Anti-intellectualism is a philosophic doctrine that assigns reason and intellect subordinate places in the world; and either denies or questions the ability of the human mind to comprehend the Truth of the real world. Therefore, hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism usually are expressed as derision of education and philosophy, and in the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical and contemptible human pursuits.
What are the causes of anti-intellectualism? It plays a significant role in politics and I think it is due to the rising inequality in society, education is far out of reach for most and there is a kind of sour-grapes attitude towards academics. In some regards, we are all anti-intellectual, as academics are often assimilated by politicians and corporations to lie to the public, these lies often cause lots of harm and suffering, but instead of a counter-movement that promotes truths, we see a growing movement of fringe groups who promote more lies that steer us into greater harms, partly due to lack of the ability and experience to think critically and independently and partly down to resentment and downright spite.
Anti-Intellectualism
Moderator: atreestump
Forum rules
No Abusive Behavior. No Spam. No Porn. No Gore. It's that simple.
No Abusive Behavior. No Spam. No Porn. No Gore. It's that simple.
-
Intellectus
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
I believe its the loss of the "power" they hold over people is what they are afraid of. I believe intellectuals are individuals that constantly try to accept and understand the "Truth of the real world." Society is a collective perception of ideological concepts that can not see anything as individual, therefore, can not understand it. To truly understand something is to gather all sides of a argument and come up with the best solution. Those groups that are hurting society rather than helping is the downfall of the free world. Classic example of emotion clouding logic.
Anti-intellectualism is ignorance > self-knowledge.
Intellectualism is self-knowledge > ignorance.
Anti-intellectualism is ignorance > self-knowledge.
Intellectualism is self-knowledge > ignorance.
-
atreestump
- Posts: 921
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
I believe its the loss of the "power" they hold over people is what they are afraid of. I believe intellectuals are individuals that constantly try to accept and understand the "Truth of the real world." Society is a collective perception of ideological concepts that can not see anything as individual, therefore, can not understand it. To truly understand something is to gather all sides of a argument and come up with the best solution. Those groups that are hurting society rather than helping is the downfall of the free world. Classic example of emotion clouding logic.
Anti-intellectualism is ignorance > self-knowledge.
Intellectualism is self-knowledge > ignorance.
Well, we all know what this means after your recent departure and it is your type of attitude that @"Socrates" is referring to.
Individualism is always a compromise within politics. If hearing all sides of an argument is required, why don't you practice what you preach and not let emotion cloud your logic?
-
kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/18/us/6-7-m ... lained-cec
It has meaning to me, even though it sounds like they want to say sick sev-an, 6 represents Apollo and 7 represents Authority, the Sun, and Kronus, so saying 6 7 would translate to me to mean something like Apollo is King! Like AllahuAkbar! basically, and when these strange things occur, it seems to me the dumb bastards are being forcibly controlled by the spirit (algorithm) that runs through reality/experience and made to say and do things they don't even really understand.
These exclamations had versions throughout history, curiously to do with Apollo in those cases also, like this:
"
The exclamation "Ie, ie Paian" (ἰή, ἰή Παιάν) was a repeated part of this song. It functioned as an invocation, likely meaning something similar to "come, come, Paian" or "shoot, shoot, Paian," referencing Apollo's role as an archer and a god of healing.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paean_(god)
Sometimes it is enough for me when things sound similar or close enough, and even more so if there are connections that can be made to the qualities involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paimon
This person experiencing something like obsessive compulsive or invasive thoughts is relying on the silliness of what the general public says and believes about these things. Lucifer, Ashmedai, and Paimon were all references to the same thing in three different aspects, that of Illuminator, Wrath, and Paean. Apollo used to be represented by Mars and was connected to numerous things including war and striking and the execution of justice and judgment, and is also Michael, which was spelled Mikal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apulu
"
Syro-Canaanite deity Resheph, also known as Mikal or Mekal. He was a god of war, plague, and storms, and was worshiped in various cultures, including the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Arameans. Resheph was often depicted as an armed warrior with a bow and arrows, and his worship included him being identified with other gods like Apollo in Greece and Nergal in Mesopotamia.
"
Currently, the Apollo stuff is going completely crazy everywhere, and one of the representations is that of a snake, two headed snale, three snakes or a three headed snake, trident, two snakes interrwined, facing each other, facing away, a green snake, a golden snake, many golden or yellow snakes, a red snake.
The music is particularly that of stringed instruments which look like a bow for shooting arrows also. The spade or spear-like arrow shape is common with this and the concept of vectors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_(m ... d_physics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_vector
"
A vector is what is needed to "carry" the point A to the point B; the Latin word vector means 'carrier'.[4] It was first used by 18th century astronomers investigating planetary revolution around the Sun.[5] The magnitude of the vector is the distance between the two points, and the direction refers to the direction of displacement from A to B. Many algebraic operations on real numbers such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and negation have close analogues for vectors,[6] operations which obey the familiar algebraic laws of commutativity, associativity, and distributivity. These operations and associated laws qualify Euclidean vectors as an example of the more generalized concept of vectors defined simply as elements of a vector space.
Vectors play an important role in physics: the velocity and acceleration of a moving object and the forces acting on it can all be described with vectors.[7] Many other physical quantities can be usefully thought of as vectors. Although most of them do not represent distances (except, for example, position or displacement), their magnitude and direction can still be represented by the length and direction of an arrow. The mathematical representation of a physical vector depends on the coordinate system used to describe it. Other vector-like mathematical objects that describe physical quantities, such as pseudovectors and tensors, transform in a similar way under changes of the coordinate system.[8]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associative_property
"
In mathematics, the associative property[1] is a property of some binary operations that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result.
"
Added in 30 minutes 52 seconds:
"
Return to Search Results
r/Paranormal icon
Go to Paranormal
r/Paranormal
snoo
Someone spoke to me from my empty basement last night. What should I do?..
Experience
Last night I couldn't sleep at all, which is fairly normal since I work graveyard shifts and it's pretty much turned me into a night owl. So even on my days off I'm usually up all night long.
So I'm up in bed watching a romcom, laughing and in a great mood, and decided that I deserve to treat myself to the occasional drink. My bar is in my basement which is fully finished and furnished. It's pretty much a man cave.
I've spent entire nights down there by myself or with the gang and nothing strange has ever happened. So anything creepy or weird down there was absolutely the furthest thing from my mind.
I finish laughing my butt off and head down there. I go behind the bar, pour myself a drink, and head upstairs. BUT as I'm on the second to last step to the first floor, from behind me I hear "Hey!.." coming from downstairs in the middle of the basement.
It was an older man's voice, in their 50s I think. I know the house is empty except for me. And it scared the absolute shit out of me. I looked down there and nothing moved, no one spoke or came forward, and I freaked the fuck out. I jutted up the last two steps and slammed the basement door closed.
I'm wondering, Did I imagine that?, Is there someone in my house?? And as I stand there panicking, I hear the same mans voice coming from down in the basement but muffled by the door.
By the intonation, he asked a question. Then continued to talk right after. He was talking to me, the question sounded something like where are you going? I couldn't make much out, especially what he said after that, but I was panicked, adrenaline pumping, and said Fuck This Shit, someone broke into my house.
I ran into the next room, grabbed my flashlight, my handydandy baseball bat, and headed the hell back down there.
Silence. Just silence. Slowly, I turned on every light in every room down there, ready to bash some homeless mans head in (I'm sorry to all the homeless people..) but nothing. Every nook and corner checked and the basement is completely empty except for my panicking and heavily breathing ass.
I noped the fuck out of there, locked myself in my bedroom, and spent the next hour in crisis mode checking my basement cameras which showed nothing and no one except for me pouring myself a drink, and then coming back down there and running around like a madman with a bat a minute later.
I went down to the basement this afternoon after I woke up, with my trusty bat in hand and rechecked the whole place. I found Nothing. No one. Just me questioning both my sanity and reality.
