320 Years of History
Gold Member
At present a person can be blissfully ignorant of how to locate Kenya on a map, but know to a metaphysical certitude that Barack Obama was born there, because he learned it from Fox News. Likewise, he can be unable to differentiate a species from a phylum but be confident from viewing the 700 Club that evolution is “politically correct” hooey and that Earth is 6,000 years old.
-- Bill Moyers
-- Bill Moyers
Last fall, I found myself in a debate with a friend about the extent to which American society -- the masses, not "high society" -- is ever more disdainful of intellectuals and the ideas, specifically public policy ideas, they put forth that are based upon "tons" of critical research and analysis. My friend noted that there is a tide of anti-intellectualism, a movement he called it, that is overtaking the nation. I, hadn't heard of such a thing at the time, so I said the very idea that there'd truly be such a movement is absurd. It turns out my friend was right and I was wrong.
My experience here on USMB is directly a consequence of that conversation. I joined the forum fully expecting to find scores upon scores of individuals presenting political ideas that synthesize myriad ideas taken from all manners of critical research. I thought sure that a political forum would be chocked full of individuals who present their ideas and conduct conversations much akin, at least in terms of intellectual rigor if not necessarily in terms of comprehensiveness, akin to those between a master's or doctoral degree candidate orally defending their thesis/dissertation before a review panel. I expected the majority of posters/members would be Independents having advanced degrees and deep knowledge of the subjects about which they wrote. Lastly, I really expected to learn more about the topics of which I elected to partake in the discussion, and I thought sure I'd rarely have reason to have something to say that hadn't already been beautifully (organizationally and literarily) articulated.
My friend assured me that while I may encounter a person or two of that ilk, what'd I'd find is literally hundreds of folks, mostly conservative, who wouldn't know the truth and details of much of anything about which they have vociferously strong opinions, ones for which, bolstered by the anonymity of the Internet, they have no shame airing. In short, he asserted that the U.S. is populated by literally millions of even dumber and duller "Donald Trumps" who think that because he's (1) managed to make billions (presumably) must be "smart," and (2) insofar as he's echoing their sentiments take his doing so as as their imprimatur.
I presaged my journey on USMB by looking on the WWW to find out just what the hell anti-intellectualism is, thinking perhaps it might have been something other than what the term suggests most obviously. So what is it? As stated on Rational Wiki, "anti-intellectualism refers to the resentment or mistrust of intellectuals, intellectual pursuits, and the sciences." Another writer further categorizes it as "the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility." Well, yep, it's pretty much what it sounds like.
But inasmuch as it is, why do so many folks actually think that being opposed to rigorous thinkers and the ideas and information they uncover is anything worth being or doing? Humanity went through the "Dark Ages" once long ago. Are we, in a manner of speaking, about to do so again, albeit (one would hope) due to something other than the calamitously belligerent overthrow of the "global powers?"
One would think that the lessons learned in the first Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, complimented by the knowledge gained in subsequent years, would be enough to inform pretty much anyone, highly learned or not, not to reject intellectually driven exploration of ideas of governance and public policy. Yet it seems that's exactly where we are headed.
Now one might ask what be the causes of this anti-intellectual movement. The fact is there are quite a few authors who've posited answers to that question. At the risk of irking the anti-intellectuals who've read this far into the post, I'll cite some of them.
- A Brief History of Anti-Intellectualism in American Media
- Anti-Intellectualism and the "Dumbing Down" of America
- The Dumbing Of America Call Me a Snob, but Really, We're a Nation of Dunces
- On anti-intellectualism in the United States of America
- Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
- How Conservatism Lost Its Mind
- Conservatism and the Intellectual
- Why aren't conservative intellectuals disgusted with the GOP?
- The New Plague in America: The Denial of Reason
- The GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge
Sadly, what the non-conservative readers here must by not be thinking is that this revolt against rationality is a conservative thing. This presents a problem, though. Just how should one go about arguing against the rejection of rationality and the outright anti-intellectualism that often characterizes conservative politics? When one party thinks evolution is a wacky theory, and hundreds of climate scientists are engaged in a massive conspiracy to deceive the world so they can get rich off government research grants -- and more importantly, encourages and exploits resentment and people who are well-educated as part of its political program -- just how are liberals supposed to respond?
It isn't easy to answer that question, although I would argue that Republicans have not rejected science, as is often charged. Listen to the way they talk about climate change. They actually speak as though they accept the validity of the scientific method and scientific conclusions. They just lie about what those conclusions are in this particular case, alleging falsely that 1) there's a lot of disagreement among climate scientists, when in fact there isn't; and 2) the scientists whose findings they don't like are engaged in fraud, which would be a subversion of science were it true.
In thinking about the matter as being a conservative problem, I am reminded of the old story about Adlai Stevenson. A woman came up to him and told him he had the votes of every thinking American. That's all well and good, he replied, but I need a majority. Everything that's old is new again.