How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization(medium.com)
medium.com
How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization
https://medium.com/@thatdavidhopkins/how-a-tv-sitcom-triggered-the-downfall-of-western-civilization-336e8ccf7dd0#.rgmhc6hoq
24 comments
I guess nerds are alright, but if your identity is tied to the things you consume, ie books/comics, tv shows, fan fiction etc, then being a nerd is the same as being the anti-intellectuals this article is about.
>There was no 'golden age' where nerds were popular and intelligence was always the most valued part of society.
Definitely not in America, there wasn't.
Other societies are different.
Definitely not in America, there wasn't.
Other societies are different.
Can you name some of these societies?
Because there was anti intellectualism back in Victorian times, at least in quite a few cultures. And every dictatorship/tyranny tends to have some rather extreme anti intellectual policies (the USSR, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and Nazi Germany were quite prone to murder them en masse). Religious societies don't tend to deal with this sort of thing well either.
But I'll be interested in knowing what societies were more tolerant towards 'nerds' and intellectuals and outsiders compared to the US, Europe, etc.
Because there was anti intellectualism back in Victorian times, at least in quite a few cultures. And every dictatorship/tyranny tends to have some rather extreme anti intellectual policies (the USSR, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and Nazi Germany were quite prone to murder them en masse). Religious societies don't tend to deal with this sort of thing well either.
But I'll be interested in knowing what societies were more tolerant towards 'nerds' and intellectuals and outsiders compared to the US, Europe, etc.
I'm also curious to find which societies celebrated intellectualism as a part of general culture. The best I can see it is if the rich elite collect intellectuals as part of a status play.
Japan comes to mind. (Not for outsiders though, I don't know how that's related to "nerds" and intellectuals.)
Also, you're conflating different types of intellectuals. Nerds who are interested in science and engineering frequently aren't all that interested in art, social justice/change, government/politics, etc. Germany under the Nazis certainly had a lot of engineering prowess. They didn't tolerate anyone who wanted to change the government, obviously, but they certainly made use of their scientists and engineers. The Soviets, similarly, were always been pretty strong at math and science (while not tolerating political dissent).
Religious societies never seem to do very well with "nerds", and not too surprisingly, highly religious societies never seem to become strong in science and engineering or even industrialization. When they do, it's coincides with them watering down or neutering the religion, as we see in Western nations now.
Also, you're conflating different types of intellectuals. Nerds who are interested in science and engineering frequently aren't all that interested in art, social justice/change, government/politics, etc. Germany under the Nazis certainly had a lot of engineering prowess. They didn't tolerate anyone who wanted to change the government, obviously, but they certainly made use of their scientists and engineers. The Soviets, similarly, were always been pretty strong at math and science (while not tolerating political dissent).
Religious societies never seem to do very well with "nerds", and not too surprisingly, highly religious societies never seem to become strong in science and engineering or even industrialization. When they do, it's coincides with them watering down or neutering the religion, as we see in Western nations now.
Actually makes more sense this way
<i>he show ended in 2004. The same year that Facebook began, the year that George W. Bush was re-elected to a second term, the year that reality television became a dominant force in pop culture, with American Idol starting an eight-year reign of terror as the No. 1 show in the U.S., the same year that Paris Hilton started her own “lifestyle brand” and released an autobiography. And Joey Tribbiani got a spin-off TV show. The year 2004 was when we completely gave up and embraced stupidity as a value. Just ask Green Day; their album American Idiot was released in 2004, and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. You can’t get more timely. The rejection of Ross marked the moment when much of America groaned, mid-sentence, at the voice of reason.</i>
Looks like cherry picking by the author. Long ago, people thought Elvis and Ed Sullivan were the 'end of Western civilization'.
However, the economic events of 2008, and recently accelerated in 2013, seem to have puts the nerds at the top of the socioeconomic totem-pole as measured by income, prestige, and wealth. As housing, energy, construction, manufacturing and other 'blue collar' and 'low-skill' jobs and sectors have faltered, 'nerd' jobs like IT and coding have been very resistant, seeing strong growth and high wages compared to the proliferation of low-paying service sector and 'gig' jobs, as well as the downsizing of middle management and mediocre employees.
Looks like cherry picking by the author. Long ago, people thought Elvis and Ed Sullivan were the 'end of Western civilization'.
However, the economic events of 2008, and recently accelerated in 2013, seem to have puts the nerds at the top of the socioeconomic totem-pole as measured by income, prestige, and wealth. As housing, energy, construction, manufacturing and other 'blue collar' and 'low-skill' jobs and sectors have faltered, 'nerd' jobs like IT and coding have been very resistant, seeing strong growth and high wages compared to the proliferation of low-paying service sector and 'gig' jobs, as well as the downsizing of middle management and mediocre employees.
