Thursday, March 29, 2007

Colbert Report

In the March 29th Colbert Report, in which Clive James author of "Cultural Amnesia" was featured, Stephen Colbert, in his typically conservative sounding tone, but ever so satirical nature observed: "Here's the problem with intellectualism: It's for the elite."
Granted, the guy can satirize and he manages to present himself as a faux conservative, but at the same time, I can't help but wonder, 'hmm, dude's got a point.'
While I very much condone elegant speech and that often means featuring a cornucopia of adverbs and adjectives, a few ipso facto's and quid pro quo's, and blah, blah, blahs, I also appreciate clarity of expression.
Intellectualism is nice, it's nice to be an intellectual, or at least aspire to be one, but it shouldn't really entail hermeticism and density of expression, no?
I raise my glass of H2O to, uhm, clear intellectuallism. Perhaps that's why I purposefully mix in some dude's and like's with my pragmaticims and hermeticisms.
So, yes, intellectualism could be for the elite, but is that so wrong? Some intellectuals mix their speech up once in a while. It would be great to hear self-professed non-intellectuals sport multi-syllabic words once in a while. Instead of bringing the elite down, how about reading more and aspiring to get closer to it?