Hyperintellectualism and the Perpetuation of Luxury Beliefs in the Academies
Abstract
Within the segregated idealist bubble of contemporary academia the pursuit of knowledge erodes into unchecked conceptual hyperintellectualism. Documentation of this phenomenon is linked to research into possible causes including the lack of empirically-backed evidence and linguistic poststructuralist ideation. In tandem is conducted an exploration of the perpetuation of luxury beliefs from within these same institutions, and the consequences of both in art & design education and a wider societal environment.
Delineating educational and conducive possibilities within a framework based on historical precedent and empirical knowledge, resolutions are proposed for an ameliorated praxis within the academies, and thus a more equilibrated vision for the flourishing of public societal life.
Introduction
With regards to the recognition of the hyperintellectual scheme in academia, the concept of luxury beliefs in relation to the distortion of the beneficial animus between societal groups is expounded and its consequences/causes analyzed, both within a local and wider sphere. Favorable opportunities offering an equilibrating practical denouement of these phenomena propose a utilitarian-oriented conclusion.
Hyperintellectualism in the academies, specifically art & design schools.
Describing a progressive shift within the praxis of higher education, purposes and characteristics of the contemporary phenomenon of hyperintellectualism can be defined inside a poststructuralist framework; primarily introduced through Critical Theory by the Frankfurt School in 1923, later furthered by group of mainly French thinkers inseminating sociology with literary notions of unfair power distribution regulated by a culture of oppression.
Initially evolving as a new mode of literary research, this interpretation of Critical Theory propagated by this French postmodern triad Derrida/Foucault/Lacan declared the nullification of value accrued to interpretation based on the unempirical nature of linguistics. In due with this abandonment of meritable accreditation methods of research, especially those native to the humanities, lose the credible grounding establishing them as relevant modes of inquiry. As the fundamental ties to real-life paradigms are destabilized, this shift exhibits in art & design education as an oppressive obsession with idiosyncratic subjectivism, the radical delineation of identity politics and tyranny of unvalidated power-play. In this ethos examples can be found such as the rampant emphasis on projects perpetuating highly personal emotive themes and narratives, and defining reality within broad social identity visions. Since the abandonment of a shared value hierarchy recognizing the benefit of honoring superiors and receiving valuable knowledge in return, individual academic actors imposing the strongest personal ideologies have filled the void with a tyrannical vision tethered by covert incompetence, proffering students an extended adolescence with no quality control.
Academic participants ignorant of their complicity in this schema engage in a nefarious conceptual naïveté they should have outgrown as educated pedagogical agents. A devastating phenomenon to the propagation of both individual artistic practices and the role of the artist/ designer in broader society, this development of hyperintellectualism in the academic sphere poses iniquitous consequences to be avoided.
The definition of luxury beliefs and its relevance within higher education, tied within the hyperintellectual sphere
Participants within these academic circles can be described as elite intellectual groupings on the basis of their unique, highly-regarded status within the societal hierarchy. As a diversification attitude separating them as a higher class—which is not necessarily a negative phenomenon, as they do propagate an exemplary role—they tend to manifest certain distancing behaviors.
As stipulated by Cambridge University’s Rob Henderson in his 2022 article Luxury Beliefs Are Status Symbols, a recent shift in cultural capital describes the relocation of public display of wealth to the propagation of certain beliefs, the consequences of which these individuals themselves are sheltered to by their affluence but which incur a cost to lower classes. Whereas a previous definition of cultural capital might include the description of status symbols such as expensive goods and leisurely activities, this is no longer the case due to the repositioning and lower classes’ gradual acquisition of wealth. As these status symbols become more widely available they are no longer of interest to high-end classes (including academical spheres), tempting them to pursue this variable means of distinction, the distribution and adherence of luxury beliefs mounts. Concurrent with the hyperintellectual research attitude within art and design education as referenced earlier, institutes struggle to engage in a meaningful counter-argument against a growing tide of irrational ideologies and pedagogical theories, its negative consequences paramount.
This phenomenon of unproductive, vapid distiction-seeking is a priori infecund and destructive, both in its material and ideological adherence, claiming solely destructive variability instead of the necessary pursuit of civil amelioration.
