Anti-intellectualism
Cliff Bostock recently wrote an essay for Creative Loafing called, Derrida and Dubya: Anti-intellectualism in America. It was very interesting. Some of his points made me immediately think of the OTO though. I read:
The anti-intellectual typically exhibits little curiosity about other perspectives and no skepticism about his own positions. When ( Read more... )
The anti-intellectual typically exhibits little curiosity about other perspectives and no skepticism about his own positions. When ( Read more... )
Let’s say you know someone with a very strong will and a very formidable intellect. In addition, this person is really well educated by American standards. If he is able to beat you down with every argument he utters, what can you do in response? You cannot, as a Thelemite, critique his will. So you are left to insinuate that his superior intellect and reasoning skills have somehow compromised him and that he has exalted them in place of his will. This is ridiculous, but it is a way, I think, for those with weak intellects to deploy anti-intellectualism to console themselves when they lose. No one in the OTO, for example, ever starts an argument by attacking reason per se. They only see fit to remind us of reason's subordinated position after they lose an argument and are made to look ridiculous. No one wants to consider that a strong intellect may very well be, in fact, an indication of a strong will.
All the people who want us all to be equal seem like they could stand to ponder what Ludovici wrote on this subject:
"What kind of person is it who clamours for this meaningless desideratum, equality? Certainly not the beautiful person, because to him equality, if it could be achieved, would result in bringing him down to the common level. Neither can it be the person specially gifted in any of the arts and sciences; for, again, equality, if it could by some miracle be wrought, would amount to wiping out the advantage of such special gifts. The self-reliant, the strong, the skilful, the able and the desirable, in all walks of life, are never stirred by this cry for equality; because they look down from their eminence, and cannot therefore conceive that levelling could possibly prove an advantage.
"It must therefore be the undesirable, the unskillful, the incompetent, the ugly, the ungifted, in all walks of life, the incapable of all classes, who want equality. And they want it because, looking up from their position of chafing mediocrity and ungainliness, and beholding their more gifted brethren, they realize that equality must redound to their benefit. A moment's reflection would tell them that it is an impossible ideal; their mortified vanity, however, is stronger than their reason, and urges them to believe in it, ridiculous as it may be."
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After all a logical asshole is still an asshole...
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In the example I was merely stating the most basic priciples of Occult and conventional psychology concerning denial and the psychology of the subconscious. But no one says you can't rewrite them.
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