How far back can we trace brainy people as the butt of jokes? Before Friends there the Cheers, with Dr. Frasier Crane as the punching-bag of the regulars, and that ran '82-93. Anything earlier?
The picture on Wikipedia's anti intellectualism page is from 1875, if that counts:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nast-intellect.png
Obviously the nineteenth century was okay with using intelligent people as the butt of jokes and in negative comparisons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nast-intellect.png
Obviously the nineteenth century was okay with using intelligent people as the butt of jokes and in negative comparisons.
I think Cheers was the key artifact that transitioned pop culture from begrudgingly conceding there was value in high culture to valuing itself at the same level and later above high culture.
Anti-intellectualism/nerd bullying on the other hand has always been with us
Anti-intellectualism/nerd bullying on the other hand has always been with us
As a foreigner looking in, i have to ask: How common is physical violence perpetrated on "nerds" in the usa?
I ask because while i know it is a popular trope, i have never experienced or seen it in my country, despite being the prototypical nerd and having grown up in a poor area.
I ask because while i know it is a popular trope, i have never experienced or seen it in my country, despite being the prototypical nerd and having grown up in a poor area.
Less common now than it once was. Social norms around random acts of childhood violence have shifted pretty dramatically. Back in the day, nerds were shoved against lockers, given wedgies, or just randomly beaten on in my high school (c. early to late 1990s). From what I've heard from my parents or folks their age, this was even more common in decades past.
I don't know if we're more enlightened now, or if we're simply more protective of, and involved in, every aspect of our children's lives. Either way, I doubt physical violence against nerds is as common as it may have been. Psychological violence, however, hasn't gone away. Bullying is alive and thriving in the US.
I don't know if we're more enlightened now, or if we're simply more protective of, and involved in, every aspect of our children's lives. Either way, I doubt physical violence against nerds is as common as it may have been. Psychological violence, however, hasn't gone away. Bullying is alive and thriving in the US.
I graduated from a large public high school in middle America about 5 years ago. There were quite a few fights/acts of physical violence, virtually zero of which was directed at "nerds". If TV show style bullying ever existed it's mostly gone at this point. (Of course this is my experience - others may vary)
I think the sheer size of some high schools is what prevents bullying of specific groups; it becomes incredibly difficult to establish known social hierarchies when you have 1000 students per grade (not uncommon in large Midwestern high schools).
This means that there isn't much social ROI for bullying someone and so people are largely left to their own devices.
This means that there isn't much social ROI for bullying someone and so people are largely left to their own devices.
My school had closer to 400 students per grade than 1000, but it still had pretty defined cliques that people categorized into nerd/jock/popular kids/whatever. Additionally, bullying was still common, it was just mostly non-physical.
Regardless, even in this thread there are people who claim to be from small schools and have not experienced physical violence. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I do think it's far, far less common than Hollywood would have you believe.
Regardless, even in this thread there are people who claim to be from small schools and have not experienced physical violence. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I do think it's far, far less common than Hollywood would have you believe.
The picture painted by the classic sitcom universe and essays like Paul Graham's "Revenge of the Nerds"—the one described so casually that it's almost as if agreement about it is expected to be a foregone conclusion—is something I found totally unrelatable growing up. It was something I always just chalked up to bad tropes that were holdovers from from sitcoms from an era past.
I was brainy in school, but none of the axes that groups split on resembled the ones you see in the movies, so most of my friends weren't. No jocks vs nerds. Nobody was intimidated or otherwise pressured as a result of doing well in class. More often than not, people were likely to be down on themselves for feeling dumb or when they felt they weren't keeping up. The best predictor of clustering habits was usually outgoing vs timid, and then those in the middle. But mobility within those clusters meant that even those were pretty fluid.
The type of humor my class most valued was, if not intelligent, then at least quick. Contrary to what the article lays out, in my view, Matthew Perry's Chandler Bing is probably one of the biggest influences there.
Aside from standard relationship drama, most everybody in my class got along. I wore glasses for a year starting in 4th grade after I began getting headaches at the end of the day. Once shortly after getting my prescription, a classmate called me "four-eyes" after lunch, and I just laughed in his face. He'd really meant for that one to sting, and he was a lot tougher than me, but that just wasn't a thing.
Anti-intellectualism was something that I noticed became a big thing after 9/11, to the point that I found it genuinely alarming, but it showed up clearer in the world I was seeing than the one I was living. Thankfully, the insanity died down (at least from where I'm standing), but we have Idiocracy and American Dad as artifacts. I've tried referencing that era since then, but I have difficulty, especially in regards to using words to recreate the world at that time in order to have a conversation about exactly why something like Idiocracy was originally made. My family and acquaintances who lived through it seem to just see the last 20 years as one homogeneous blur. "Shit was crazy" is what I've resigned myself using and is how I described it a few weeks ago to a friend of mine from Iraq.
