Intellectual Cruelty

Posted on | September 3, 2007 | No Comments

I hope I am not alone in being repelled by the generalized mauling that has been handed out to 18-year-old Caitlin Upton since her less-than-coherent response to a pageant question on American education. See TechCrunch, for just one example amongst many.

Such contests are, of course, tawdry affairs, but it is difficult not to detect a strong whiff of intellectual cruelty in many of the lacerating posts and items on her moment of infamy. The young woman’s answer may have been fleetingly amusing, but it is surely the question and not the answer that should have raised the greater level of interest! That one-fifth of Americans appear not to be able to find their own country on a map has to be of greater import than the nervous meanderings of a pageant contestant.

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