An intellectual is a theory maker. Intellectuals sit on their front porches cutting, sewing, patching; mending theories… An intellectual substitutes for the intractable bloody mess called reality a seamless silken tapestry of pure ideas. 

All thinkers use abstraction and invent theories; inventing theories is thinking. But a theory must be transparent and flexible to be any good. When facts change or new facts emerge, the theory must be adjusted or, if need be, thrown out. An effective thinker cares passionately about theories and abstractions but is obsessed with reality, keeps his eye on the ball, never loses sight of the facts. 

More precisely: most intellectuals are intelligent, but their insistence on peering at the world through cotton-candy theories means that, smart as they might be, they are (unfortunately) predisposed to beliefs that are silly and false.

Thinkers, writers, scholars and scientists “hunger for concrete detail.” But to an intellectual, details are annoyances. The author uses the example of a theory that all roses are yellow and the responses of thinkers and intellectuals when shown a pink rose.  An effective thinker will say, “I conclude that my theory must be wrong.”  An intellectual will say, “I conclude that this isn’t a rose.” When confronted by a reality that refutes some elegant theory the intellectual finds a dodge.

Barack Obama and his generation of Airheads, the first ever coming of age after the cultural revolution, are unique in American history. All former leftist movements were driven by ideology. Obama’s is driven by ignorance…

He is important not because he is exceptional; he represents the post-cultural evolution of the PORGI elite…

Obama himself will go away like a bad cold, but there are many more where he comes from. Nowadays a new generation of Obamacrats enters the American bloodstream every year, in late spring, when fresh college graduates scatter like eager little birds or puffs of dandelion seed to deliver a new crop of Airhead left-wingery to the nation and the world…

That is why we take it for granted that any potential president just knows them. (Obama majored in political science.)   And that, in turn, is why it is so difficult to grasp the truth about Obama. But he has so often spoken and acted is if he doesn’t know what he is doing, hasn’t mastered the minimum job requirements that at last we have to face the truth. The man does not know enough to be president…

That conclusion points to another, even more alarming. Obama graduated from some of the best law schools in America: Columbia and Harvard Law.

He isn’t especially ignorant. He is only the leading citizen of an ignorant generation. What does that say about our schools? About America in general?             keep reading