After I'd graduated and moved out of state for school, I read a longform article about the death of irony that I thought was on-point in describing the world I grew up in vs the world I saw on TV growing up, but it's none of the ones that show up when I search for it now. The best and most direct treatment of the topic that I've seen since then is in the scene in 21 Jump Street when Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum first run into Dave Franco and his friends on the first day of their assignment (even though they fudged the timeline a bit).
My high school graduating class was something like 40 people, and I graduated in 2007. This all happened in a public school in a small town in North Texas (Collinsville).
I was fairly sure that my hometown wasn't special and this was just the way the world worked now, compared to the sitcom holdovers. Went to the University of Oklahoma (it's ranked first in National Merit Scholar enrollments for a public university, and they give out lots of money). Freshman year I was mostly weirded the fuck out, especially by the other people on my floor in my dorm and in the CS program. ("This isn't how people act in real life anymore, right? Nobody really buys into these tropes, do they?") Ended up having a pretty bad time there for as long as I stayed, and I left less sure about how the much the world differed from TV after all. I'm in neither Oklahoma nor North Texas anymore. What I've seen since suggests that Norman, Oklahoma is an anomaly; every now and then I'll meet someone with the same alma mater and the weirdness comes back. As far as predictors go, that has turned out to be a pretty good one for whether I'll be able to get along with someone or be totally at a loss for how to interact and connect with them. (Some false positives about whether someone will pass, but zero false negatives so far, unfortunately.)
I was brainy in school, but none of the axes that groups split on resembled the ones you see in the movies, so most of my friends weren't. No jocks vs nerds. Nobody was intimidated or otherwise pressured as a result of doing well in class. More often than not, people were likely to be down on themselves for feeling dumb or when they felt they weren't keeping up. The best predictor of clustering habits was usually outgoing vs timid, and then those in the middle. But mobility within those clusters meant that even those were pretty fluid.
The type of humor my class most valued was, if not intelligent, then at least quick. Contrary to what the article lays out, in my view, Matthew Perry's Chandler Bing is probably one of the biggest influences there.
Aside from standard relationship drama, most everybody in my class got along. I wore glasses for a year starting in 4th grade after I began getting headaches at the end of the day. Once shortly after getting my prescription, a classmate called me "four-eyes" after lunch, and I just laughed in his face. He'd really meant for that one to sting, and he was a lot tougher than me, but that just wasn't a thing.
Anti-intellectualism was something that I noticed became a big thing after 9/11, to the point that I found it genuinely alarming, but it showed up clearer in the world I was seeing than the one I was living. Thankfully, the insanity died down (at least from where I'm standing), but we have Idiocracy and American Dad as artifacts. I've tried referencing that era since then, but I have difficulty, especially in regards to using words to recreate the world at that time in order to have a conversation about exactly why something like Idiocracy was originally made. My family and acquaintances who lived through it seem to just see the last 20 years as one homogeneous blur. "Shit was crazy" is what I've resigned myself using and is how I described it a few weeks ago to a friend of mine from Iraq.
After I'd graduated and moved out of state for school, I read a longform article about the death of irony that I thought was on-point in describing the world I grew up in vs the world I saw on TV growing up, but it's none of the ones that show up when I search for it now. The best and most direct treatment of the topic that I've seen since then is in the scene in 21 Jump Street when Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum first run into Dave Franco and his friends on the first day of their assignment (even though they fudged the timeline a bit).
My high school graduating class was something like 40 people, and I graduated in 2007. This all happened in a public school in a small town in North Texas (Collinsville).
I was fairly sure that my hometown wasn't special and this was just the way the world worked now, compared to the sitcom holdovers. Went to the University of Oklahoma (it's ranked first in National Merit Scholar enrollments for a public university, and they give out lots of money). Freshman year I was mostly weirded the fuck out, especially by the other people on my floor in my dorm and in the CS program. ("This isn't how people act in real life anymore, right? Nobody really buys into these tropes, do they?") Ended up having a pretty bad time there for as long as I stayed, and I left less sure about how the much the world differed from TV after all. I'm in neither Oklahoma nor North Texas anymore. What I've seen since suggests that Norman, Oklahoma is an anomaly; every now and then I'll meet someone with the same alma mater and the weirdness comes back. As far as predictors go, that has turned out to be a pretty good one for whether I'll be able to get along with someone or be totally at a loss for how to interact and connect with them. (Some false positives about whether someone will pass, but zero false negatives so far, unfortunately.)