I know what I heard.. That guy was pretty loud and he was talking in my direction and AT me. Even through the door I heard him talking down there at me up the stairs.. It seemed like he was trying to have a conversation with me.
I've never had any kind of break in (this is a very safe neighborhood) or any kind of remotely strange experience down there in my 15 years here. Does stuff like this happen to people out of the blue, or am I finally losing my ever loving mind?
I don't know what to do now.
*Update - It happened at 1:50 am. At this point I believe it most likely was paranormal and I think I'm going to go down there tonight to repeat the same exact process at the same time and see what happens. My curiosity's gotten the better of me and I wanna know what he/it has to say.
If it's actually an intruder, I'm coming prepared this time but it should still be very interesting..
*Update 2 - I've been down here from 1:45am until 3am, walking around asking and looking, and nothing. Part of me feels like it needs the darkness, or even just that element of unpredictability in order to manifest. Maybe it needs a build up of energy which it discharged last night, so it's tapped out right now. No idea. I have nothing to show for it tonight, but don't say that I didn't try.
Feel free to ask any further questions. I'll keep a keen eye on the basement and if anything happens now you'll all absolutely hear from me.
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
I know it was half sarcastic and I understand the skepticism.
My parents both died and left us the home and it ended up on my neck because my siblings are successfully leading their own lives in other states, while I'm barely keeping my head above water.. I work as many hours as I can get doing graveyard shifts because I don't really get along well with people.
I'm pretty socially inept and according to everyone, too nice and naive to make it anywhere in the real world. People are conniving and cutthroat and I just don't like that. I barely make enough money to keep covering the mortgage and bills each month and don't know what im going to do in order to keep the house in a few months.
Lol. There's my sob story. It's not some privelidged or amazing life I'm living, so I hope that helps clear things up.
29
u/GrazziDad avatar
GrazziDad
•
2y ago
I been reading the comments as the story develops, and I have to say that you are unusually adept with words. You avoid hackneyed phrasing and have a knack for picking just the right metaphor… Maybe a career in writing (or copywriting)? You do not have to be a conniving, world-weary jerk to make it in those professions
And, while I am not a “believer“ in the paranormal, it does seem that something out of the ordinary did actually happened to you.
17
u/PeridotIsMyName avatar
PeridotIsMyName
•
2y ago
Totally agree with this. You have a very colorful, descriptive, entertaining, and expert way with words!
8
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
Hahaha! Thank you kindly friend. I actually kept it kurt and on point in order to not bore you all with a 4-5 page story with all the exact details. I knew I'd have lost a lot of readers along the way that are used to reading much less and much more quickly. But I want to know their opinions as well.
My experiences over the years though, some of that real craziness.. Maybe I will eventually write a book about them all. It would be a damn shame for all of that potential knowledge to just disappear with me.
6
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
• Edited 2y ago
Thank you so very much. That does mean a lot to me, I mean it..
I don't know about that precisely but I've always loved languages and their specific uses of our vernacular. One word can mean so many things in so many languages and we often lack the words to express our deepest feelings and desires. We're lacking in face to face expression and reaching for technology to do it for us instead. I truly weep for us all.
English and history were my best subjects, and I vehemently wanted to be a writer some day. Once I realised the truth of our current system that I gave up. I need to be able to write at my leisure, as it flows and comes naturally. Ideas, imagination, life experiences.. you can't rush those. Our most famous authors died mostly broke and penniless.
I've dabbled with the idea of being another martyr or pariah for the masses, but seeing the state of this world right now, I'd much rather be looking after my family or whatever is left of it.
It's just that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And I'd rather be on my own shed building whatever the fuck I want. I'm not good at dealing with most people to begin with so it's no skin off my back. I just want the freedom to be able to think, write, and live what I believe. And I see no future in that in this countries system at least.
Things are progressing too quickly with no real tangible goal in sight. It's even more of a clusterfuck with AI entering the mix. Will I have a job in 10 years as an author, or will we all bow down to auto driven and written text and data? It's become ridiculous at this point. I'm not the person to ask for anything but my opinion. And my opinion is "What the fuck are we doing to ourselves?"
You all lost me long ago. Good luck with that shit, but I've got my bug out bag ready.
I currently feel a very deep and primal need get well away from all of this insanity..
6
u/GrazziDad avatar
GrazziDad
•
2y ago
This was a sobering read. You cannot be THAT "bad with people" to have the powers of observation you do. But perhaps that's simply classic introversion. [Pertinent aside: I spent several years of my life quasi-obsessed with... Emily Dickinson. To me, an obvious genius on the Pushkin-Shakespeare cosmic level, but someone who receded from society nearly entirely. That is, out in "her own shed, building whatever the fuck" she wanted, in her case an enduring body of poetry and thought. I suppose the difference is that, as the song goes, her "Daddy's rich"; sad to think of the counterfactual if she had to scrounge just for a roof over her head.]
People like you who are talented in "non-commercial" subjects like English and History are being systematically disenfranchised from participating in so-called White Collar work. Your comment regarding AI means that that last corner where creative types can congregate to participate in the great capitalist experiment is getting painted into oblivion... unless... "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?" AI is helping people who simply couldn't do certain things before to be passable at them, and quickly. Thinking out loud, but... can you leverage your skills with writing and "broad observation" along with AI tools somehow? [I say this because Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Claude have helped me massively in my own work.]
REGARDLESS, you are noticeably and notably talented, and this stands out even among the unusually good writing here on Reddit. And you also seem like a good egg.
3
More replies
fitzlegodc
•
2y ago
It wasn’t meant to be anything other than sarcastic. If anything it was highlighting that you sounded fortunate. My apologies if my sarcasm was hurtful to you. Honestly I was trying to be helpful.
7
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
• Edited 2y ago
No apologies needed. I know you meant no harm haha. But thank you for apologizing. That means a lot. We all have our weird, depressing, and wonderful situations dealt in life and you never know how things will turn out. You did nothing wrong my friend.
The fight against Social inequality is a different fight for a different day and one that I'm very much behind.
11
Ludington128
•
2y ago
Was the voice similar to your departed father? I was going to ask if you knew the history of the house, but after reading this it's obvious you do know the history.
4
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
Not at all. It was a stranger's voice entirely. No one that I even remotely recognize and if it had been a family member, they wouldn't be speaking in English for damn sure, and definitely not without a very thick and heavy accent.
3
"
Annoyingly cryptic ending with his family not speaking English now?
Added in 1 minute 53 seconds:
Modern Ghosts:
Added in 7 minutes 24 seconds:
"
u/Less-Damage-1202 avatar
Less-Damage-1202
•
17d ago
Killing our ego is empowering, & mentally liberating, fr! Im not very religious as far as Christianity goes, but i totally understand why pride is the #1 sin. For the most part, pride & ego just hinder progress, while increasing socio-economic strife.
Im certainly not perfect, but i try my best to be conscious of my mentality, as much as possible. Being wrong, & offering different perspectives only create an opportunity for gaining knowledge, & self growth!
1
"
Added in 7 minutes 39 seconds:
https://bilderfahrzeuge.hypotheses.org/3587
Added in 27 minutes 58 seconds:
So, the reason I put all that stuff here is for different levels and expressions of what I think anti-infellectualism me be and may be expressed as, including the replies in the reddits posted, down to the funny arguing about thieves not wearing white masks (executioners did). People seem to not do any research when it is now so easy, like the guy talking about Paimon and another talking about Glasya-Labolas and their seemingly refusing to look up either term properly lol and repeatedly insisting that they don't lnow what that is.
I was recently sitting in a restaurant and overheard a grown girl of maybe around 20 or so now, a college student, say she doesn't know what philosophy is or what the word means or refers to, and the two people trying to explain it to her took to insulting information technology as a degree, saying that IT is like Janitor Work compared Computer Science, which seemed so pretentious, and other things I overheard from everyone on the table were so devestatingly stupid and annoying.
