Anti-Intellectualism Versus Over-Intellectualism

The answer is, again, somewhere in-between

I have just emerged from another back and forth with a fellow Medium writer on the topic of gun control. I came away from it frustrated, because nothing about this topic or discussion is simple, and despite our strong desire to have a winner or loser in these debates, it rarely turns out that way.

This time, it got me thinking about the rise of anti-intellectualism in the U.S., and how we often blame it for Trump’s rise to power.

For those of us who like to think of ourselves as intellectuals, this can be a comforting idea.

Folks with less formal education, after being treated as second-class citizens for decades, have risen up in angry revolt, supporting a man who strokes their egos and tells them that facts are lies and lies are facts and that you don’t need no fancy college education to know which way the wind blows. They favor their gut feelings over science and facts, and have learned to discredit the source so that anything presented as evidence can be dismissed as liberal crap.

As a result of believing this theory, we mourn the reversal of progress and fear a return to barbaric times where science is seen as witchcraft and religion rises back to power and the only thing you need to win an argument is the loudest voice.

It is a great, dramatic perspective on things, and it allows us liberals to feel completely blameless and totally on the victim side of the equation.

Of course, it isn’t that simple.

In the latest debate, my “opponent” had carefully crafted an essay indicating you could not prove that the very restrictive gun laws put into place in Australia and the UK had anything to do with decreasing violence in those countries. You can see his arguments here.

He copied and pasted this same text as a response to something else I wrote, and also as a response to several other people’s Medium essays. So, initially I didn’t take too much time on a rebuttal; I merely cited a few articles that had contrary conclusions to what he had presented.

He responded by saying “ Selected presentation of the data can support any conclusion anyone likes.”

I responded indicating that while he thought I was guilty of cherry-picking data, I felt he had done exactly the same thing.

I then pointed out that as a statistician, I know that you cannot prove anything in the social sciences using available data, because we have not way to control the variables we want to examine.

Any of you who have read my other works know that I believe we as humans can only hope for indicators rather than fact, and that it is important to acknowledge that there is a great deal we don’t know. But you also know that I am still very much a data and information guy.

Nonetheless, I know there are times when the data alone is not going to give you an accurate picture of what is going on.

The essay that started me on this tirade feels like a very good example of what I will call “over-intellectualism.” I will define it as a data-based argument that completely ignores the logical and common-sense factors involved.

One of this guy’s conclusions was that reducing the availability of guns in Australia and the UK decreased the number of gun-related violence, but had no impact on the overall violence rate, as people just used knives or other weapons instead. He had numbers to support this conclusion, of course, and we won’t get into the accuracy and completeness of this data, but we can say that he had good arguments with multiple sources of data to back him up.

But he is still wrong, from my perspective.

He argued for all kinds of good solutions, like reducing media attention on gun crimes, focusing on belonging and inclusiveness in schools, and banning bump stocks and large magazines. I agree with all of these things.

But he went on to say any gun restrictions were likely to have no impact, because no data was available to prove that reducing guns reduces overall violence.

And again, he’s right that there is no conclusive research that can prove this. But there is no conclusive research that can prove a lot of things we believe to be true.

I work in education, and one of the hottest debates for decades involves funding and student outcomes. Lobbyists on one side argue that more funding for schools will lead to better student outcomes. Lobbyists on the other side say that you cannot prove a causal link between funding and outcomes, and then focus on highlighting inefficiencies in the school system.

I don’t know about you, but when I first heard this debate, I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. Of course having more money in schools means you have more potential to better educate the students. And of course you have to make sure you are using this money efficiently in order to increase the chances that student outcomes will improve.

Do I know these things because I can point to hard data that proves them? No, I know them because it is logical. With more resources at your disposal, you have more potential. But you have to actualize that potential the right way. That is just how things work.

With gun violence, it seems the same thing to me. If there is too much gun violence, should we focus on the guns themselves, or should we focus on the societal factors making it more likely that people will want to commit acts of violence?

The answer most reasonable, rational human beings are going to give you is “both.” The debate will come in when we talk about which is more important, how to address them, and so forth.

In my very first stats class, I was taught the difference between “statistically significant” and “meaningful.” There are situations where two groups might be different based on a test of statistical significance, but this numerical difference has no real impact in the real world. Similarly, there are situations where two groups can be observed to be different in the real world, but statistical tests fail to find significant differences between the two due to any variety of things (measurement error, confounding variables, covariates, etc.).

In graduate school, I learned the importance of utilizing multiple measures and of complimenting quantitative sources with qualitative sources.

But perhaps the most useful lesson I learned during my studies was the importance of the smell test. Some things are so, even if they can’t be proven, and some things are not so, even if the data says they are.

Where does this leave me with my original notion of the rise of anti-intellectualism versus this apparent over-intellectualism? As the subtitle to this article says, the answer lies somewhere in between.

The world is not a cold, rational, facts-driven place. Neither is it a place where our gut reigns supreme and everyone operates based on hunches. Humans are not completely rational beings, nor are we animals running on instinct alone.

What we need is a balance of looking at what our hearts tell us, what our heads tell us, and making sure we can understand and differentiate between both of them.

On an emotional level, I don’t like guns. I feel they are unnecessary and dangerous. On a logical level, I understand that if a dangerous object is made less available, it will be less likely to cause harm. Because of these two things together, I am a strong supporter of reducing the number of guns in this country.

I understand that this is not the only solution, and I am interested in supporting any of the other really good ideas out there fore reducing violence and strife in our country.

But my gut and my head both agree that simple subtraction needs to be a part of this equation.