In the USA, if you were a nerd that was not the victim of bullies and physical violence growing up in grade school, you would be in the slim, slim minority. I'd actually be quite surprised if anyone escaped some kind of violent altercation growing up as a nerd. Sad, but true.
I would definitely consider myself a nerd and I never got in a fight or physically hurt. I can't think of any friends that did either.
The vast, vast majority of violence that happened at my school (and we had a fair amount) was between unpopular, non-nerdy kids with homelife problems.
The vast, vast majority of violence that happened at my school (and we had a fair amount) was between unpopular, non-nerdy kids with homelife problems.
Same here on all counts. Without actual numbers, I have a hard time believing the previous assertion as anything more than anecdotal (as is my statement).
Wow, you guys are lucky (or maybe I'm just unlucky?). I guess it's hard to avoid generalizing from our own experiences though, glad to hear some of us made it through unscathed ;-)
Maybe in the 80s, but as a 22 year old physical violence has never happened to me or any of my nerdy friends. Verbal abuse? Sure, but everyone gets that.
Physical violence was mostly between the bullies/"bad kids".
Physical violence was mostly between the bullies/"bad kids".
Agreed the violence of the 80s was insane, especially in NYC. I was 10 the first time I was threatened with a gun, 12 the first time someone broke my bone in a beating (still visible 30 years later), 15 the second time I was beaten with a base-ball bat (20 years of chronic pain), 16 when I beaten by a group/gang. This doesn't even account the violence I saw perpetrated on others and things I forgotten. Violence was conspicuous and passerby's wouldn't even think of getting involved.
While I was nerdy, these things happened more because of differences of ethnicity than anything else.
When I left NYC I met someone who claimed that he had "never been punched" and I thought that was the craziest statement I had ever heard.
I am near two high schools in downtown Oakland and I have seen only 1 fight in the past 2 years. I think that today's kids are much less prone to violence even in the rougher neighborhoods and adults are much more likely to intervene.
While I was nerdy, these things happened more because of differences of ethnicity than anything else.
When I left NYC I met someone who claimed that he had "never been punched" and I thought that was the craziest statement I had ever heard.
I am near two high schools in downtown Oakland and I have seen only 1 fight in the past 2 years. I think that today's kids are much less prone to violence even in the rougher neighborhoods and adults are much more likely to intervene.
Yeah, I can believe things are different since the 80's. Nerds seem to be much higher on the social totem pole now IMO. Also can I now say that I feel the the old guy going 'WELLLLL, back in MY day..." :-/
I can only speak for my own experience, but I was one of the "nerdiest" students in a school of ~2500 and never once felt physically threatened or faced physical bullying of any sort. And having gone to a top tier exclusively engineering school with a student body of people like me afterwards, I never once heard of someone having to deal with it either. I got picked on and bullied plenty, but never anything even resembling a physical threat.
We should probably define our terms. I never felt physically threatened (in the sense that I feared getting actually beat up and bloodied or seriously injured), but I was tossed around and shoved into things (physical acts of violence, even if relatively minor). Was your bullying non-physical or just, similar to mine, never escalating to the level of injury past bruised body and ego?
People draw the line at different points. Some might consider the shoving that happened frequently to me one year something far worse than what I considered it to be (frustrating and annoying, but not causing me any anxiety for fear that it'd happen again, I knew it'd happen again, but I didn't have panic attacks about it).
People draw the line at different points. Some might consider the shoving that happened frequently to me one year something far worse than what I considered it to be (frustrating and annoying, but not causing me any anxiety for fear that it'd happen again, I knew it'd happen again, but I didn't have panic attacks about it).
At no point was I concerned that someone would lay hands on me to any degree. It just wasn't something that students did to each other, unless they were the "fuck ups" and were fighting with each other.
So it's a lot more common in the US than in Europe then? Because over here, you weren't usually bullied for being a nerd. Indeed, some of the smartest people in the class/year were also often some of the most popular, at least in the UK.
>> Indeed, some of the smartest people in the class/year were also often some of the most popular, at least in the UK.
Same in India as well.
Same in India as well.
How physical violence is possible in US schools?
- As I know US has very strict laws against physical violence
- Students in US schools can be suspended not only for actual violence, but also for thread of violence and even for gesture: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Montgomery-Co-Studen...
Yep, physical violence is so frowned upon, that both people are typically suspended/disciplined, and at least at my high school were typically sent to "in school suspension" which was basically a tiny room separate from the school where you had to sit. You can imagine how well it tended to work when you took two people that got into a fight had to sit in a tiny room with each other.
