During a bitch-fest about American politics premised on a dear friend’s G-Chat status (“What asshole French absurdist playwright is responsible for the 2008 U.S. election storyline?”), Nicholas gives me the quote of the election season:
Also, can we stop calling it “anti-intellectualism” and start calling it “dumb-loving” or “stupidity-embracing”?
Yes we can.
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Two of my friends and I say Sartre, and another friend is still thinking.
(I’m sorry to derail this a bit, Jill, but I couldn’t resist.)
I said Ionesco, even though he’s Romanian. But that could just be because I confused elephants with rhinosceruses. (rhinosceri?)
Eugène? Makes more sense, now that I think about it. XD
Check out Joe Bageant’s piece on Ionesco.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/12/dining_with_the.html
I agree. They don’t use the word intellectual, so why should we? Dumb-loving is more like it!
Moliere? Is he absurdist? I can never keep my French playwright classifications straight.
And may I please use your quote as my quote of the day on my site?
I wouldn’t call Moliere absurdist, but not far offm a great satirist.
I found this wonderful section from one of my favorite Moliere plays online: http://www.online-literature.com/moliere/middle-class-gentleman/7/
It skewers those who need skewering, and includes the immortal lines from the fool Monsieur Jourdan:
Ah! What a fine thing it is to know something!
and
This logic doesn’t suit me at all. Let’s learn something else that’s prettier.
That second line pretty much sums up the Palin vote.
The latter two terms were often used by my college classmates to decry the conservative-leaning attitudes of the mostly working-class townspeople.
All that did, unfortunately, is to reinforce the somewhat true perceptions among the latter group that we college students were “elitist” along with the dubious perception of us as “radical left pinko-commie freaks” which didn’t help the already extremely strained town-gown relations.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the right-wing uses that quote as more “evidence” of “Liberal elitism” to appeal to independents who felt put upon by it along with rallying their base.
This is truly great.
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