STUPID IS THE NEW SMART—BUT IT WASN’T ALWAYS SO
In Blue Collar Intellectuals, author Daniel Flynn explores what happened to America? America’s pop culture used to embrace the Great Books and ambitious histories of the world. Now, the nation is too busy watching Jersey Shore, responding 2 txts, and playing World of Warcraft to worry about the life of the mind.
Blue Collar Intellectuals vividly captures a time, in the not-so-distant past, when the every-man aspired to high culture and intellectuals descended from the ivory tower to speak to the every-man. The book also shows us how much everyone has suffered from mass culture’s crowding out of higher things and the elite’s failure to engage the masses. The book tells the fascinating story of:
- The unschooled hobo who went from skid row to the White House chats with the president.
- The Ivy League Ph.D. who didn’t even have a high school degree and launched a Great Books renaissance.
- The champion of capitalism who started off as a scholarship student waiting tables and peddling socks.
- The impoverished outcast who became the poet of the pulps.
About Daniel J. Flynn
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of A Conservative History of the American Left and Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas, and The War on Football: Saving America’s Game. A popular radio guest and frequent speaker on college campuses, Flynn writes a weekly column for HumanEvents.com and blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
Delivering the Boston Globe from the age of eight to thirteen, selling various edibles and potables at Fenway Park in his teens, and serving as a Marine LAV-25 gunner during his twenties all rank among his favorite jobs. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and children.