Also, no, it didn't matter who started the fight. If you were involved then you were equal and disciplined the same. It's ridiculously backwards
Also, no, it didn't matter who started the fight. If you were involved then you were equal and disciplined the same. It's ridiculously backwards
Bullying is most effectively done by socially talented sociopaths in many situations. Those at the top of the social hierarchy cajole those they need to, but demonstrate dominance and power over the weak. This should not be surprising.
The teachers naturally will "like" the talented social sociopath, so they forgive and don't punish their transgressions against the weak.
The teachers naturally will "like" the talented social sociopath, so they forgive and don't punish their transgressions against the weak.
Well, there's the law, and then there's what actually happens. At the very least, you need evidence in the hands of authorities and willingness (of a number of people) to "prosecute", so to speak, before action is taken. I'm guessing both of those are rare.
Likewise (rural midwest US), it has always seemed to be one of those TV fictions.
Wow, I moved around the US every 3 or 4 years growing up and saw this as a very predictable, common pattern. Although I guess I was mainly in larger cities/schools...
Were you the nerd being beat up/bullied or did you just witness it at different schools? I also moved around a bit and got bullied. It was a lot more about being the new kid than being a nerd. Being a nerd was just what they used to taunt me.
I was that nerd, although admittedly I was only in one real fight (in grade school) and I didn't have too many problems beyond that.
[edit] I guess I didn't see too much actual violent fighting otherwise beyond (I guess) normal making fun of / pushing around of nerds, although I did see a few fights between girls and some involving more metalhead/burnout types (in case anyone is familiar with the John Hughes High Schooler taxonomy)
[edit] I guess I didn't see too much actual violent fighting otherwise beyond (I guess) normal making fun of / pushing around of nerds, although I did see a few fights between girls and some involving more metalhead/burnout types (in case anyone is familiar with the John Hughes High Schooler taxonomy)
It probably does have something to do with school size, perhaps my class wasn't big enough to support the distinct cliques required (graduating class ~20).
It's probably that, I grew up in the Midwest in a rural school district (outside the school district of a ~100k population city) - we had a 400 or so graduating class though. This was early to mid 90s, and it was pretty standard through the 80s too, at least for me. In the mid 90s I fell into a grunge group and they were a bad influence. Instead of getting bullied about being a nerd, it switched to that, and taunts about blowing my brains out with a shotgun (around the time that happened) were pretty common.
Edit: to add this perspective though, my wife went to school in a relatively small town (Rolla, MO) and also had a 400 or so graduating class, but she claims ignorance of any sort of nerd bullying and thought it was a TV trope only thing too. She graduated in 2002. Maybe something changed between those dates?
Edit: to add this perspective though, my wife went to school in a relatively small town (Rolla, MO) and also had a 400 or so graduating class, but she claims ignorance of any sort of nerd bullying and thought it was a TV trope only thing too. She graduated in 2002. Maybe something changed between those dates?
I went to two Midwest high schools in the late 70's early 80's, one was large (5,000 students) and the other was tiny (17 in my class). Both schools had bullies, but the smaller private school had bullies with behavior far in excess of the large public school. The larger school had bullies that would fight each other and protect some nerds they liked or knew, while the smaller school was not diverse enough, so the few bullies had nothing to stop them, and they went way, way too far.
I also didn't see nerd-bullying, coming from a 500-student-per-grade public school in West LA.
Admittedly, it was unrepresentative in other ways: one third Ashkenazi Jewish, one third Persian Jewish, one third mostly-white-and-Asian other, very high population of affluent immigrants. We were plugged in to American pop culture, but I think we were isolated in some senses. Little to no idolization of the sports teams, for example.
Admittedly, it was unrepresentative in other ways: one third Ashkenazi Jewish, one third Persian Jewish, one third mostly-white-and-Asian other, very high population of affluent immigrants. We were plugged in to American pop culture, but I think we were isolated in some senses. Little to no idolization of the sports teams, for example.
Nice story, but Western Civilization started to fall when the gold standard was left behind for some massive credit scheme that created money from thin air.
Couple that with the rise of China and India along with the rest of the developing world and you have a recipe for no jobs, bad politics, and poor education.
Ross' problem wasn't bad friends, it was entitlement. He always felt that he deserved Rachel when in reality he didn't do anything that impressive or have the self confidence for her to consider otherwise. This was the writers fault, not the actor...
Couple that with the rise of China and India along with the rest of the developing world and you have a recipe for no jobs, bad politics, and poor education.
Ross' problem wasn't bad friends, it was entitlement. He always felt that he deserved Rachel when in reality he didn't do anything that impressive or have the self confidence for her to consider otherwise. This was the writers fault, not the actor...
> Nice story, but Western Civilization started to fall when the gold standard was left behind for some massive credit scheme that created money from thin air.
