I think Rick Hills understood that he was criticizing a subset of intellectuals. Thus, his "synecdochic literalism" wasn't an error so much as a misleading shorthand.

I think the Hills post is actually an example of an argument where one makes a shocking statement that "I am X," but then proceeds to explain that he has a very idiosyncratic understanding of what X means. Like when Dworkin or Akhil Amar claim to be "originalists."

Rick's post reminds me of the following from the Gilbert &Sullivan musical "Patience": If you’re anxious for to shine, in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
Your must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind, The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say, As you walk your mystic way,
If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me, Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be.

I agree with the Tiger &Hippo above: it's quite clear that Hills was mocking a certain type of intellectual. As Posner himself writes:

it becomes clear that Hills, an intellectual, is attacking a certain different type of intellectual: one who deliberately writes in an obscure way in order to conceal the weakness of one's argument while intimidating potential critics

But then in the next sentences, he calls the "error" of "mistaking the part for the whole" a "common" one.

Huh? Didn't Posner just concede that that's exactly what Hill wasn't doing?

Hills's fallacy is quite common. It's so common in fact, that it has a name: that is, the "fallacy of composition."

Posner's "synecdochic literalism" is pointless verbiage. Highly inefficient, as his father might say.

Upon reading the other comments, I'm wondering: didn't anybody else get that Prof. Posner's comment was satire -- a satire of satire, as it were?

Come on, nobody could talk about "synecdochic literalism" in a commentary on anti-illectualism without being self-conscious.

Michael F. Martin, I'll admit that I didn't (and still don't) read Prof. Posner's post as a satire.

That said, I think I understand the post:

1. It takes an intellectual to understand and critique the arguments of other intellectuals.

2. Hills resents a subset of intellectuals, not "intellectuals" as such, but chooses the whole group as a shorthand [either deliberately or in "error"]

3. That sort of criticism is illustrative of a larger pattern of criticisms of lawyers, doctors, politicians, "elites," where one must often be a member of the whole group to be able to level apt criticisms at the bad subset of the group.

4. Yet, as with Hills, the critics often refer to the whole group rather than the bad subset. Thus, perfectly neutral words become epithets and discourse suffers. [I think of "trial lawyers" used as a shorthand for a subset of plaintiff's-side attorneys who are rational actors to a fault]

5. The segue from the points about self-contradiction and hypocrisy to the illusion of democracy is the analytical step that I don't think I completely understand. I guess he means to say that voters are mostly idiots, that political discourse consists largely of elites criticizing "the elite," and that democracy would fall apart if the idiots ever caught on.

Perhaps my incomplete understanding comes from the point where I missed the satire...?

Titus,

Everybody needs to lighten up, right? Perhaps we should just have a game show here in the U.S. like they do in the U.K.

Thanks. I do sweet cereal better than intellectualism.

Michael,

agreed - he was laying it on pretty thick. But isn't that what made it (IMO) a great post?

My head hurts.

... and thanks to Orin for the pointer. This stuff is fun, whatever that makes me.