I've been working on the idea that stupidity may be a conspiracy based on your suggestion that the people may not be total stupid fools who fall for their sworn enemies when they simply claim to be in favor of the poor people like them, and that the internet just makes them seem really stupid since that is what is put up online and easily noticed, but then I overhear stuff that really strengthens the impression that the intelligence of people may be taling a dangerous dive due to being totally stuck online woth each younger generation.
These people were trying to be intellectual though, they weren't deliberately fighting against anything like "smarts" as some people might do, possibly even out of fear of being judged as inferior to some standard they are imagining.
An example I often see is "it is just a movie" or "don't think/look too deeply into it", and others trying to shut people down from talking or typing too much and then insulting them fter theor efforts.
For years now, reading anything from people online really has a frequent tendency to get me feeling bad and annoyed with all the manipulations and complexes and sick control measures involved, not that I don't also try to do what I think is right and best, but in the case of other people they just seem like they are taking out their frustrations on total strangers by purosefully insulting them or saying things they probably still might not dare to in person, even though it would be highly unlikely that they get punched in the face as they ought to were they to ever even say something very aggressively belligerent and rude to anyone, and the least likely to be volatile in response would be a total stranger, but so many people seem to need to be whipped, at least with words, into being more well-oiled socially.
The experience of reading comments is a whole lot of cringing and pain for me, which for the most part doesn't occur in professional and serious academic literature that stays focused, but does occur in some that is very conversational and pretentious, seemingly created by charlatan poseur types who are still seemingly rare among the authors I read from, probably because of the investment involved in wasting their lives on some niche topic and the egoists wanting to be recognized and so choose different strategies and areas to broadcast their snootiness.
I hope that the stupidity and naivity I'm seeing is some kind of illusion and that people are not being duped. I fear that there may be a real project to try to dumb people down to such a point that making fools of them repeatedly is near effortless, in which case I hope that they revert to an even more un-tamed and feral state which can not participate in anything but wanton crime, unfortunately which will harm the most vulnerable first, rather than those demons who worked their malice upon society in the hope of controlling people rather than uplifting them.
The intellectual may not even exist, it might just be another epithet self-applied to the ruling class.
Added in 48 minutes 58 seconds:
The word and idea of "Executioner" has been occurring all day now, with and without looking it up.
One idea can also be that the physical surroundings generate the interiors, so that people only imagine themselves to be the agent and are instead just something that comes up because of the walls, so that this prisoner looking guy in silence hood was brought back when the walls were stripped down and brought back also, thus projecting the interior that the structure generates. An absurd, anti-intellectual notion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function
Added in 1 hour 25 minutes 29 seconds:
It has meaning to me, even though it sounds like they want to say sick sev-an, 6 represents Apollo and 7 represents Authority, the Sun, and Kronus, so saying 6 7 would translate to me to mean something like Apollo is King! Like AllahuAkbar! basically, and when these strange things occur, it seems to me the dumb bastards are being forcibly controlled by the spirit (algorithm) that runs through reality/experience and made to say and do things they don't even really understand.
These exclamations had versions throughout history, curiously to do with Apollo in those cases also, like this:
"
The exclamation "Ie, ie Paian" (ἰή, ἰή Παιάν) was a repeated part of this song. It functioned as an invocation, likely meaning something similar to "come, come, Paian" or "shoot, shoot, Paian," referencing Apollo's role as an archer and a god of healing.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paean_(god)
Sometimes it is enough for me when things sound similar or close enough, and even more so if there are connections that can be made to the qualities involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paimon
This person experiencing something like obsessive compulsive or invasive thoughts is relying on the silliness of what the general public says and believes about these things. Lucifer, Ashmedai, and Paimon were all references to the same thing in three different aspects, that of Illuminator, Wrath, and Paean. Apollo used to be represented by Mars and was connected to numerous things including war and striking and the execution of justice and judgment, and is also Michael, which was spelled Mikal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apulu
"
Syro-Canaanite deity Resheph, also known as Mikal or Mekal. He was a god of war, plague, and storms, and was worshiped in various cultures, including the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Arameans. Resheph was often depicted as an armed warrior with a bow and arrows, and his worship included him being identified with other gods like Apollo in Greece and Nergal in Mesopotamia.
"
Currently, the Apollo stuff is going completely crazy everywhere, and one of the representations is that of a snake, two headed snale, three snakes or a three headed snake, trident, two snakes interrwined, facing each other, facing away, a green snake, a golden snake, many golden or yellow snakes, a red snake.
The music is particularly that of stringed instruments which look like a bow for shooting arrows also. The spade or spear-like arrow shape is common with this and the concept of vectors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_(m ... d_physics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_vector
"
A vector is what is needed to "carry" the point A to the point B; the Latin word vector means 'carrier'.[4] It was first used by 18th century astronomers investigating planetary revolution around the Sun.[5] The magnitude of the vector is the distance between the two points, and the direction refers to the direction of displacement from A to B. Many algebraic operations on real numbers such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and negation have close analogues for vectors,[6] operations which obey the familiar algebraic laws of commutativity, associativity, and distributivity. These operations and associated laws qualify Euclidean vectors as an example of the more generalized concept of vectors defined simply as elements of a vector space.
Vectors play an important role in physics: the velocity and acceleration of a moving object and the forces acting on it can all be described with vectors.[7] Many other physical quantities can be usefully thought of as vectors. Although most of them do not represent distances (except, for example, position or displacement), their magnitude and direction can still be represented by the length and direction of an arrow. The mathematical representation of a physical vector depends on the coordinate system used to describe it. Other vector-like mathematical objects that describe physical quantities, such as pseudovectors and tensors, transform in a similar way under changes of the coordinate system.[8]
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associative_property
"
In mathematics, the associative property[1] is a property of some binary operations that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result.
"
Added in 30 minutes 52 seconds:
"
Return to Search Results
r/Paranormal icon
Go to Paranormal
r/Paranormal
snoo
Someone spoke to me from my empty basement last night. What should I do?..
Experience
Last night I couldn't sleep at all, which is fairly normal since I work graveyard shifts and it's pretty much turned me into a night owl. So even on my days off I'm usually up all night long.
So I'm up in bed watching a romcom, laughing and in a great mood, and decided that I deserve to treat myself to the occasional drink. My bar is in my basement which is fully finished and furnished. It's pretty much a man cave.
I've spent entire nights down there by myself or with the gang and nothing strange has ever happened. So anything creepy or weird down there was absolutely the furthest thing from my mind.
I finish laughing my butt off and head down there. I go behind the bar, pour myself a drink, and head upstairs. BUT as I'm on the second to last step to the first floor, from behind me I hear "Hey!.." coming from downstairs in the middle of the basement.
It was an older man's voice, in their 50s I think. I know the house is empty except for me. And it scared the absolute shit out of me. I looked down there and nothing moved, no one spoke or came forward, and I freaked the fuck out. I jutted up the last two steps and slammed the basement door closed.
I'm wondering, Did I imagine that?, Is there someone in my house?? And as I stand there panicking, I hear the same mans voice coming from down in the basement but muffled by the door.
By the intonation, he asked a question. Then continued to talk right after. He was talking to me, the question sounded something like where are you going? I couldn't make much out, especially what he said after that, but I was panicked, adrenaline pumping, and said Fuck This Shit, someone broke into my house.
I ran into the next room, grabbed my flashlight, my handydandy baseball bat, and headed the hell back down there.
Silence. Just silence. Slowly, I turned on every light in every room down there, ready to bash some homeless mans head in (I'm sorry to all the homeless people..) but nothing. Every nook and corner checked and the basement is completely empty except for my panicking and heavily breathing ass.
I noped the fuck out of there, locked myself in my bedroom, and spent the next hour in crisis mode checking my basement cameras which showed nothing and no one except for me pouring myself a drink, and then coming back down there and running around like a madman with a bat a minute later.
I went down to the basement this afternoon after I woke up, with my trusty bat in hand and rechecked the whole place. I found Nothing. No one. Just me questioning both my sanity and reality.