I can't tell if you're joking... you think the fall of Western Civilization started in the 1930s?
I can't tell if you're joking... you think the fall of Western Civilization started in the 1930s?
I imagine this guy is not being entirely serious but anti-intellectualism neither started nor ended with this particular show, nor do I think this character was the first character mocked for being a poindexter. I mean, why not Urkel? Why not something older?
If I binge watched Friends I'd be a bit angry too.
Another title-bait.
As per the title, the writer should have shown a "causal" link between the TV sitcom, and the perceived downfall of the Western civilization. Proving causality is hard, but I would have been happy even if the author had shown some level of correlation. Unfortunately, none were to be found.
The Western civilization is not same as United States. It presence is from the Western Europe to far reaching islands of New Zealand.
This is also something of a problem with HN, where such shallow articles sometimes get pushed up to the front page just because the author decides to write a challenging, and overreaching title.
As per the title, the writer should have shown a "causal" link between the TV sitcom, and the perceived downfall of the Western civilization. Proving causality is hard, but I would have been happy even if the author had shown some level of correlation. Unfortunately, none were to be found.
The Western civilization is not same as United States. It presence is from the Western Europe to far reaching islands of New Zealand.
This is also something of a problem with HN, where such shallow articles sometimes get pushed up to the front page just because the author decides to write a challenging, and overreaching title.
It is a problem with HN, I agree, but it's also a symptom of a larger problem with Western Civilization, generally. I blame "The Simpsons". Or maybe "Seinfeld".
You know, I don't agree that America is a particularly anti-intellectual place. Certainly there are some anti-intellectual strains in the culture. But if the culture as a whole were truly anti-intellectual I would expect college as a right of passage, particularly to elite positions, to be a far more minor phenomenon.
In America, whether you go to college, and particularly whether you went to the couple of dozen top colleges, is hugely important. For example, virtually all members of Congress have college degrees. As do all military officers. And good luck finding a major business leader who never went to college.
There are some jobs which require very specific training that is available only in college; no getting around that. But it goes much further. In America, some jobs that _don't_ require mastery of any specific body of knowledge still require a college degree, any college degree, just as a test of basic competence. And a society that looks askance at intellectual activities just would not do things that way. It would use other criteria for judging general character and competence: achievements in sports, the arts, the military, something like the Scouts, or maybe leadership in organized religion.
If America were truly anti-intellectual, it would not trust a sector as intrinsically intellectual as colleges to do its social sorting. And with much less ability to confer social status on those they admitted, colleges would matter far less.
In America, whether you go to college, and particularly whether you went to the couple of dozen top colleges, is hugely important. For example, virtually all members of Congress have college degrees. As do all military officers. And good luck finding a major business leader who never went to college.
There are some jobs which require very specific training that is available only in college; no getting around that. But it goes much further. In America, some jobs that _don't_ require mastery of any specific body of knowledge still require a college degree, any college degree, just as a test of basic competence. And a society that looks askance at intellectual activities just would not do things that way. It would use other criteria for judging general character and competence: achievements in sports, the arts, the military, something like the Scouts, or maybe leadership in organized religion.
If America were truly anti-intellectual, it would not trust a sector as intrinsically intellectual as colleges to do its social sorting. And with much less ability to confer social status on those they admitted, colleges would matter far less.
It didn't trigger it, any more than Idiocracy did; it's just reflecting it. Friends being popular is just like any content free art (for want of a better word) being popular.
The difference is that Idiocracy is deliberately criticizing the phenomenon, whereas Friends was unintentionally promoting it.
Funny that "Read a book" and "Learn something" are the lead suggestions from a person binge watching friends. (Even the third, "buy less shit", from a person with apparently a TV and netflix subscription).
Can you believe these environmentalists that own cars and fly in planes?
Can you believe these white social integration liberals that don't live as minorities in minority neighborhoods?
Can you believe this health and fitness advocate that once ate a Snickers?
Can you believe this yoga instructor that bought lululemon?
Can you believe these white social integration liberals that don't live as minorities in minority neighborhoods?
Can you believe this health and fitness advocate that once ate a Snickers?
Can you believe this yoga instructor that bought lululemon?
Sure, but this is more like an armchair environmentalist shouting "Hey people ride the effing train!" while sitting in a traffic jam.
Making the transition from pop culture to nerd culture was one of the best things that happened to me. Instead of "protect the nerds", "become a nerd" is probably better advice.
Same story submitted three times. Isn't there a mechanism to prevent something like that from happening?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11354581
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351826
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351665
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11354581
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351826
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351665
Some of us haven't seen the story yet. I'm guessing those who upvote the story are part of that group. Maybe a better mechanism would be a feature that doesn't show you stories (grouped by URL) that you've already interacted with?
