Gehl Blogging

6/13/2014 10 Comments

Exaggerated Laughter, “Mansplaining,” and other Forms of Anti-Intellectualism

Are you an anti-intellectual?

Do you engage in lateral violence when confronted with knowledge you do not understand?

Do you engage in “mansplaining” by discounting and over talking what women say?

Do you think all people have the time to think deeply?

Do you deny that knowledge is an economy?

Do you choose tokens versus valuing community intellectuals?

Are you jealous of people who have knowledge?

Do you call education “colonial”?

Are you reactionary when people deconstruct useless icons?

Do you argue that books and other text are not valuable sources of knowledge?

Do you not value the structure of knowledge?

Do you think that reading a large collection of books and articles is the same as understanding the structure the knowledge rests on?

Do you undermine academics merely because they are asking people to think critically?

Do you not value that books and articles are merely artifacts that represent knowledge?

Do you equate intelligence quotient with knowledge?

Do you impose or project your paradigm’s criteria onto someone located outside your paradigm?

Are you unable to value that there are parallel paradigms of knowledge production?

Are you unable to value the heart as a repository of knowledge?

Are you unable to value that knowledge emerges through paradox and contradiction?

Do you think knowledge is linear?

Do you think your friend is right for no other reason than they are your friend?

Do you think only academics have knowledge?

Do you devalue educational accomplishments by saying it's just a piece of paper?

Do you call a doctor “Ms” or “Mr” intentionally as a means to devalue them and their knowledge?

Do you dismiss knowledge as opinion?

Do you engage in exaggerated laughter when someone says something that you don’t understand yet?

Do you engage in exaggerated laughter when you do understand the profoundness of the knowledge offered yet you do not want your followers to engage in the critical thought required as you prefer them to remain an ignorant follower?

Do you fail to value that people situated under multiple layers of oppression have important knowledge?

Do you project your interpretation before you value the speaker’s/reader’s intended interpretation?

Do you think persons with disabilities are not capable of intellect?

Do you judge knowledge based on spelling and grammar?

Do you fail to understand that knowledge may not be friendly and happy?

Do you think there is a right answer to every question?

Do you conflate authority with knowledge?

Do you argue someone engages in lateral violence when in reality they are presenting knowledge that you are not able to conceptualize?

Do you think that people need to end with a happy story even though the knowledge is a sad truth?

Do you think you are the authority of your consciousness?

Do you fail to value historical particularism and cultural relativism?

Do you fail to understand that the meanings inherent or under words, symbols, icons, and colour are fluid and shift?

Are you mean or sarcastic when someone asks “what does that mean?”

Do you assume knowledge is a commodity that does not require personal effort?

Do you think that Indigenous words are the only words that contain deep conceptual meaning?

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Lynn Gehl is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. She has a section 15 Charter challenge regarding the continued sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Ontario Algonquin land claims and self-government process. She has three books: Anishinaabeg Stories: Featuring Petroglyphs, Petrographs, and Wampum Belts, The Truth that Wampum Tells: My Debwewin of the Algonquin Land Claims Process, and Mkadengwe: Sharing Canada's Colonial Process through Black Face Methodology. You can reach her at [email protected] and see more of her work at www.lynngehl.com.

10 Comments

JOHN ISH ISHMAEL link

6/13/2014 04:18:25 am

Lyn Gehl's questions are thought provoking and 'inconveniently' so. Hugs. ISH

lauren raine link

6/13/2014 06:27:57 am

Really thoughtful, and profound, article (list). Thank you for giving the gift to us.

Heather Majaury

6/13/2014 08:46:57 pm

I really enjoyed this list. It making me think about my own pockets of anti intellectual thinking.

I try to guard against it but I found even when I was working on my masters I was always in this funny push-pull relationship with my own anti intellectual tendencies mostly cultivated by my social location and a desire to belong.

I think its a shadow aspect of populism.

It doesn't mean I don't have a critical mind about the education industry which is a major economic driver at times and the hierarchical colonial structures that inform how higher education functions and selects at times. That is problematic for a whole host of reasons.

