My Dearest Jerri,
Thank you for your question; I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get around to answering it. I got so many great questions to start (although I seem to be running out) that it took me a while to sort through them. If I recall (or, of course, if I can call it up on-line—do folks still recall?), you asked why American culture vilifies intelligence and critical thinking.

My answer would be: Well, it does and it doesn’t.

If Wode Toad were here rather than on a spring trip gigging rednecks in Kentucky (Shine the light right in his eyes!), he might point out that this kind of ambiguity is one of the many reasons why, since America prefers simple answers rather than a complex sic et non.

I mean, we don’t villify intelligence to any extreme—you guys live most days without a mob of villagers with torches & pitchforks showing up on your lawn, as do bright, intelligent people like Jeff & Debbie who live 3 blocks from you, or I, who live 4 blocks east of you, or all the Banks family scattered south of you and north by the river.

Sorry. I guess I’ve given those mobs a fixed location; sorry about that. Hope they don’t show up during Doctor Who, or you’ll hurt them.

On the whole though, people aren’t bothered by intelligence or intellectual pursuits. When I tell people that I have a PhD in Philosophy, they find it a curious oddity, much like the news that my brother-in-law regenerated his wisdom teeth or that my great-aunt used to dress up like Liberace.

We are a democracy, and we like to think of ourselves as a fairly egalitarian society. We tend to feel that any attempt to “rise above” seems a bit “elitist,” and we tend to mistrust it (unless, of course, it makes money; then it’s OK). The problem with smart people is we fear that they are smarter than we. Even if, on some occasions, as in the case of William F. Buckley, Jr., or Adlai Stevenson, we do let the best and the brightest shine, on the whole we dislike it when other people flaunt their intelligence at us. We prefer to let really bright, well-educated people like Bill Clinton or George W. Bush be folksy and talk with accents, rather than showing off their educations.

Our current culture is also driven by the market place, and with most markets it is best to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That explains a great deal about the current crop of idiot comedies and half-hazard action flicks at the movies, as well as most of the dreck on television.
On a recent Friday night, Wode Toad & I were walking around downtown Johnson City, Tn. We were watching the University kids having a good time with their drinking, smoking, carrying on, music and karaoke (two unrelated endeavors apparently), and other forms of fun, and Toady asked me:  “Why shouldn’t America be anti-intellectual?  The lights, the music, the people, the fun, the drinks? Why should we need a world of ideas as well?”

Of course, there also remains the basic problem that we dislike having our comfortable assumptions called into question. I don’t even, and I live in a state of gray ambiguity; I’m sure that folks with easy, casual certainties don’t.
Classical Athens prized intelligence and critical thinking—hey! It was dedicated to the goddess of wisdom—but it still killed Socrates. Renaissance Italy tortured Galileo. John Locke fled Enlightenment England for the relative safety of Holland. Spinoza died penniless and ostracized outside of Amsterdam (his unconventional notion of the divine was a little too radical even for the Dutch). Enlightenment France imprisoned Voltaire. America prefers isolating them to hurting them.
Cognitive dissonance is discomfiting—humans dislike being presented with ideas which conflict with our self-evident truths—and we prefer to isolate or eliminate those who cause it.

Women who think are, of course, even scarier….

Mostly, though, I am not sure that American culture knows what to do with thinking, and so it is made a little uncomfortable with it. At the time of our beginnings, the “Old World” (Europe) prided itself on the fiction that it was their culture–their high culture, art , literature, & intellect–that made them superior. We have preferred authenticity to culture. This is a false dichotomy, but a simple, useful, and persistent one. Living with this self-view, we have never quite been able to figure out what to do with thinking, especially not with thinking for its own sake, or even with smart people who seem to want to think about things which are out of the ordinary.
Intelligence and critical thinking seem harmless enough, but is there any possible use for it? It there any real place for it? In the past, we sort of set aside places in libraries and universities and New York and San Francisco, but now that all of us have a role in supporting and building our culture (not just Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers), it is hard to see what to do with thought. It can’t be quite as entertaining for most people as, say Music or Theatre (well, it can be the way I do it, but generally).

However, what that leaves us with is an indifference to intelligence. This indifference can at times be stifling, almost as harsh as vilification. Intelligence and critical thinking don’t seem require much in terms of resources or special equipment, so we can still practice them in the face of vilification (your term) or stifling indifference (my prefered term). One would think that we can practice them alone, but that simply isn’t the case. I think that is because using intelligence and practical reason does require a place, and does require some sort of conversation. On this level, indifference limits intelligence as well.
On the other side, the academics have done as much harm to intelligence by limiting this conversation to small places and specialized jargon as those who are openly hostile to it. You and I both know that we have met folks who are incredibly intelligent, yet who haven’t even gone to or haven’t finished college. These friends make us smarter when we have intelligent conversations with them.
Perhaps it would be best not to focus upon getting our culture to provide a place for thinking, but instead to try to figure out just how much we need it, which is the same as figuring out what we don’t know. Although we have explored huge swaths of our planet, and have even taken pictures of space, we are left with an infinity still to explore, a mountain of problems still to be solved, and so much to still figure out—in the words of Kris Kristofferson (or Dr. Seuss or Dr. Pangloss—one of them) “lots of pretty thoughts that I ain’t thunk.”

Regardless of who else cares, as the thinkers of the past did, we must talk together (or write to one another), and reason together, and think critically together. Whether there is a public space for it or not, whether we are vilified or not, thoughts are free.

Die Gedanken Sind Frei, my thoughts freely flower ;
Die Gedanken Sind Frei, my thoughts give me power .
No scholar can map them;
no hunter can trap them
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!

I think as I please and this gives me pleasure;
My conscience decrees this right I must treasure.
My thoughts will not cater
to duke or dictator
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
And should tyrants can take me and throw me in prison,
my thoughts will burst free like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble,
and structures will tumble,
and free men will cry, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
Yes, free men will cry, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!