I know what I heard.. That guy was pretty loud and he was talking in my direction and AT me. Even through the door I heard him talking down there at me up the stairs.. It seemed like he was trying to have a conversation with me.
I've never had any kind of break in (this is a very safe neighborhood) or any kind of remotely strange experience down there in my 15 years here. Does stuff like this happen to people out of the blue, or am I finally losing my ever loving mind?
I don't know what to do now.
*Update - It happened at 1:50 am. At this point I believe it most likely was paranormal and I think I'm going to go down there tonight to repeat the same exact process at the same time and see what happens. My curiosity's gotten the better of me and I wanna know what he/it has to say.
If it's actually an intruder, I'm coming prepared this time but it should still be very interesting..
*Update 2 - I've been down here from 1:45am until 3am, walking around asking and looking, and nothing. Part of me feels like it needs the darkness, or even just that element of unpredictability in order to manifest. Maybe it needs a build up of energy which it discharged last night, so it's tapped out right now. No idea. I have nothing to show for it tonight, but don't say that I didn't try.
Feel free to ask any further questions. I'll keep a keen eye on the basement and if anything happens now you'll all absolutely hear from me.
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
I know it was half sarcastic and I understand the skepticism.
My parents both died and left us the home and it ended up on my neck because my siblings are successfully leading their own lives in other states, while I'm barely keeping my head above water.. I work as many hours as I can get doing graveyard shifts because I don't really get along well with people.
I'm pretty socially inept and according to everyone, too nice and naive to make it anywhere in the real world. People are conniving and cutthroat and I just don't like that. I barely make enough money to keep covering the mortgage and bills each month and don't know what im going to do in order to keep the house in a few months.
Lol. There's my sob story. It's not some privelidged or amazing life I'm living, so I hope that helps clear things up.
29
u/GrazziDad avatar
GrazziDad
•
2y ago
I been reading the comments as the story develops, and I have to say that you are unusually adept with words. You avoid hackneyed phrasing and have a knack for picking just the right metaphor… Maybe a career in writing (or copywriting)? You do not have to be a conniving, world-weary jerk to make it in those professions
And, while I am not a “believer“ in the paranormal, it does seem that something out of the ordinary did actually happened to you.
17
u/PeridotIsMyName avatar
PeridotIsMyName
•
2y ago
Totally agree with this. You have a very colorful, descriptive, entertaining, and expert way with words!
8
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
Hahaha! Thank you kindly friend. I actually kept it kurt and on point in order to not bore you all with a 4-5 page story with all the exact details. I knew I'd have lost a lot of readers along the way that are used to reading much less and much more quickly. But I want to know their opinions as well.
My experiences over the years though, some of that real craziness.. Maybe I will eventually write a book about them all. It would be a damn shame for all of that potential knowledge to just disappear with me.
6
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
• Edited 2y ago
Thank you so very much. That does mean a lot to me, I mean it..
I don't know about that precisely but I've always loved languages and their specific uses of our vernacular. One word can mean so many things in so many languages and we often lack the words to express our deepest feelings and desires. We're lacking in face to face expression and reaching for technology to do it for us instead. I truly weep for us all.
English and history were my best subjects, and I vehemently wanted to be a writer some day. Once I realised the truth of our current system that I gave up. I need to be able to write at my leisure, as it flows and comes naturally. Ideas, imagination, life experiences.. you can't rush those. Our most famous authors died mostly broke and penniless.
I've dabbled with the idea of being another martyr or pariah for the masses, but seeing the state of this world right now, I'd much rather be looking after my family or whatever is left of it.
It's just that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And I'd rather be on my own shed building whatever the fuck I want. I'm not good at dealing with most people to begin with so it's no skin off my back. I just want the freedom to be able to think, write, and live what I believe. And I see no future in that in this countries system at least.
Things are progressing too quickly with no real tangible goal in sight. It's even more of a clusterfuck with AI entering the mix. Will I have a job in 10 years as an author, or will we all bow down to auto driven and written text and data? It's become ridiculous at this point. I'm not the person to ask for anything but my opinion. And my opinion is "What the fuck are we doing to ourselves?"
You all lost me long ago. Good luck with that shit, but I've got my bug out bag ready.
I currently feel a very deep and primal need get well away from all of this insanity..
6
u/GrazziDad avatar
GrazziDad
•
2y ago
This was a sobering read. You cannot be THAT "bad with people" to have the powers of observation you do. But perhaps that's simply classic introversion. [Pertinent aside: I spent several years of my life quasi-obsessed with... Emily Dickinson. To me, an obvious genius on the Pushkin-Shakespeare cosmic level, but someone who receded from society nearly entirely. That is, out in "her own shed, building whatever the fuck" she wanted, in her case an enduring body of poetry and thought. I suppose the difference is that, as the song goes, her "Daddy's rich"; sad to think of the counterfactual if she had to scrounge just for a roof over her head.]
People like you who are talented in "non-commercial" subjects like English and History are being systematically disenfranchised from participating in so-called White Collar work. Your comment regarding AI means that that last corner where creative types can congregate to participate in the great capitalist experiment is getting painted into oblivion... unless... "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?" AI is helping people who simply couldn't do certain things before to be passable at them, and quickly. Thinking out loud, but... can you leverage your skills with writing and "broad observation" along with AI tools somehow? [I say this because Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Claude have helped me massively in my own work.]
REGARDLESS, you are noticeably and notably talented, and this stands out even among the unusually good writing here on Reddit. And you also seem like a good egg.
3
More replies
fitzlegodc
•
2y ago
It wasn’t meant to be anything other than sarcastic. If anything it was highlighting that you sounded fortunate. My apologies if my sarcasm was hurtful to you. Honestly I was trying to be helpful.
7
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
• Edited 2y ago
No apologies needed. I know you meant no harm haha. But thank you for apologizing. That means a lot. We all have our weird, depressing, and wonderful situations dealt in life and you never know how things will turn out. You did nothing wrong my friend.
The fight against Social inequality is a different fight for a different day and one that I'm very much behind.
11
Ludington128
•
2y ago
Was the voice similar to your departed father? I was going to ask if you knew the history of the house, but after reading this it's obvious you do know the history.
4
robert812003
OP •
2y ago
Not at all. It was a stranger's voice entirely. No one that I even remotely recognize and if it had been a family member, they wouldn't be speaking in English for damn sure, and definitely not without a very thick and heavy accent.
3
"
Annoyingly cryptic ending with his family not speaking English now?
Added in 1 minute 53 seconds:
Modern Ghosts:
Added in 7 minutes 24 seconds:
"
u/Less-Damage-1202 avatar
Less-Damage-1202
•
17d ago
Killing our ego is empowering, & mentally liberating, fr! Im not very religious as far as Christianity goes, but i totally understand why pride is the #1 sin. For the most part, pride & ego just hinder progress, while increasing socio-economic strife.
Im certainly not perfect, but i try my best to be conscious of my mentality, as much as possible. Being wrong, & offering different perspectives only create an opportunity for gaining knowledge, & self growth!
1
"
Added in 7 minutes 39 seconds:
https://bilderfahrzeuge.hypotheses.org/3587
Added in 27 minutes 58 seconds:
So, the reason I put all that stuff here is for different levels and expressions of what I think anti-infellectualism me be and may be expressed as, including the replies in the reddits posted, down to the funny arguing about thieves not wearing white masks (executioners did). People seem to not do any research when it is now so easy, like the guy talking about Paimon and another talking about Glasya-Labolas and their seemingly refusing to look up either term properly lol and repeatedly insisting that they don't lnow what that is.
I was recently sitting in a restaurant and overheard a grown girl of maybe around 20 or so now, a college student, say she doesn't know what philosophy is or what the word means or refers to, and the two people trying to explain it to her took to insulting information technology as a degree, saying that IT is like Janitor Work compared Computer Science, which seemed so pretentious, and other things I overheard from everyone on the table were so devestatingly stupid and annoying.
