, so he starts wars instead. Its fucked up.
The rules of Society resembles fiat currencies. They are only paper. One can of course say laws are backed up by consequences. Breaking any law can lead to various forms of punishment. However, this promise to back laws up are in my opinon relatively comparative to fiat. Once faith in such a system is gone, ciao Bella!
The whole fundation crumbles as we watch on! We in the west take for granted we can all sit besides the camp fire, hold hands and sing kum-ba-yah. Not so much! Not at all! We tend to believe we are "right". We are "just". We know better, and everyone should be like us. Simply because!
It isn't going to be like that any more. This is just the beginning. Let's just hope it isn't the end.
I don't know if Putin is a "real tough guy" or some kind of a joker running a con job.
But I DO know that Obama is a #hashtag-slinging, selfie- taking weakling who is way in over his head here.
Lightweight article alert!!!
Maybe we should punish all blonds or something equally arbitrary.
What is the fluff article rate, nowadays?
Nah - being blonde is punishment enough.
There's very little difference between book learnin and rat-like perspicacity among parasites. It's mostly about different functions. This intellectual vs man of action is a false argument.
It's easy to bash the Big Idea guys, but the real problem is that policy is made by such a tiny number of people. One or two dozen "policy makers" have their hands on the levers that actually determine the direction of events, and when they make a decision, they pay NO attention to the "will of the people" or the "consent of the governed," or any other quaint notions of where you and I think the country should be headed. The problem isn't pointy-headed intellectuals. It's a system that gives too much power to too few, and when incompetent hands are on the levers, you end up where we are now.
This is 90% correct: the problem is the system. The only issue I would add is that it does not matter whose hands are on the levers: it is impossible for a small group of people, no matter how smart, to make correct decisions for millions or billions of others. Centralized power is doomed to failure. Only decentralized systems where individuals make the choices that seem best for them in the their own lives are capable of producing general prosperity. It must also be said that general prosperity is not the goal of the "rulers" and it never has been, which is why they can continue to fail at achieving it and still remain in power. As long as the majority are kept fat and distracted they can keep up the ruse, but eventually they destroy enough of the capital stock that it becomes impossible to keep the bread and circuses going. Only when we reach that point will there be a popular uprising. It is the duty of those of us among the "intellectuals" who want freedom to be ready for this moment and seize the chance to hit the system as hard as we can while it's down. Eventually we may get lucky and it will be unable to get back up. The best thing we can do to make that outcome as likely as possible is to purify our own minds and the minds of anyone else with intelligence of any belief in the legitimacy of rule by force.
A truly intellectualy person should be able to figure out that turning parts of the machine on itself is the only way to implode it so it can't be used again to subvert society. However, one that insightful & clever might also then realize that the 'levers' really are the will of the collective people to be governed by an ideologue and to attack those who don't follow the same ideologue. This creates the machinery itself and it's only a matter of time before someone, anyone, puts hands upon the levers now fashioned for domineering the society in question.
This then becomes only matter of time again before successive hands on the levers finally fall to the most devious, deceitful & (sometimes secretly) violent.
Therefore the only 'solution' is to re-craft human nature itself to no longer desire an ideologue leader and to not attack others for having a different idea (much less competing ideologues who each would lead us to doom!)
So...everyone on the Left is an intellectual? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA. I love listening to the ignorant and stupid blame their pointless existence on intelligent folks. A hundred thousand years and you're still as dumb as rocks. No wonder you live in hell-holes.
Say what you like about our dimwitted 'leadership,' but don't confuse them with intelligentsia. They are much like GW Bush - their daddies put them where they are, and they have no context for survival. Just like some of the idiots here who regard anyone with an IQ above 70 as the enemy. Fucking tools. Doing the media's job. You sound just like Obama - all threats and blame, and not an original idea among the lot. Get some fucking lives.
A classic example of this type of character was Robert McNamara. He was absolutely convinced he was smarter than the rest of us and ran us right into the ground in Vietnam.
The problem with these types they are so used to being right they cannot change course. They attribute their success to their own brilliance and fail to recognize that providence was the true author of their meteoric rise. When fickle fate turns against them, they do not know how to react.