The #<value> at the end of the linked URLs is what's letting them get past dupe detection. It happens sometimes.
What you have to ask yourself before writing these kinds of things is, "When has it ever not been thus?". I didn't see any evidence of that in the article.
I always wondered why the fact Ross had a PhD was relatively underplayed on the show. It comes up in some episodes, however Ross' job wasn't focused on that much. Probably would not have made for funny television I guess.
Now I can't wait for that episode where a greyed Ross Gellar has a guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory. Sure, there is a lot of making fun of nerds in that show, but it's so nuanced compared to the old Ross-mocking that one might actually enjoy living in the 21st century. Not mentioning TBBT in a 2016 text about nerd bullying in Friends? Might be tolerable in a tweet, but not in a text that long.
(entirely unrelated tangent: R.E.M. ITEOTWAWKI(aiff) as a preliminary Friends theme song? Now that puts the whole show in an entirely new perspective)
(entirely unrelated tangent: R.E.M. ITEOTWAWKI(aiff) as a preliminary Friends theme song? Now that puts the whole show in an entirely new perspective)
I can't help but agree, though I think the fall started much before Friends with Baywatch, Howard Stern and MTV.
All of which (including Friends) I enjoyed. But I always have this uneasy feeling, that this "let's give them what they want" culture, which has spread into everything from politics to tech, has all kinds of costs and consequences. Or maybe I am just getting old.
All of which (including Friends) I enjoyed. But I always have this uneasy feeling, that this "let's give them what they want" culture, which has spread into everything from politics to tech, has all kinds of costs and consequences. Or maybe I am just getting old.
Required reading for HN crowd as an accompaniment:
- Why Nerds are Unpopular - http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
- re: Why Nerds are Unpopular - http://www.paulgraham.com/renerds.html
- Why Nerds are Unpopular - http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
- re: Why Nerds are Unpopular - http://www.paulgraham.com/renerds.html
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Art imitates Life
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The author needs to lighten up and pay more attention to the avenues of learning he prefers, rather than what he hates. I have never seen Kardashian's ass in a respected scientific journal.
Related: https://xkcd.com/603/
Related: https://xkcd.com/603/
Of course intellectually stimulating media still exists, but if it's the minority of what people consume then it doesn't make sense to say the culture is A-OK. Also, what does a scientific journal have to tell us about current events and politics?
My sister remarked at how inane the news was and I suggested she try looking somewhere else for her news. Oddly it was more of a revelation for her than I expected. The prototypical "news" show is "crime in your area", "weather in your area", followed by "your area's sports teams performance". Which is more about "what has happened" than "what is going on".
Purely for personal gain... can you explain your post?
Are you saying she was surprised by the news' idiocy?
Are you saying she was surprised by the news' idiocy?
She hadn't thought about the question, "What is news?"
There were shows which identified themselves as providing "news" and she wanted to hear the "news" but it had never occurred to her that she and the media would disagree on what that word meant. The thing that took her away from single tracking mainstream media was Michael Jackson's death. It was tragic but she just wasn't that interested in it and so many other things were happening at the same time that were getting no coverage that she could see. I suggested she seek out other sources of information and she did. A trip to the library for copies of various magazines and other newspapers and she was amazed at how much stuff she was not getting in the channels that she had voluntarily limited herself too.
Her big epiphany was that there is no "this is the information we're not sharing with you" summary. And without that summary, you don't know what you don't know unless you go looking for it.
There were shows which identified themselves as providing "news" and she wanted to hear the "news" but it had never occurred to her that she and the media would disagree on what that word meant. The thing that took her away from single tracking mainstream media was Michael Jackson's death. It was tragic but she just wasn't that interested in it and so many other things were happening at the same time that were getting no coverage that she could see. I suggested she seek out other sources of information and she did. A trip to the library for copies of various magazines and other newspapers and she was amazed at how much stuff she was not getting in the channels that she had voluntarily limited herself too.
Her big epiphany was that there is no "this is the information we're not sharing with you" summary. And without that summary, you don't know what you don't know unless you go looking for it.
"but if it's the minority of what people consume then it doesn't make sense to say the culture is A-OK."
Then culture has never in the entire history of man been "A-OK".
Which is perhaps true. But since it would basically be true by definition, it's not very useful, either practically or academically.
Then culture has never in the entire history of man been "A-OK".
Which is perhaps true. But since it would basically be true by definition, it's not very useful, either practically or academically.
I'm not going to venture into whether things were better now or before but our media is toothless and more interested in acting as a stenographer for powerful people and institutions than challenging them.