But there are good ethics and practices of self reflection and responsibility that are also taught through the process of "higher" education. I am not willing to equate higher education as the only pathway to intellectual rigour but its the most common at this time that is recognized and there are reasons for that. Mostly systems of adjudication that can be verified.

I have much more respect for the hard work and rigour that occurs behind the the scenes to make that book that takes a few short hours to read, or the paper that is published in a pier reviewed journal, or the talk delivered at a conference than I did previously.

It is still "ideas" courageously shared that transform my world. I can't imagine a world without them. Maybe I can. Think Romania in the 80's.

Therefore I value the process of learning and the intellectual capacity of my social circle immensely. I think we need to transform our relationships to each other in a way that values the questions we ask and the answers that come. One thing I think is important is to know you can't know everything and its your relationships to the smart people around you that can truly make a difference. But we all need to take a hard look at what we assume is intelligence. And what sort of knowledge is considered valuable.

Knowledge comes from so many directions and colonial structures are pervasive in so many institutions that to decolonize and to transform patriarchy and to dissolve class injustice is not just one strategy in one circumstance. Its an ongoing process in many settings simultaneously.

Scapegoating, minimizing, ridiculing, and devaluing intellectual input of those who take on the rigour of research, critical thought, and communication mostly because we are intimidated by their intelligence or access is counterproductive to becoming who we really are and should be.

As always Lynn your reflections on your journey of life help me think in new ways and that is something I really value. Thanks.

JOHN ISH ISHMAEL link

1/13/2015 03:42:20 am

Heather Majaury, your reply to Lynn Gehl was interesting to me. Hugs, ISH.

Frank D'Aquila

6/13/2014 11:19:36 pm

It would be such a treat to sit and discuss each of these questions in a mixed group of engaged individuals to further define them.. No 36 short and elegant the right person explaining that would be awsome . The world we see and feel is a construct of our brain and that is a construct of Matter and Mind and therefore my world cannot be the same as anyone elses.. The fun of that.. Great List Lynn Gehl.

Lisa Shaffmaster

6/16/2014 12:58:34 am

Number 30 is troubling. Many folks assume that because an individual values and defends standards of spoken and written language, that they do not value or understand poorly communicated ideas. It is not an either/or situation. Certainly it is unspeakably rude to correct someone who is attempting to communicate an idea, or to judge a person with limited language skills as unintelligent, but it is dismissive to discount those who value language, as superficial and unthinking.

Walter Vincent

6/22/2014 01:26:05 pm

Good Evening Lynn Gehl, For most of the questions I see the pattern in critical thinking and I believe we are on the same side of the continuum for the ways and forms we believe knowledge is produced, represented, reproduced and consumed. For 23, in my experience it has been professors requesting to not be called Dr. but to be called by first name, I think when people intentionally try to discredit people or devalue them it's intentional and violent- in my observations it's been mostly male students challenging female professors when this happens; so I believe there are larger factors involved. For 22, I have called receiving my MA and other things as PhD/EdD/JD as pieces of paper; not to discredit the efforts it took, because I do see it as an accomplishment- at the same time, the question as to whether or not knowledge is solely in the hands of academics comes back in mind when I think of this, intelligence and intellectual ability is different than education; this is a complicated question. I constantly confront my own schooling against my search for knowledge , this question makes me dig further to complicate this reality and find a way to find balance.

Troy Storfjell, PhD link

7/13/2014 02:37:20 pm

I appreciate the spirit of the list, and the emphasis on critical thinking. But I wonder why critical thinking directed at educational institutions and their implications within colonialism is considered anti-intellectual. Throughout so much of the world universities and schools have played central roles in colonization, and continue to marginalize Indigenous epistemologies.

lorie laforme

1/12/2015 10:36:36 pm

You contradict yourself

Lynn Gehl

1/13/2015 03:08:26 am

Thank you.

You may like this blog: http://www.lynngehl.com/black-face-blogging/paradox-contradiction-and-hypocrisy

Let me know.

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Exaggerated Laughter, “Mansplaining,” and other Forms of Anti-Intellectualism

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