Intellectual Morons

I just finished reading Intellectual Morons by Daniel J. Flynn and I highly recommend it. The title is unfortunate, suggesting a Coulteresque screed instead of the scholarly but breezy read that it is.

"ideology acts as a mental straitjacket. It blinds adherents to reality, breeds fanaticism, and rationalizes dishonesty. It makes smart people stupid."

Flynn covers much of the same ground Jack Cashill covers in Hoodwinked, but from a slightly different angle, making both books essential reading. What distinguishes this book is the treatment of ideology: Flynn leads off with a thought-provoking chapter on the subject, and it is a thread that runs through the book.

Do You Use Ideology as a Crutch?
Ideology can be a mental framework to make sense of what's going on around you, but Flynn sees it is more as a crutch for those too lazy to think for themselves.  Reading the opening chapter slowly and thoughtfully can provide a good intellectual self-examination.

The main idea behind Intellectual Morons is that ideology acts as a mental straitjacket. It blinds adherents to reality, breeds fanaticism, and rationalizes dishonesty. It makes smart people stupid.

It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you don’t use your brain. Intelligent people aren’t necessarily rigorous thinkers. In fact, many of them are mentally lazy. Ideology provides a way for lazy people to respond to issues, ideas, people, and events without thinking.

For the ideologue, ideology is the Rosetta Stone of everything. Why think when the system provides all the answers? Ideology is attractive to smart people because it flatters them by suggesting that a single idea from the mind of an intellectual has the power of explaining all of history or ordering the affairs of whole nations. No person is that smart; no idea that good. (Front Page - Interview)

My conservative friends are nodding their heads, thinking "oh yeah!"

But wait!  He goes after Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and those dreaded neocons as well, attacking not so much the adherents as the intellectual authors. It doesn't offend me because I am a fan of neither ideology, but even so, it is healthy to hear some reasoned criticism of one's sacred cows.

Neocons and Randites can still find much to love in the book.  He saves the vast majority of his firepower for the likes of Planned Parenthood, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, PETA, radical environmentalists and postmodernists.

Intellectual Morons is a storehouse of of ammo for those who enjoy arguing with liberals.  More importantly, it is a useful springboard to an intellectual self-examination.  

Are you an ideologue or an independent thinker?