Phony Intellectualism Exposed

Joe Hinman has done a lot of reading - especially academic works including various philosophers and scientists.  Being exposed to a wide variety of ideas gives one a well-rounded perspective.  He loves to cite their words in his own writing, usually in support of his ideas about God and theism.  That's great.  They can lend an air of erudition, and provide a measure of academic authority to help you make your point.  Especially if you understand what they're saying.  But if you don't, you run the risk of destroying your own argument.  And besides that, you risk crossing the line from from erudition to pretentiousness.  And that seems to be the hallmark of Joe.

I was surprised some time ago (and I'm sorry I do not recall the specific location of this discussion) to hear Joe make the claim that all subatomic particles are comprised of still more fundamental particles.  Of course that is not consistent with the scientific view.  But Joe had a quotation from a physicist that he cited to prove his point.  The trouble is, he didn't understand what the physicist was saying.  When I tried to explain it to him, he doubled down, and insisted that he had the quotation from a real physicist to prove it.  Joe is not educated in science, so it might be forgivable for him to make this kind of claim, but it is not really forgivable to continue to insist that he's right after his mistake has been pointed out to him.  You see, in his liberal arts education, Joe studied "History of Ideas", which includes some important scientific discoveries, and he feels this qualifies him to properly interpret any scientific paper or article, no matter what the topic.  And he feels confident in dismissing someone who actually knows something about science, because he is convinced that he knows better, and arrogant enough not to doubt it.

And Joe's failure to understand what he reads is not limited to scientific works.  The same can be said of various philosophical materials.  I'm not saying that there is nothing he understands correctly, but there certainly are philosophical works where Joe doesn't quite grasp the concept, but fails to recognize that fact.  An example of this is Jean Paul Sartre's ontological dualism of being-in-itself and being-for-itself.  I discussed this issue in an earlier article.  I don't know if Joe has read much of Sartre, but I do know that it's easy to find plenty of explanatory material that clarifies the concept.  So there's really not much excuse for quoting a passage from the philosopher in an effort to prove a point, when in fact that passage does nothing of the sort.  What it accomplishes is to show that Joe doesn't know what he's talking about.  But that doesn't stop him from believing that he has shown how "sophisticated" he is because he includes a quote from Sartre in his writing.

Now, these aren't just isolated cases of Joe not understanding what he reads.  This kind of thing occurs again and again.  And in my experience, it is impossible to convince him that he doesn't get it.  His typical reaction is to ignore any supporting evidence and instead demand PhD credentials.  Joe has made it clear that he has no respect for the knowledge or opinions of anyone who argues against him, if they don't produce their academic credentials.  And the funny thing is, he doesn't have a PhD himself.  He just considers himself to be a member of the academic elite because he has a master's degree from a bible college, and was in a PhD program.  He calls himself "ABD" (all-but-degree).  On this basis, he feels that he understands more than the rest of us, and that he is justified in talking down to those who disagree with him, rather than actually rebutting their arguments.  See, for example, his responses to me here.

And so does he talk down to my friend Papalinton, while completely failing to grasp the point that Papalinton made in the first place, here.  In fact, Joe's response is an ironic affirmation of the very point Papalinton made.  But Joe thinks he has scored a smack-down, with ungrammatical and barely comprehensible language that sounds sophisticated to his own ears:

He not only spells truth differently but gives it a registered trade mark; nothing could be more appropriate because the modern denuded concept of truth replacing the real idea of truth is a product of 1DM [2] and thus the simulacra truth of the closed realm of discourse (the product of regicide everything to consuming and producing).

Let me explain for Joe's benefit.  Papalinton's use of the term "Trooth™" is a parody.  You don't have to explain to the unsophisticated among us that "God = truth", because we are well aware that's what you think.  It's the concept of truth, as understood in the ordinary non-theistic sense, that has been appropriated, degraded, and cheapened by theists.  If you can say "God is being", or "God is love", or "God is perfection", or "God is truth", then you have effectively merged those words all into a single concept, and removed any semantic distinction between them.  You have rendered them essentially meaningless.  Thus, the concept of truth that we all understand (because it has real meaning) becomes the theistic "Trooth™". 

But this is apparently beyond Joe's grasp.  Instead, he inexplicably declares this statement to be a "product of the 1DM" (one-dimensional man), which is a Marxist social concept espoused by philosopher Herbert Marcue.  What does that have to do with the meaning of "truth"?  It's irrelevant to this discussion.  I think this is just another example of Joe's appropriation of philosophical concepts in a context that doesn't make sense, because it superficially sounds as if it helps to make his point (as in Papalinton is one-dimensional because he doesn't understand the Christian appropriated concept of truth).  Just like he thinks that Sartre's concept of "being-for-itself" exemplifies God, when in fact it refers to man without God.  Sounds good to someone who doesn't understand the philosophical concept, I suppose.  Throw in a fifty-cent word here and there, and you've sealed the deal, in your own mind.  But to those who have a better understanding, it sounds as if Joe has replaced intelligent discussion with shallow sound bites.