I've been working on the idea that stupidity may be a conspiracy based on your suggestion that the people may not be total stupid fools who fall for their sworn enemies when they simply claim to be in favor of the poor people like them, and that the internet just makes them seem really stupid since that is what is put up online and easily noticed, but then I overhear stuff that really strengthens the impression that the intelligence of people may be taling a dangerous dive due to being totally stuck online woth each younger generation.
These people were trying to be intellectual though, they weren't deliberately fighting against anything like "smarts" as some people might do, possibly even out of fear of being judged as inferior to some standard they are imagining.
An example I often see is "it is just a movie" or "don't think/look too deeply into it", and others trying to shut people down from talking or typing too much and then insulting them fter theor efforts.
For years now, reading anything from people online really has a frequent tendency to get me feeling bad and annoyed with all the manipulations and complexes and sick control measures involved, not that I don't also try to do what I think is right and best, but in the case of other people they just seem like they are taking out their frustrations on total strangers by purosefully insulting them or saying things they probably still might not dare to in person, even though it would be highly unlikely that they get punched in the face as they ought to were they to ever even say something very aggressively belligerent and rude to anyone, and the least likely to be volatile in response would be a total stranger, but so many people seem to need to be whipped, at least with words, into being more well-oiled socially.
The experience of reading comments is a whole lot of cringing and pain for me, which for the most part doesn't occur in professional and serious academic literature that stays focused, but does occur in some that is very conversational and pretentious, seemingly created by charlatan poseur types who are still seemingly rare among the authors I read from, probably because of the investment involved in wasting their lives on some niche topic and the egoists wanting to be recognized and so choose different strategies and areas to broadcast their snootiness.
I hope that the stupidity and naivity I'm seeing is some kind of illusion and that people are not being duped. I fear that there may be a real project to try to dumb people down to such a point that making fools of them repeatedly is near effortless, in which case I hope that they revert to an even more un-tamed and feral state which can not participate in anything but wanton crime, unfortunately which will harm the most vulnerable first, rather than those demons who worked their malice upon society in the hope of controlling people rather than uplifting them.
The intellectual may not even exist, it might just be another epithet self-applied to the ruling class.
Added in 48 minutes 58 seconds:
The word and idea of "Executioner" has been occurring all day now, with and without looking it up.
One idea can also be that the physical surroundings generate the interiors, so that people only imagine themselves to be the agent and are instead just something that comes up because of the walls, so that this prisoner looking guy in silence hood was brought back when the walls were stripped down and brought back also, thus projecting the interior that the structure generates. An absurd, anti-intellectual notion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function
Added in 1 hour 25 minutes 29 seconds:
-
atreestump
- Posts: 921
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
Artis, can you access your messages? People have been trying to contact you.
-
kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
I can't access them currently. Once in a while I get access to the forum to try to quickly create something for the imagination. One of my threads could be used to talk to me or my email, theartismagistra one could be used, though even my emails are difficult to read and respond to since the thing I do have brief access to is so small and doesn't properly display what is written. I'm still working on figuring out the phone situation, and soon I'll either get a replacement of the same phone or a screen replacement to take to a repair person, but I'm especially hesitant about the latter, also a new phone is really disturbingly expensive and turns me off a lot except that I've been using phones more than anything for the last two years or so now, but I also doslike it all.
Added in 6 minutes 59 seconds:
Any thread of mine or my email might be a way to reach me for now. It is also difficult for me to type with what I briwfly get access to for now, the typing is a mess, the putting in of links is a big pain and often blanks out all that I'm writing.
There has been a big bunch of stuff coming through during this period, as usual, this time it has been a number of interrelated seeming symbols that have an anchor point which everything revolves around in the form of snake imagery and themes. The local electronics are all on the fritz, a lot of screens continue to flicker and lights going out.
Inside the room at night, twice there has been an extremely bright flash from no discernable source that fills the room with light completely and no shadows, like an alien abduction lol.
Added in 6 minutes 59 seconds:
Any thread of mine or my email might be a way to reach me for now. It is also difficult for me to type with what I briwfly get access to for now, the typing is a mess, the putting in of links is a big pain and often blanks out all that I'm writing.
There has been a big bunch of stuff coming through during this period, as usual, this time it has been a number of interrelated seeming symbols that have an anchor point which everything revolves around in the form of snake imagery and themes. The local electronics are all on the fritz, a lot of screens continue to flicker and lights going out.
Inside the room at night, twice there has been an extremely bright flash from no discernable source that fills the room with light completely and no shadows, like an alien abduction lol.
-
atreestump
- Posts: 921
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
-
kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
I have access to two phones. The one phone had the screen blow out but has a secondary mini screen, and so it has a tiny space yo write in and mostly doesn't make writing easy or very visible. The other phone is mostly in use by someone else and I can only sneak on when it is left behind and the keyboard is horrible and typing on it is torture, so I've mostly used it for brief reading, but largely I've been on devices less but also not doing much except imagining things, using my imagination and daydreaming like a device lol. So the main site has logged me out agsin, it requires me to log in, then it will send me a slow email to verify me as it has been doing every time, then I have to verify and it suggests making my email impossible to remember, which I refuse. I csn't see the email properly on the tiny screen which doesn't display it. I can try now on this other phone but my time with it is over as it is being waited for and I have to hand it over, which makes the slow email for verification also a hassle.
-
kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
Added in 3 minutes 42 seconds:
Added in 19 minutes 22 seconds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Interpretation
-
kFoyauextlH
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:53 pm
Re: Anti-Intellectualism
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... P5xH8&s=10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concepts_in_folk_art
"
The social identity of 'folk' emerged in the late 19th century in rural populaces that were subject to greater poverty and lower literacy rates. This social identity eventually broadened to represent the underclass of modern society due to the rise in popularity of Marxist theory in the academic world, which began to identify both the rural and urban poor as allied subjects of economic inequality.[1]
In the 20th century the growth of the social sciences contributed to an expanded definition of 'folk'. By the 1960's, 'folk' groups grew to encompass multiple cultural subgroups, where any individual could belong to multiple 'folk' groups. The first of these groups is one's family, which has its own unique family folklore. Eventually, various forms of identity such as age, language, ethnicity and occupation developed separate 'Folk' groups. Thus, it is understood that folklore develops from shared identity in any social group.[2] As pointed out by Alan Dundes, "decades of fieldwork have demonstrated that these groups do have their own folklore."[1]
'Folklore' can include jokes, sayings and certain behaviors, always transmitted in an informal manner. It is primarily learned by observation, imitation, repetition or correction by other group members. This informal knowledge is used to confirm and re-enforce the identity of the group. It can be used both internally within the group to express their common identity, for example in an initiation ceremony for new members, or it can be used externally to differentiate the group from outsiders, like a folkdance demonstration at a community festival. Significant to folklorists here is that there are two opposing but equally valid ways to use this in the study of a group: you can start with an identified group in order to explore its folklore, or you can identify folklore items and use them to identify the social group.[3][note 1]
Even as the identification of folk groups spreads to all areas of our lives, the group most commonly associated with folk art involves the geographic location of a community. The art and artifacts from different communities and different regions are different; the origin of an individual pieces can frequently be recognized by its shape, patterns, and decorations. The "representative art of such societies is not created by its deviants and misfits… but by normal, intelligent, well-adjusted citizens who care deeply about their history and identity. Folk art comes mostly from the central values of a society rather than its fringe elements…"[4] All of these objects are part of the collective identity of a community, who claim them as their own.
"
"
During the Middle Ages in Europe, a high proportion of surviving objects, including statues, paintings, drawings, and building arts were directly tied to the messaging and stories of the Roman Catholic church and individual salvation; they were created to the glory of God.
