Analysis Of Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids By Grant Penrod

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Recommended: An introduction on intelligence essay

Joseph Abolarin
ENG 1010 D
Professor Jasmine
29/08/17
I'm a Nerd, So what! One thing people in the society seam to overlook or pay no attention to is anti-intellectualism. What is anti-intellectualism? and does it exist in the society today. Anti-intellectualism is the hostility or overlooking of intellectually skilled individuals in the society. According to Grant Penrod, anti-intellectualism doesn’t only exist in the society but also in the schools today, which he showed in his essay "Anti-intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids". In his essay Penrod talked about smart student or people and how they are being overlooked or ostracized in the society. In this essay he made an argument that students or people who are intellectually …show more content…

In his essay Grant Penrod stated that uneducated success goes far beyond singers and athletes. In his essay Grant Penrod also stated that, the united states president shows an image of no intellectualism, which I strongly disagree with. With examples like these I feel like Penrod is extending or reaching this to make his points. In Penrod's essay he states that the president was a "C" student and also that his speeches did not portray an intellectual image. While this example might have helped his essay a little, it seems like it also holds the essay down by a bit. Penrod used the president as an example but didn’t speak much on him, he said the president was a "C" student, but was it throughout his whole education? Or was it for a short time, the reader doesn’t know because Penrod did not specify. Also, a lot of things or factors could have contributed to this, ranging from disabilities, to plain shyness. The President is one of the biggest public figure and speaker, if not the biggest of them all and anyone can get nervous even him. This should be expected of him some times since he has to address the whole nation, a stutter here and there, maybe even a mispronunciation, he's only human after all. I do not think the president contributes to or supports anti-intellectualism because to be the president one has to be intelligent enough to make the right dictions for the country. Not everyone can be president and I feel like this incomplete example undermines the president and his role. This example and another where Penrod generalized that all public figures support Anti-intellectualism, leads me to believe that for these points or examples he reached in order to accentuate his points. Grant Penrod states that “the image of intellectualism is

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