Ideology makes smart people stupid, Daniel Flynn said Wednesday night in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.
"Ideology blinds adherence to reality -- it breeds fanaticism," Flynn said.
Flynn, the director of the Campus Leadership Program at the Leadership Institute, is the author of "Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas" and "Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies that Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness."
About 45 students, faculty and local residents attended Flynn's presentation, sponsored by bsyou.net. According to its Web site, bsyou.net "seeks to promote a free marketplace of ideas, smaller government and greater individual freedoms." The presentation was also sponsored by Students for Academic Freedom.
Amanda Carpenter, webmaster for bsyou.net and a member of SAF, said bringing Flynn to campus was beneficial.
"We've had a serious lack of conservative speakers on campus," Carpenter said. "If the university wasn't going to provide one, I thought I'd do it on my own."
Flynn's presentation Wednesday focused primarily on the idea of an intellectual moron.
"An intellectual moron is someone blessed with great cognitive ability but who relies on ideology rather than his brain to do the thinking," Flynn said.
A true intellectual is willing to step back and question his or her ideas, Flynn said. Knowing that many intellectuals do not do this and do not uphold the truth is bothersome, he said.
"It's one thing to have politicians be wrong or lie -- that's kind of like a staple of the trade, something we've dealt with before I was born," Flynn said. "But when we have intellectuals lying, then you're cooked. We find, time and again, scholars who not only don't uphold the truth but attack the truth."
People also advocate ideas such as equal opportunity and believe anything they do in the name of such ideas is justifiable, Flynn said. This "ends justify the means" mentality is dangerous, he said.
Many intellectuals, for example, supported Nazi Germany because they were attracted to the idea of having a "race of perfect men" and a "Heaven on Earth," Flynn said.
"The most dangerous type of intellectual moron is the utopian," he said. "Utopianism rationalizes horrible crimes in pursuit of glorious ends. When you have ideals that are lofty, you never reach those ideals, but you always get the means that go along with them."
Flynn said he respects true intellectuals who are able to think for themselves and who have a strong regard for the truth. College students especially need to evaluate what they are taught in the classroom because they are exposed to a variety of perspectives on a daily basis.
"Think for yourself. Go out there and read books that are not assigned to you in class," Flynn said. "If your professor tells you one thing, find out what the other side is. If you don't do this, you can absorb propaganda like a sponge."
Carpenter said she was impressed with the number of people who attended Flynn's presentation Wednesday and hoped students took away a valuable lesson.
"We're often obligated to go outside the classroom to get an alternate point of view," she said. "I hope students recognize we don't always get the full picture of things. There are biases that do exist."
Freshman Michael Thom said he learned the importance of forming his own judgments about key issues.
"It's very important to be able to make our own decisions," Thom said. "We shouldn't believe everything we hear."
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