“The defining characteristics of junk thought, which manifests itself in the humanities and social sciences as well as the physical sciences, are anti-rationalism and contempt for countervailing facts and expert opinion. It cannot be stressed enough that junk thought emanates from both the left and right, even though each group—in academia, politics, and cultural institutions—thrives on accusing the other of being the sole source of irrationality….The real power of junk thought lies in its status as a centrist phenomenon, fueled by the American credo of tolerance that places all opinions on an equal footing and makes little effort to separate fact from opinion” (Jacoby 211).
- Jacoby, Susan. The Age of American Unreason. 2008;
from chapter titled, "Junk Thought."
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Junk Thought: A Definition
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3 comments:
What do reason, facts, and experts have to do with the human animal? Almost nothing. At least 99% of the human genome is devoted to perpetuating itself without any concern for knowledge, science or learning.
Junk Thought is highly useful when it comes to strutting and preening and other very natural human behaviors that lead to the propagation of human genes. Junk Thought is sometimes called Pillow Talk, Straight Dope, or the Common Touch. Junk Thought Keeps it Real.
To impose Meaningful Thought on the Mind of the human animal is to Mortify the Flesh and levy Cultural War against 6 billion copies of some very aggressive nucleic acid sequences and at least that installed base of memetic superorganism nodes.
So I asked myself, What Would Jesus Do?
"Junk Thought is sometimes called Pillow Talk, Straight Dope, or the Common Touch. Junk Thought Keeps it Real."
...Slave Talk, Barbarian Talk, and basically all the other monkey people not good enough to dine and drink with Greek philosophers.
Most aptly of all, Tribal Talk, where one says things that only affirm and forward the agenda or genes of ones familial group. Postmodernism. More than Jesus, we should ask what would W do. He grabbed a societal position that was designed rationally ( the executive branch), then rode that dumbass horse to death for his own Tribe's good.
Class A Cronyism, which is the payoff for Junk Thought.
"What do reason, facts, and experts have to do with the human animal?"
Well, without reason and the scientific method, many more of us would be stuck in ignorance and superstition, bleeding ourselves in hopes of making a fever go down, and drowning witches. We would not be able to communicate via this medium. Most likely, we would not be alive right now. Hurrah for science!
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