"People did not consider things that were created as means of individual expression; creators simply worked with words or physical materials to construct products that reflected the divine order inherent in all worldly things. … All objects had practical aims; all that was fabricated moved humans toward their quest for salvation. Artisans, by definition, were those who skillfully produced cultural products. The original meaning of the word art, then, was quite clear: it applied to any kind of skill.”[5][6]
Prior to1500 AD, all material artifacts were created by hand by individual artisans, each of whom was more or less skilled in his or her craft.
With the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century, a new concept and vocabulary of art and fine art were invented within the western intellectual tradition. During the centuries spanning the late 15th to the late 18th century the emerging middle class in Europe came into their own and sought ways to display their newly minted wealth and power. They began to collect paintings and statues, and to commission new works such as personal portraits. In tandem with these new consumers of art, some few individual artisans were recognized as being exceptional, going on to become the great artists in the period of Renaissance art. In the parlance of this new age, these artisans were said to display individual personal inspiration in their work instead of an exceptional mastery of the age-old practices of their craft. Their works became known as works of art as opposed to the multitude of beautifully crafted objects created during the Middle Ages. Art became exclusive, created by gifted individuals for the limited few.[5]
As part of this new market of fine art for European monied elites, another distinction was introduced between objects which were functional and objects whose only purpose was to create pleasure, i.e. to be aesthetic. The ideas of the Middle Ages were abandoned, in which no distinction was made between the practical and the beautiful in the evaluation of crafted products by either the artisan or the consumer. Replacing them were the ideals of the Renaissance, in which the idea of art as purely aesthetic, lacking any practical purpose, gained credence. This distinction gave rise to the dichotomy of art vs. craft: art was reserved for the elites, everything utilitarian was consigned to the much larger group of functional objects, which were not considered art.[7]
This same early modern period also marked an increasing awareness in Europe that there were other lands and other peoples whose traditions were not European. Christopher Columbus set sail, as one of the first during the Age of Discovery and the concomitant globalization of world history. In the words of Gerald Pocius, Europeans discovered the "other" at this time. These "others" lived somewhere else, in cultures that appeared more cohesive than the contemporary cultures of Europe; their lifestyles seemed integrated and meaningful.[7] Their material culture was also very different than the artifacts common in Europe. These foreign objects were intriguing to the Europeans, however they did not fit in the newly defined genres of "art" and "fine art", which were for the most part confined to painting and sculpture. To get around this, the artifacts of the "other" were labeled as "folk art" or "primitive art", differentiated from the European elite creations, which were "genuine art".[8] These new labels connoted a qualitatively inferior object, the assumption was that they were of a lesser quality than the newly defined European fine arts.
With these new labels introduced during the early modern age, the European ideas of "art" and "fine art" became entrenched, specifically by exclusion of most of the material culture that surrounds us. The truly inspired work of an "artist", for the most part working in the media of either painting or sculpture, was qualitatively different and more than the exceptional objects produced in Europe by a master craftsman. All utilitarian objects were no longer counted as art; they were of an inferior nature, produced by craftsmen and artisans for the community as a whole. "Folk" or "primitive artifacts" produced in other lands by other cultures, as defined by the European Renaissance, were also qualitatively different and less than the works of art produced by European masters. Henry Glassie, a distinguished folklorist studying technology in cultural context, notes that in Turkish one word, sanat, refers to all objects, not distinguishing between art and craft. The latter distinction, Glassie emphasizes, is not based on medium but on social class.[9] Simon Bronner takes this further. "… if the folk art object in the aesthetic view is not social and cultural, then what is it? It is a thinly veiled commodity… It is a cultural statement by its owners rather than by its makers… Folk art here is a matter of economics, of education, and of social status."[10] By 1800, the concept of art for the upper classes only, confined to painting and sculpture, limited to the powerful and wealthy, became the understanding in the European mindset.
The subsequent question becomes how to escape the ethnocentricity of this European concept of art. In his essay on "Art", Gerald Pocius concludes with a definition of art specifically as it applies to material cultural heritage for communities across the globe.
"One of the central defining characteristics, then, of the concept of art must be the criterion of skill… Skills are developed gradually by individuals; they are not acquired automatically, and they are often a matter of degree … Skill manifests itself in a series of operations that produce the cultural behaviors we consider as art. In succinct terms, then, we can define art as the manifestation of a skill that involves the creation of a qualitative experience (often categorized as aesthetic) through the manipulation of whatever forms that are public categories recognized by a particular group. These bring us, then, to the key components of skillful behavior: tradition, group, and emotion.”[11][note 2]
The art of the folk is not about solitary individuals and unique items, it is about skilled artisans living in community, who demonstrate in one or more pieces an exceptional skill, honed over years of practice working in their chosen medium.
"
"
The term folk art is a category label, created within the western intellectual tradition to describe objects outside of that tradition. The category is not derived from the object itself like the labeling of a clay pot, which is made of clay and is functionally used as a pot. Instead it is imposed from without, by art critics and consumers who are working out of a different cultural context. In discussing "The Idea of Folk Art", Henry Glassie states the problem succinctly: “Distinctions arise when we view the art of one tradition from the perspective of another…. It’s all a matter of where you stand and where you look.”[12] A set of characteristics to define the category of folk art has been listed above; some of these characteristics are more specific, others less so. This is a category label that has little or no connection with the object itself; instead the connection is to the outsider's perception of the object. Through the process of categorization, the attempt has been made "to systemize and order in an artificial and simplistic fashion that which is extremely complex, sometimes contradictory, and maybe even chaotic."[13] Despite all attempts at categorization by art critics, consumers, marketeers and folklorists, the object itself remains an authentic cultural artifact that some individual somewhere created to address a (real or perceived) need.
"
"
An earlier, more general understanding of folk art had been developed in America during the Colonial Revival period at the beginning of the 20th century. Between the decades 1880 and 1940 as the country became an urban industrial society, Americans looked back nostalgically to their rural agricultural beginnings. All things antiquated, hand-made, old-fashioned came into vogue, particularly by the upper classes of the East Coast. Removed from their original context of production and utility within the local community, these objects were valued as standalone curiosities from an earlier time in American history. Originally labeled antiques, they became re-labeled as folk art during the first decades of the 20th century by both museum professionals and art marketeers. "Folk was a market term to separate a commodity from the fine arts above and the antiques below."[17] This shift in terminology opened up folk art to designate anything that was other, outsider, isolate, visionary.[18]
Despite single voices disputing this inclusive labeling throughout the first half of the last century, it remained entrenched in the vocabulary of the museums and gallery owners, for all items which might more correctly be labeled as Americana. It was at the mid-point of the century, at the same time that folklore as performance began to dominate the discussions, and professionals of folkloristics and cultural history became more selective in what they wanted to label as folk art. When we circumscribe the folk in folk community, then we will automatically circumscribe folk art. There is still variance in the understanding of the folk arts, but for students of cultural history it becomes clear that the folk in folk art are active, committed members within a community, they are not the outliers, isolates, or visionaries on the edges.
"
"
A book on the history of art was published in 1962: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. Written by George Kubler, a scholar of pre-Columbian art and architecture of middle and South America, the book abandons the concepts of "artistic style" to place all art, and in fact all human artifacts, on a continuum of physical modifications of shape. Kubler starts out with the premise that originally "every man-made thing arises from a problem as a purposeful solution." He goes on to explain how, throughout human history, the main reason to make something, i.e. an artifact, was in response to a recognized need by an individual or a community.[49] With this, Kubler offers the theoretical foundation for the utilitarian foundation of folk art objects in general.
