Friday, May 22, 2015

Response to De-construction of Intelligence.

While I usually enjoy your lectures I have to deeply dis-agree with this one. Unpopular I know. It may confer some Resentiment.

1.       Since I mentioned Nietzsche let us get straight intuit. You mentioned that Nietzsche rejected democracy on the principle that the Herd could not lead. Nietzsche’s elitism is founded. You all so spoke of Febrazi and the notion of owning up to one’s own skills and short-comings. I personally never aspired to be regarded as “philosophical”, “deep”, “kind”, or “brilliant”. In fact at times in my life I felt like I lacked all four of these qualities. Oh, and “mysterious”. But if one is constantly referred to in this way, with affection and at times even envy, ought one to DENY that with some sort of false humility? That would be to lack febrazi and actually to lack humility. There must be SOME thing there that people see in me. And I seem to see it in certain others.
2.       Which brings me to this point. The perception of intelligence neither as social function or a biological function. As Husserl brilliantly intuited the perception precedes the labeling of it. And as Marcel pointed out we tend in (and there-by post-)modernity to identify too often with our functions. So it is that that professor in the film Waking Life claimed that his discontent with the post-modernists stemmed from the fact that the more one regards the individual as a confluence of forces the more some thing absolutely essential (or existential) is omitted. So for you to dismiss Intelligence as non-existent entirely seems like an atheistic positivistic argument: Just because we cannot empirically prove its existence, God is disproven. Yet we forget what Buber said about the I-Thou dialogue. We forget that in a state of Relationship we might be able to perceive Intelligence or even a Divine Intelligence, but this can never be quantified scientifically because Analysis belongs to the realm of the I-It relationship.
3.       Intelligence is marked by a kind of attentiveness, curiosity and receptivity. It is marked by what Marcel calls Availability. The intelligent person, when she agrees with you, makes you feel incredible, [ and even surprised, as though you were just shown another dimension of an existing conviction or saw your own views with greater clarity and a more secure confidence ] and when she disagrees with you, she challenges you. Conversely the stupid person’s affirmations all ways strike suspicion and seem superficial or seductive, where as dis-agreements, far from inspiring any thing, only tend to frustrate, because they tend to arise over dogmas that are unyielding. The dogmatic person tends to force you to adhere to your own dogma, lest you be a hypocrite, even if he does not believe in that dogma his self. Only the intelligent person can help you to dis-entangle your self from this dogmatic mess. And ultimately that SENSE of Confirmation, of genuine Love and Attention, must be valued as a fact ( to re-call your Wittgenstein lecture. ), and if bad company corrupts character one must sever ties with stupid people even if it pains one’s self to do so affectively. But so long as it is difficult to do so one at least knows that one’s own emotions are not “getting in the way”.
4.       You mentioned Sartre. De Beauvoir. All of these people. As being Brilliant. Brilliance does not seem to be a product of their conditions. It is Mysterious, as Marcel would say, not problematic. You seem to reduce intelligence to a construct of hierarchical school systems. Yet many of your arguments are hierarchical rather than rhizomatic in nature. That is to say that you argue that there is no evidence for intelligence, and so it must not exist, because only scientists believe it to. Well that is not necessarily true, and it prioritises scientific thought over intuition. Or you argue that it is created by school systems which are less progressive than others. Well, no. There are a number of stupid people at Yale Berkeley and Case. There are a number of geniuses at Palomar College. [Look it up!] I would not dis-miss the few genuine people in my life with whom I can talk for four hours straight with-out problem but with enthusiasm and inspiration as the mere products of their environment. One of them was a home-less hitch-hiker. Another deals with the superficiality of her class-mates and professors daily, some times to tremendous degrees of struggle apparently. And my ostensibly “brilliant” friends can be some of the stupidest because they have cleverness and academic drive; that’s it.
5.       Intelligence is really miss-understood. I think that it is a rare gift. I could expound but instead I will conclude. People miss-take genius for madness often. It is not fair. Most brilliant people are brought up to believe that every one is equal so they project their intelligence upon people. And then they get screwed over and/or locked up in mental asylums because they expect people to understand them. But perhaps you as a University Professor do not have to deal with this.
That is all that I will say on the matter.
With respect and trepidation,
Dmitry.
Dm.A.A.

Post-scriptum: Just look at YouTube comments usually to see what I mean about stupidity.

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