In his essay “On Stupidity,” Thomas Benton, the pen name for William Pannapacker, associate professor of English at Hope College (MI), identifies two cultural trends which have served to undermine the intellectual seriousness of today’s college students, and of American society in general. One is the proliferation of technology and wired connection, and the effects include diminished verbal skills, perpetual distraction, skimming in place of deep reflection, short attention span, and self-absorption. I’ve written in previous blog postings about this trend, and educators, as well as church leaders, do well to recognize and address the shallow virtual reality in which so many of the rising generation live so much of their lives.

The other trend which Benton notes is the rise of anti-intellectualism in American public and political life. While he doesn’t say it explicitly, it’s fairly clear that, in his view, the principal culprits are those on the political and religious right. It’s the political right which, for example, has used its anti-intellectual legacy “to label any complication of the usual pieties of patriotism, religion, and capitalism as subversive, dangerous, and un-American.”

To be fair, he follows this with, “And, one might add, the left has its own mirror-image dogmas” — but then proceeds quickly with this:

For academics on the political left, the last eight years represent the sleep of reason producing the monsters of our time: suburban McMansions, gas-guzzling Hummers, pop evangelicalism, the triple-bacon cheeseburger, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?, creation science, waterboarding, environmental apocalypse, Miley Cyrus, and the Iraq War – all presided over by that twice-elected, self-satisfied, inarticulate avatar of American incuriosity and hubris: he who shall not be named.

Benton includes references to Richard Shenkman’s Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter, who “shows how the political right has been able to don the populist mantle even as it pursues policies that thwart the economic and social interests of the average voter,” and to Al Gore, whose book The Assault on Reason he commends for its argument that “the fundamental principles of American freedom – descended from the Enlightenment – are being corrupted by the politics of fear, the abuse of faith, the power of an increasingly centralized media culture, and degradation of political checks and balances favoring an imperial presidency.”

Of course religious and political conservatives should not be surprised by the one-sided slant of such charges of anti-intellectualism on the right. One might wish that writers like Benton would address specifically and explicitly the manifold examples on the left of the increasingly shallow intellectual life of American culture – rather than merely offering the afterthought sop that “the left has its own mirror-image dogmas.”

Examples are not hard to find.

The cover story of the December 15 issue of Newsweek attempts to make “the religious case for gay marriage.” The essay makes numerous factual errors, includes ridiculous representations of biblical teaching, and writes off traditional, biblical views of marriage as hopelessly out-of-date. The essay is, intellectually speaking, silly, not only in its argument and content but even more so in its self-confidence. As one of my graduate school professors would have put it, “The author compensates for her ignorance by being so utterly sure of herself!” (Click here for an excellent response to the Newsweek story.)

If Newsweek’s goal were to engage in a serious and intelligent discussion and not simply to push its own agenda, its editor Jon Meacham would, as Mark Hemingway put it in an essay in National Review Online, “open up his pages to those who oppose gay marriage, confident that the right ideas and values will win out…” – or else he should “change the name of his magazine to Opinionweek and stop scolding other people for correctly pointing out that he has an agenda.”

Newsweek’s premature intellectual foreclosure on marriage is matched by that of Al Gore’s campaign for his environmental agenda. Gore and his allies ignore data, vilify their opponents, push a politics of fear rather than facts — and stand to reap a huge profit if their cause succeeds. How ironic that Benton would choose Gore to represent the call for “a restoration of rational democracy”! From teaching shibboleths to impressionable grade-schoolers to suppressing dissent from a host of global-warming-skeptic scientists, the leftward environmental movement provides a fine example of Benton’s charge of anti-intellectualism in America.

This past week brought another example of the anti-intellectual trend, this one from Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, in a vote which went mostly on party lines, the House of Representatives passed the Rules Package for the 111th Congress, 242-181. Changes include limits on the minority’s ability to use procedural rules like the Motion to Recommit, which since 1994 has provided the minority party the last opportunity to amend a bill before a vote. That Motion, set in place when the House party balance was the reverse of what it is today, was designed to enable the minority party’s full participation in floor debate. This recent move to silence opposition flies in the face of public commitments to more transparency and inclusiveness, and, in the opinion of Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO, amounts “to making a mockery of the leaders’ promise of presiding over an open Congress.” Regardless of political affiliation, all Americans concerned for a restoration of rational democracy, as Benton puts it, should see this deliberate restriction on transparent and meaningful debate for what it is: the triumph of political agenda and power-grabbing hubris over rational and intelligent discussion.

We could, of course, go back a bit further in history to examine the intellectual records of U. S. presidents, particularly in light of how Benton characterizes George W (see the quotation above). It would be by no means difficult to characterize in analogous ways his father, not to mention – OK, I’ll mention them – Clinton and Carter. In the opinion of many, the latter, much like Gore, enjoys an undeserved reputation for incisiveness and depth of thinking. He may fit well my father’s description: “On the surface, he’s profound.” The former, well….

So, while I appreciate Thomas Benton’s diagnosis of the anti-intellectual slide in American thought and culture, I find his presentation to be quite one-sided. At Covenant we aim to expose anti-intellectual nonsense wherever it is found, including in ourselves when we become aware of biases that inhibit honest appraisal of data and clear judgment. It is especially and crucially important for Christians, committed to the Scriptures and the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things, to be able to stand thoughtfully and courageously against the centuries-old caricatures and ridicule that are directed at them and their convictions by pseudo-intellectuals of every age. What a blessing to conduct our Christ-centered academic enterprise with the assurance of the wisdom of the centuries and of the intellectual adequacy of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Happy New Year, in our Lord Jesus Christ!