One of the primary characteristics of folk art objects is the connection, either immediate or historical, to a recognized function within its community. The identification of a utilitarian prototype is much easier with some objects than with others. Household items, tools, houses all have a very clear purpose and use; they must be functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. If the decorated pitcher drips every time it is used to pour, if the ornate cupboard door does not close all the way, if the roof leaks, if the object does not work as intended then its value and assessment is immediately reduced.[50] This explains the consistency of its form over time, for even the most ornate object is shaped for a specific usage. But what is the utility of a painting hung on the wall, or a small carving of an animal on the shelf? How do these representations of a familiar scene in the life of the community, either as a graphic image or a sculpture, serve any purpose other than to decorate? Here we come to the historic purpose of representational objects of folk art, now perhaps obsolete, but originally the function of these art forms. Kubler formulated this succinctly: “Sculpture and painting convey distinct messages… These communications or iconographic themes make the utilitarian and rational substructure of any aesthetic achievement. Thus structure, technique, and iconography all belong to the non-artistic underpinnings” of these objects.[51]
Since the advent of public education for all children a basic literacy both in words and numbers is assumed; this is relatively new. Public schooling in western countries was introduced during the 19th century, less than 200 years ago.[52] Before that time, pictures and illustrations were used to tell a story, to document knowledge, to pass on information. This can be most clearly seen in the iconography of the church. Each saint was assigned an attribute as an identification marker. With this attribute, the saints and their stories were immediately recognizable to the populace, regardless of the workmanship of the piece. Graphic representations of community knowledge was the lingua franca of the world before public schooling and general literacy was introduced.[note 5] These graphic images of community life and knowledge were used for documenting, training, teaching, innovating both within the community and without. The painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his relatives illustrated this in many of their paintings and drawings. They rendered both landscapes and scenes of rural life to portray the life and language of the common man. The details in these graphics have long been studied by folklorists to gain insight into contemporary life of those times.[note 6] These illustrated representations of community life have now become more decorative; the original functions have been replaced by the rise in literacy and the explosion of easily accessible printed materials. Nevertheless, they still tell the story of the community to both insiders and to outsiders.
Another type of folk art is seen in the many models found in communities; for the most part these now sit on shelves in a home as decorations. Yet these small reproductions were created for a purpose. One reason to create a model is to gain proficiency in woodworking, or any other chosen medium. Skill involves practice, and the creation of miniatures involves more manual dexterity than making the full-scale object. Models were made by craftsmen to practice the skills needed for their work. "Learning to carve…was a playful way to learn the properties of woods, to use tools, and to solve technical problems."[53] A model might also be created to test out a new design before investing in the full-scale model. "Model building is fundamental in science, and that models must be reviewed frequently to test their viability, it is also clear that model building is a practical endeavor".[54] Models can also be toys, but as any parent knows, toys are first and foremost tools to acquaint a child with the varied components of their home and community: the doll house, the play tool set, etc. All of these enable a child to learn and practice skills needed as adults in their community. And in contemporary times, the marketing of models has become a lucrative small business, catering to outside visitors to the community. Models make very handy souvenirs for the tourist to take home, as they are small, handy and easily packed.
Attributing a utilitarian function to all folk art objects directly contradicts the idea that art is that which is not practical; instead its only purpose is to generate an aesthetic response in others.[55] The contradiction has been problematic as folklorists try to squeeze folk art, with its overriding utilitarian nature, into the framework defined by the European idea of fine arts. Gerald Pocius states that "Historically, the issue of whether items were useful or artistic was central to the concept of what constituted art. What was considered art was limited to those things with elaboration beyond the point of utility."[56][55] Henry Glassie, referencing his extensive work on Folk Housing in Middle Virginia,[57] argues that there are few material objects in the folk tradition that can be legitimately separated from their contexts as objects of art. The only common one, according to Glassie, is the dooryard garden, a product of the aesthetic application of the farmer's tools, techniques, and expertise. This gratuitous patch of beauty co-exists in the same landscaping plan as the woodpile, dungheap, and outhouse.[58] Folk art objects do not come out of the academy, and it might be considered inappropriate to evaluate them according to the fine arts criteria for art. For folk art, the utility of the item is an integral part of its aesthetics.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramp_art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visionary_art
Added in 14 hours 46 minutes 33 seconds:
I haven't watched this video yet, but this person took a very long hiatus and returned. The title attractede because I'm still thinking about and working on the idea questioning if people are truly dumb or are something else. At least for a lot of the comments I see, I really don't see many signs that there us genuine intelligence or even comprehension involved with the commenters, it is like the people choosing to write things have difficulties conprehending very basic things that they see or read, like they get the chronology of a sequence of events in a book or a film shockingly wrong and go ahead and write about it as a matter of fact. People were hidden in the past, but I have doubts they could have been this devestatingly stupid in the past, like not even being able to follow stuff that is shown to them in a very plain to see sequence? This could be some kind of chemical issue with caffeine or sugar or something else, like they aren't able to focus or even look at something and also feel some pressure to talk about things they weren't even looking at. It is pretty sickening though. Other theories are that some of these might not be real people at all, but they somehow seem real, except that they often donc't provide much evidence of being real, just one off random stupidity that gets things way wrong and mainly disappearing afterwards, so they could be tests of bots trying to convince people that they are real, but the A.I. people are exposed to in other ways often seems more accurate in what it says, but that could be part of the game, to push people towards A.I. by flooding other places of interaction with fake humans who are infuriatingly stupid seeming so that people don't even want to try anymore with them, except people are supposedly trying more than ever before if the statostics represent real people and not just sites being flooded with bots.
In real life I have rarely seen examples of people who are so stupid, except that the demographics are different, and when I overheard modern young people they did seem scarily stupider than any people I have ever seen or heard before.
Some group of people here, online again so I can't confirm they represent any significant portion of a real population anywhere here, seem to be very ill informed about how anything works or would work politically too, and they seem, in their online comments, to be on the side of and for policies that would totally ruin their lives, meaning they cheer on policies online which target their supposed demographic for destruction, which seems counterintuitive and insane, and it aldo makes them and their profiles seem fake or that they eould have to be something other than what they are claiming or presenting. It could also be that they don't understand how they are being lied to and targeted for harm and don't benefit from what is being suggested. It is just hard to believe so many adult people could be fooled yet again after decades of being fooled and being old enough to know about all those other times.
The gross game playing and spy games going on using the internet is very paranoia inducing, where so few of the loud mouth people choosing to type most seem like real people and lack normality.
This is exasperated by people trying to say exaggerated and provocative things and others not seeming to understand anything but still choosing to type and misunderstanding everything else typed. All of this stupidity and confusion on display is almost exclusively online and practically nowhere to be seen in daily outside interactions, but it gives a doubt and suspicion, are these the stupids online? Are these people who seem perfectly sane in most cases the same people who hide inside the most obnoxiously illiterate thoughts or are we all being attacked by a large scale psychological operation? Is it pissible that a worthwhile chunk of people aren't kidding and what we see is genuine dumbness on a large scale?
I don't get the impression that this is what I'd consider genuine apathy or highly sophisticated and very dedicated trolling from huge amounts of pretenders with nothing better to do and no further agenda.
I think that there is a mixture of bots, operatives behind bots and fake accounts, main accounts of operatives, and genuine people, and that the agenda of the people is usually pretty straightforwardly clear for the most part, even in the case of a lot of operatives, and so they spend their time backing things they also support and basically mean what they say, and when they lie it is for a reason, in the case of operatives it is for the group they work for and they work for that group because they believe what that group is doing or will lead to is fine at least and in their favor. The normal people are also expressing their genuine thinking, and so these would then have to be genuinely horrible people out there somewhere, even as operatives, to say the things that are becoming increasingly common to just say openly.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/0 ... of-denmark
https://fightchatcontrol.eu/
Bots could easily be used to help to make conditions seem so bad sothat these kinds of dangerous things pass into legislation and start being enforced.
Added in 6 minutes 29 seconds:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/ ... dumber.htm
Added in 8 hours 25 minutes 5 seconds:
I wonder if this is secretly racist:
This seems to be:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JFMUqiYRZEs/hqdefault.jpg
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5 ... @._V1_.jpg
I'm noticing arguments with the same two responses emerging in multiple comment sections and pages all over the internet regarding the trailer to Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, which itself seems like a white supremacist and white pride film that may also take some of the Troy in Britain things subtly and transposes stuff, and so the discussion that is repeated ad nauseum despite the same thing being said visibly all around it, but people or bots choose to say their nearly identical variant, goes something like:
"It is fiction though, it is mythology"
with the reply:
"You would find it weird if fantasy cowboys wore spacesuits"
or some other example, over and over and over, back and forth, new people chiming in with the same two comments.