I've always wondered whether that's an issue with the media now (specifically) or whether it's actually been an issue for its entire history, with the difference being that with the internet, we can finally look up claims made by 'authorities' much more easily.
That wasn't really the case in the olden days, where gatekeepers controlled access to the media and a large audience. If your local/national newspaper was lying, you'd only know if you were deeply involved in the subject or went to serious lengths to research it. At which point, so what? You'd have no way to easily publish your findings and get a large portion of society hearing them and realising the current media were lying to people or pushing a distorted narrative.
The internet has merely made it easier to fact check people's claims and expose the mistakes made (and lies told) by the 'establishment'.
Note: Of course, the media could indeed be worse for various reasons (like say, the internet making decent journalism too expensive to be viable and culling the herd down to 'those best at attracting attention to themselves'), but you have to question whether things really were ever 'good' here, or whether the barriers to entry just made them appear to be 'good'.
That wasn't really the case in the olden days, where gatekeepers controlled access to the media and a large audience. If your local/national newspaper was lying, you'd only know if you were deeply involved in the subject or went to serious lengths to research it. At which point, so what? You'd have no way to easily publish your findings and get a large portion of society hearing them and realising the current media were lying to people or pushing a distorted narrative.
The internet has merely made it easier to fact check people's claims and expose the mistakes made (and lies told) by the 'establishment'.
Note: Of course, the media could indeed be worse for various reasons (like say, the internet making decent journalism too expensive to be viable and culling the herd down to 'those best at attracting attention to themselves'), but you have to question whether things really were ever 'good' here, or whether the barriers to entry just made them appear to be 'good'.
OK, even though I just said I'd avoid getting into this, I think the Vietnam War really created a sort of golden age where reporters were more willing to challenge the narrative and institutional power than any time before or since. Vietnam (and to a lesser extent Korea) really disillusioned a lot of young journalists who did amazing work -- the Neil Sheehans and Seymour Hershes of the world, basically. It's telling how many scoops still come from reporters who cut their teeth in those years like, say, Hersh, or Bob Woodward.
I think before Vietnam journalists largely imagined themselves on the same side. I think after Vietnam, government propaganda got a lot more sophisticated. Besides that, the business model collapsed, making newspapers into supplicants and leading to cutback in resources devoted to investigative journalism. The latest trend of advertorial has newsrooms basically renting themselves out to businesses to write ad copy; how can you really cast yourself as an objective investigator after doing that?
Of course, journalists who imagine themselves as part of the circle of power are a problem but were around in the past too.
I think before Vietnam journalists largely imagined themselves on the same side. I think after Vietnam, government propaganda got a lot more sophisticated. Besides that, the business model collapsed, making newspapers into supplicants and leading to cutback in resources devoted to investigative journalism. The latest trend of advertorial has newsrooms basically renting themselves out to businesses to write ad copy; how can you really cast yourself as an objective investigator after doing that?
Of course, journalists who imagine themselves as part of the circle of power are a problem but were around in the past too.
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Would society be better if the majority read scientific journals? I don't know...
Probably not. Not everyone needs to be an expert in every conceivable topic. I think society would be better if people had at least a basic understanding of current events so it weren't so easy to mislead the general public.
Science never misleads... /s
I guess my primary complaint is that the author assumes the ignorant masses can learn nothing useful from "Friends". Plenty of academians have had epiphanies during a break from studying/working.
Anyone who claims to know the single event that brought down Rome is a fool.
I guess my primary complaint is that the author assumes the ignorant masses can learn nothing useful from "Friends". Plenty of academians have had epiphanies during a break from studying/working.
Anyone who claims to know the single event that brought down Rome is a fool.
I mean, I don't care if people watch a show I don't like for fun. My issue is mostly people being grossly misinformed about things they could easily learn (questions like: Does foreign aid constitute half of US spending? Is there a consensus about global warming? Did Saddam Hussein actually turn out to have weapons of mass destruction, and was he involved in 9/11? It's stunning how many people, when polled, give the wrong answers to these questions).
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There was no 'golden age' where nerds were popular and intelligence was always the most valued part of society. People aren't morons because they read about celebrity gossip or buy a ton of stuff or interact on social media. There was always a sizeable portion of the population who didn't care for intellectual parts of life, even back in the days of newspapers and radio broadcasts. Go back even further, and well, you were often deeply unpopular (at best) for having views considered 'dangerous' to society.
At least nowadays, it's easier to get involved in subcultures and groups for things you're interested in rather than being limited by geography. At least a lot of things previously considered 'for geeks' are now mainstream in some way. At least there's now a potential option for an intelligent outsider to make their fortune without having to be born into wealth or popular in a large company.
Anti intellectualism is not new, it's not increasing and it's certainly not bringing the 'downfall' of western civilisation.