snakeoil is snakeoil, even if the salesman calls himself 'professor'

"An intellectual is one of the intelligentsia. One of the intelligentsia is one whose head is full of ideas derived from * (repeat X times from asterisk) Plato and on mythilical prehistoric Lycurgus.

"While an intellectual may be mistaken, at a distance, or while in rapid flight, or by an inexperienced intellectual-watcher, for a specimen of the human species, he or she may easily be distinguished by a number of typical characteristics. The intellectual, male or female, is incapable of obtaining food by direct effort and is invariably parasitic. Habitats are foundations, colleges, governments, non-profit organizations.

"Absence of mind may be noted. An intellectual may often be heard twittering, in self-congratulatory tones, 'I'm not absent-minded!' or sounds to that effect. Another frequent note is 'I forgot.' An alert ear will hear these in the intellectual's stream of chattering; no intellectual is ever silent when awake and none has yet been observed sleeping. The eye appears normal but is able to see nothing but print; an intellectual sees nothing before his nose unless it be a book.

"Mr. Walter Lipmann, a typical intellectual, recorded in 1933 the fact that he had learned in college 20 years earlier that there are no more opportunities in America since there is no more free land (Note: Cherokees Run, last large tract of land thrown open to homesteading, 1879. Greatest number of homesteaders in late 1920s; largest number of acres homesteaded in the year 1932. Homestead act repealed, 1933) and added, 'I have seen nothing since then to lead me to modify the view then formed that nothing remains to be done but to divide more equitably the wealth already created.'

"This unusually coherent statement by an intellectual himself verifies the general observation of the intellectuals' inability to see anything but print... The intellectual believes any printed statement.

"Intellectuals never are seen singly; they live, read and speak in compact groups and move in flocks. If one goes to Paris, all go to Paris; if one goes to Taos, all go to Taos. Their unanimity in twittering is striking, and it is observed that frequently, and always simultaneously, the flock changes its twitter. So far as is known, a twitter once discarded is never again repeated...

"An eagerness to be in print is also characteristic, presumably derived from the peculiar structure of the eye; hence the common name of the species, often heard in the vulgate as apply to a single specimen, 'publicity hound.'"

-Rose Wilder Lane, 1949
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:14 PM