Negative consequences of these phenomena
As the methods of research in higher education become increasingly devoid of a structural basis in real-life paradigms, the quality of academic research declines. First apparent within the humanities, studying phenomena which thus far have remained ephemerally defined, relevant civil inquiry disintegrates into distortions of language otherwise used to palpate objective truth. Within this phenomenon, a system of ideas, for example of a certain thinker, can be applied to a research problem within academia and derive certain conclusions without any empirical documentation or proof of its civil relevancy.
In concordance with this thusly described unproductive praxis, luxury beliefs as mentioned earlier promote a similar distortion of objective truth. Defined by their sole purpose as the elevation of status of its adherent proponents, the nature of their advancing concepts of degradation and vulgarity proofs inconceivable with the flourishing of a balanced life. Ranging from the wrecking of transparant hierarchical structures to the desertion of moral guidelines, institutes awash in this postmodernist dogma languish in a violent laissez-faire attitude in which the social status awarded to proponents of certain ideologies appears more appealing than educational vocation. As it is too with the propagation of vital social contracts predicting more positive and stabile outcomes for its participants, whilst concurrently providing an honorful basis for the propagation of civil development.
Concluding both phenomena as having negative net effects on the general amelioration and flourishing of society, research into its causes poses the delineation of these processes in an effort to define a new strategy forward.
Delineation of causes, within the academic environment and broader organization of society
Causes delineating the climate incumbent to hyperintellectualism and luxury beliefs can be traced and connected to relevant shifts in academia, and placed within broader societal developments. The concrete phases morphing from the earlier mentioned Critical Theory as emergent from the 20’s Frankfurt School, reinterpreting Marxist dialectic from the fraying ends of the doctrine as society evolved towards capitalism. Thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan—circumvented by the category of poststructuralism—further perpetuated the central concepts of this philosophy primarily as a literary methodology discrediting the recognition of value by rejecting rational linguistic coherence. This methodological ethos relates to the concept of rationalism with hostility, claiming its praxis to be rooted in an unfair social class-related distribution of power. Relinquishing the reins of rationality to a completely theoretical hierarchy reversal hypothetically placing the ultimate minority class at the top developed a lacuna in a formerly productive competence hierarchy. Due to its explicitly theoretical nature this paradigm operates in a sphere devoid of actual organizational verification, rendering serious blind spots in relation to incompetent yet tyrannical gatekeepers rising to fill this gap vacated for minority classes. Yet it is again these exact minority groupings, for whose empowerment this ideological practice was initiated, who are shorted not only by the inability to determine their place within a competence hierarchy and thus improve upwards, but also consistently undermined by false-pretense luxury beliefs harmful to long-term development.
Both this hyperintellectual shift promoting unattainable theoretical utopias and the propagation of unsustainable luxury beliefs concurrent with a poststructuralist dogma reflect in the organization of current academia and societal life.
Relevant modes of conduct and education towards a balanced modus operandi, thus a more equilibrated vision of public societal life
Reconnecting with notions of rationality, pragmatism and empiricism in relation to academic education requires rigorous reconsideration of current cultural developments both within and outside of academia. In lieu of a methodology based on a destructive, top-down imposed dystopian ideology, rationalism and empiricism reinstated within a clear hierarchy based on competence provide a valuable pathway forwards. Recognition of functional paradigms also includes their delineation and the determination of a proper relationship to the described sphere of rulings, envisioned within a larger historical framework. Incumbent on this notion is the importance of a conservative-oriented meticulous study of recurrent successful societal practices on the sustainability of public life, historically perpetuated over time.
From within the academies a shift is expected moving from ephemeral conceptual musing to the concrete delineation of its inquisitive values and concurrent inquisitive methods, possibly relating to adjacent scientific fields operating on a more objective praxis. Furthermore, agents acting within these elite intellectual circles take up their exemplary role in recognition of the trickle-down effect of inherent propagated values. Extremist luxury beliefs seriously considered in this framework, as the phenomenon of hyperintellectualism, prove unattainable and inutile towards long-term stability and productive civil development. Within the attainment of a broader sense of responsibility, rationality cultivates a more productive climate within academia, laying claim to its role at the forefront of societal development.
Conclusion
As analysis of hyperintellectualism and luxury beliefs delineates its negative consequences, retracing of their joint causes incurs a framework for the positive restoration of an improved conducive mode of acting rooted in rationalism, civil responsibility and scientific empiricism. Appliance of these methods in consideration of the importance of individual and group accountability provide practical guidelines for the determination of an upwards academic and societal trajectory.