Dr. Andrew Wood Office: HGH 210; Phone: (408) 924-5378 Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

Reading: Skoble, A.J. (2001). Lisa and American Anti-Intellectualism. In W. Irwin, M.T. Conard, and A. Skoble's The Simpsons and philosophy: The d'oh of Homer. Chicago: Open Court.

Note: These comments are not designed to "summarize" the reading. Rather, they are available to highlight key ideas that will emerge in our classroom discussion. As always, it's best to read the original text to gain full value from the course.

In his chapter, "Lisa and American Anti-Intellectualism" (pp. 24-34), Skoble explores America's complicated relationship with intellectuals, emphasizing the perceived abstractness of the humanities and the elitism of the "Ivory Tower." This struggle with intellectualism resides within a larger question: Can we believe in something called "expertise?" On any given topic, does the opinion of one person contain more value than the opinion of another? In many ways, this question stems from a still larger paradox of democracy in which a desire for equality often invalidates the notion that some people are better equipped to lead than others.

According to Skoble, The Simpsons reflects America's love-hate relationship with intellectualism with its Lisa-Homer dichotomy. With the exception of one episode in which Homer has a crayon removed from his brain (temporarily), the father is consistently viewed as the "everyman" dolt, glued to television and distrustful of brighter folks than he. Daughter Lisa presents a more paradoxical notion. Her intellectualism is by turns celebrated and mocked in The Simpsons.

Skoble concludes that many Simpsons escapades, most notably the Mensa episode, reflect show writers' assumptions that the utopian schemes of so-called philosopher kings contains contradictions that may be found at the root of being human: our simultaneous need for authority and desire for independence.

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