We may have one of those persons in the White House right now. Keep poking the bear and it may be lights out.
This is the Robert McNamara who was president of Ford Motors? True enough, a parasite whose only skill was taking credit for other people's effort. Systems Theory is brilliant for that, describing what is without explaining why it is.
One big red herring of the original article was describing intellectuals as great at office politics. Office politics has nothing to do with ideas and everything to do with deception and the appearance of loyalty. McNamara again, getting his nose up the right assholes and getting pulled to the top.
Most ideas talk is sales patter, which, as we all know, is to stop people thinking too hard and shut up.
I think one of Putins crew described Barry Sotero as " a monkey with a hand grenade" or something like that. It's true.
Perhaps the definition of intellectuals needs to be defined by the writer of this piece. It appears to be a derogatory term in his context.
The notion that an intellectual is somehow very very smart is not a mistaken one. There are likely quite a few brilliant intellectuals with genuine solutions to many of our problems created by bonafide dummies, nincompoops, and dunces. Some too, created by intellectuals intentionally.
It's not necessarily wrong for an intellectual to be in charge of policy domestic and international.
Were Kennedy's braintrusters intellectual? It seems so. Was McNamara one? He's been discribed as such.
Maybe what the writer does not get is that intellectuals, and just average smart guys, have an agenda that is secret, private, and the public one they use as an excuse to get something they are really after.
Their true motives are what needs to be unearthed, examined, not the public statements they make.
Johnson's waging of the Vietnam war, an ardently pursued objective by intellectuals, was done to enrich the Arms and defense contractors not to stop the spread of Communism. To look at Vietnam as one examle of a failing intellectually led action is to miss their point.
The MIC contractors plant the seed.
The intellectual think tanks tend the garden.
The Grim Reaper reaps the harvest.
Everyone is satisfied.
Nice post, Comte'.
I have engaged in this debate about intellectuals on several threads recently.
I have a an idea to throw out here as I work on the issue of "intellectuals". I am going to posit that it is meaningless title just as "community organizer" is meaningless fake profession.
There are people who work in many areas of expertise and inquiry. If your avocation is theology, philosophy or political science much of your time is spent reading and thinking. It is the same with most sciences. You have some data, some observations and a lot of interpreting and thinking. Iwe do not apply the term "intellectual" to sports stars, welder so or metallurgists. Yet, expertise of a sort is required in all of those. The intellectual term is applied to things that seem to require more pure thinking and less doing. Yet, doing is what moves the world forward.
I will tell you that a committed leftist collectivist writer is a moron prima facia. Yet, someone else may call them a leading intellectual of the Left.
I think maybe the term "intellectual" is either a fake or meaningless term,,yet it has emotional power and confers authority, even if not due. I will read Bastiat and tell you he is brilliant. I will not bother with much Chomsky nor tell you he is brilliant. Both might be called intellectuals, moreso from those who agree with them.
This would explain why we can easily deride some intellectuals and revile others.
well a pair of balls and a pair of lobes to the brain makes jack a balanced man!
Why get all upset about big lobes. They be just like big...B****!
"It ain't the meat, it's the motion."
B****!
Well, you know what they say about people with big brains...
Kim fat boy ding jing is going to take over the world.
Hare Krishna.
Keep Hillary away from the doomsday machine.
Speed-reading the article and posts (since nothing brilliant caught my eye), made me realize that 99% of the population has NO clue what an Intellectual and a Pseudo-Intellectual or a Sophist are.
The world is full of the latter, but has damn few of the former. By the time the ideas and proposals of real intellectuals rise on their own merit, the pseudo-intellectuals have been elevated to loftier or excessive heights by their adoring fans (lesser known pseudo-intellectuals and complete morons).
Almost anyone can become an "intellectual", if they have half-decent appeal and a brilliant PR agent/machine behind them. E.g., Nobel Prize winners in Economics.
Cosmosophy is within me, and all there is I can perceive.
Cosmogonies around thee, and all are meant to deceive. (the 'scientific' cosmogonies, I emphasize. String theory my ass.)