Then over here a discussion about the thank you acknowledgment sections of books being annoying turned into an unexpected conflict about if a thank you was said.
Added in 5 days 19 hours 28 minutes 57 seconds:
The guy who said horrific things wasn't banned, the person who was just existing was banned instead, and people are expected to just accept nonsensical double standards and blatant hypocrisy and revolting irony.
Added in 1 day 3 hours 55 minutes 35 seconds:
Woah, what the hell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkad_(city)
Omg, they just always talk about Akkad so often and casually that they never usually bring up that it might be nowhere that people are thinking that it is.
"
In another letter he states:
"Concerning the lunar éclipsé about which the king, my lord, wrote to me, it was observed in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa and Nippur. What we saw in Akkad corresponded to the other (observations). A bronze ket[tledrum] was set up (played)."[29]
"
Well that should help, they can calculate the lunar eclipse and where it would have been viewed from, and narrow down the location, especially if they know where those other two cities are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borsippa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippur
"
Nippur remained inhabited in Islamic times, and is mentioned by early Muslim geographers under the name of Niffar.
"
P was almost universally pronounced F or Ph, so everyone is typically mispronouncing Nippur like Nippoor probably, and it was more likely pronounced like Niffar, with the ur not being like oor but uhr, like the similarity between uh and ah, so Nif fahr, the double ff being one that ends an f like if, and one that has a starting f sound like far. People also have a tendency to say things quickly, so some dialects must have been pronouncing it Niffr like Niffuhr quickly.
Since Brsffh and Nffr are so close together and are mentioned together as having seen the Lunar Eclipse, Akkad or Uhghth (th or d like thou) was likely also extremely near to them.
https://nataatmadja.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... s.html?m=1
If Niffar is depicted on the map, as well as Borsippa, then it is likely Akkad is too.
https://www.1001inventions.com/al-idrisi-map/
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/al-idrisi/
So annoying that it is so difficult to find any map listing both Borsippa and Nippur for some reason.
Also the Ni might be more like Nuh sometimes too, Nuhffr.
https://mosesegyptianised.wordpress.com ... l-babylon/
"
If ancient Babylon was not in southern Mesopotamia, as I have recently suggested:
Correction for Babylon (Babel). Carchemish preferable to Byblos
(3) Correction for Babylon (Babel). Carchemish preferable to Byblos | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
then its closely related sacred city of Borsippa, likewise, will need to be re-identified out of that southerly region.
If that identification can be satisfactorily achieved, then it will add strength to my already proposed reasons in favour of a NW shifting of Babel-Babylon, these being, according to my article:
The famous king Hammurabi, an Amorite, ought more appropriately be located well further to the west. This suspicion was greatly strengthened when I read Royce (Richard) Erickson’s earth-shaking article (2020):
A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
(3) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Royce Erickson – Academia.edu
calling for a dramatic geographical shift for Chaldea and Elam – and whose conclusions for these two countries I have since embraced.
I had, previously, newly identified Nimrod’s Akkad with Ugarit (Egyptian IKAT), a Mediterranean port.
I have returned to another early choice that I had as a candidate for Babel/ Babylon, and that is Carchemish. Does not the Septuagint Isaiah 10:9 virtually tell us that Carchemish was Babylon, or Babel, with its Tower, by replacing the usual reading, “Carchemish”, with “Babylon”?:
‘Have I not taken the country above Babylon and Chalanes, where the Tower was built?’ Here we have connected together two of Nimrod’s cities, Babel (the Tower) and Calneh (Genesis 10:10).
There is also the important element of “rivers” (Psalm 136:2 Douay): “Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion”. Carchemish rests by, or near, two well-known rivers, the Euphrates and the Khabur.
The Book of Ezekiel opens with the prophet “by the river Kebar [Chebar]” amongst the Babylonian exiles (Ezekiel 1:1-2). The so far unidentified Chebar (כְּבָ֑ר) river here must surely be the Chabur (Khabur) near Carchemish.
Then there is the name. Though “its meaning is doubtful”, one of its suggested meanings is ‘Tower of Chemosh” – the Tower again, but I am more intrigued by its acute likeness to Karduniash, another ancient name for Babylon!
Historical parallel – which I regard as being just the one historical event – we have Tukulti-ninurta attacking Babylon and removing its Kassite king, Kastiliash so-called IV, in chains to Assyria; and we have Sargon II attacking Carchemish and removing, its Hittite king, Piyashili (Pisiri), in chains to Assyria. Spelt out, Tukulti-ninurta/Sargon II attacks and takes the city of Babylon/ Carchemish and captures the Kassite/Hittite king, Kashtiliash/Piyasili, taking him in chains to Assyria.
Kasht ili ash
Piy ash ili
Borsippa as Til Barsip
We may well find the name Borsippa reproduced in Til Barsip (modern Tall al-Ahmar), located about 20 kilometres south of Carchemish.
Situationally, this accords very well with the conventional Borsippa (Birs Nimrud), which is located about 18 kilometres SW of Babylon.
And both Til Barsip and Birs Nimrud are to be found to the east of the Euphrates River.
Borsippa was closely connected with Babylon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borsippa
“Borsippa is mentioned, usually in connection with Babylon, in texts from the Third Dynasty of Ur through the Seleucid Empire and even in early Islamic texts. It is also mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 36a, Avodah Zarah 11b) and other rabbinic literature. Borsippa was dependent upon Babylon and was never the seat of a regional power”.
Note, moreover, Til Barsip has the exact same name as the “Barsip canal” presumably linking Borsippa to Babylon.
"
https://www.academia.edu/123163742/Corr ... _to_Byblos
What the hell! Is everything a damned mystery?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutu_(Mesopotamian_god)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Til_Barsip
Added in 56 minutes 51 seconds:
"
According to Grayson,
"In his own inscriptions he [Shamshi-ilu] has a grandiose list of titles: "field marshal, great herald, administrator of temples, chief of the extensive army, governor of the lands Hatti, Guti, and Namri (Hurrian region around Tigris river)".[5] That is, he claims to have governed the lands stretching all the way from central Anatolia, through Armenia, Kurdistan, as far as the East Tigris region around the Diyala River."[6]
"
https://www.academia.edu/13635190/Seein ... ntiochus_I
This still has to do with the theme of Anti-Intellectualidm on many levels and resistence to academic changes and suspicions about academics and their versions of things, particularly whrn they discuss other cultures. Imperialist and Colonial Archeology and Science in the Victorian period and thereafter can often seem downright chauvistic and jingoistic and belligerent, and people have pushed back sometimes with their own versions of similar heavy handed responses:
https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/ ... dnt-exist/
https://www.popularmechanics.com/cultur ... cy-theory/
In many ways, some of the most absurd conspiracy theories can hit on something that could be taken in a more true way, that the solidity of the Roman Empire and influence is overstated and exaggerated, giving people a skewed idea about how the Ancient World was in relation to them.
Added in 2 days 15 minutes :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight
"
Human capital flight is the emigration or immigration of individuals who have received advanced training in their home country. The net benefits of human capital flight for the receiving country are sometimes referred to as a "brain gain" whereas the net costs for the sending country are sometimes referred to as a "brain drain".[1] In occupations with a surplus of graduates, immigration of foreign-trained professionals can aggravate the underemployment of domestic graduates,[2] whereas emigration from an area with a surplus of trained people leads to better opportunities for those remaining.
"
https://articlegateway.com/index.php/JH ... /view/7309
https://www.newarab.com/opinion/we-are- ... osing-hope
Added in 1 day 3 hours 46 minutes 54 seconds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyman
Added in 40 minutes 39 seconds:
Added in 1 minute 59 seconds: