Anti-intellectualism

A lot of anti-intellectualism is really political and typically comes from the "right". For example "conservative" attacks upon "liberal" college professors.

Have you any examples of this?

I'm wondering what people think caused this,

and how long it has been going on.

I am not sure it is so much anti-intellectual as a growing recognition of the limits of science, technology and reason to solve the problems of society. The age of reason and science is now felt to be a little pretensious and a little arrogant regarding its claims as the source of values and aesthetics. We have undermined religion but have developed nothing to take its place.

I'm not sure we're recognizing limits to those advances or refusing to acknowledge how far we can go with them. A lot of people hate that their actions can be boiled down to psychological principles, or that their emotional decisions might be against all logic.
Intellectualism isn't disliked because its outdated. Its disliked because people can't deal with its conclusions.

A lot of people hate that their actions can be boiled down to psychological principles

There is today, a strong anti-intellectual feeling among younger generations today. I'm wondering what people think caused this, and how long it has been going on.

There have been anti-intellectual people for a very long time, perhaps always. In many cases, it is motivated by the fact that reason does not always provide the answers that people hope to find. Thus, there are people who advocate believing things without bothering with reason or evidence (i.e., having faith).

I am not sure it is so much anti-intellectual as a growing recognition of the limits of science, technology and reason to solve the problems of society. The age of reason and science is now felt to be a little pretensious and a little arrogant regarding its claims as the source of values and aesthetics. We have undermined religion but have developed nothing to take its place.

i really like what you have said here i think your right. personally i am for progress, new technology, and new discovers. i think science has its place and can be great. the problem comes from hyper-rationalism, people talking in absolutes, and people using science like a religion. all human senses are flawed, limited, and subjective this creates fallacies in scientific information. im not trying to say that we should disregard science altogether, im just saying (this is just my opinion) that we need to come to terms with the absurdity that is human intellectual factuality. even my opinion is absurd and should be taken as just a possibility since all possibilities are both unprovable and undeniable making all possibilities possible.

Pyrrho;123537 wrote:

There have been anti-intellectual people for a very long time, perhaps always. In many cases, it is motivated by the fact that reason does not always provide the answers that people hope to find. Thus, there are people who advocate believing things without bothering with reason or evidence (i.e., having faith).

Perhaps it would be anti-intellectual just to assume we understand what anti-intellectualism is supposed to be, and why it is supposed to be so evil. I can see some good reasons for it. I may be an anti-intellectual intellectual.

Review of Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life - BrothersJudd.com

... im not trying to say that we should disregard science altogether...

I don't think that anti-intellectuals are anti-scientific. They may be, however, against junk science, like the climate change fad. But what anti-intellectuals have noticed are the depredations of the intellectuals on society from the French Revolution, and the nonsense of Rousseau; through to the idiocy of "the best and the brightest" who started and conducted, the war in Vietnam, to the failures of the Great Society which increased welfare dependency in the United States, by forcing fathers out of the homes of their children by threatening the families with men at home with the removal of their welfare payments. Thanks to that great Liberal Robert Byrd.

Anti-intellectualism is the hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science. [emphasis added in both placed]

I think you are assuming too much in your ideas of "anti-intellectualism". See:

Anti-intellectualism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note that it says in part:

I don't think that anti-intellectuals are anti-scientific. They may be, however, against junk science, like the climate change fad. But what anti-intellectuals have noticed are the depredations of the intellectuals on society from the French Revolution, and the nonsense of Rousseau; through to the idiocy of "the best and the brightest" who started and conducted, the war in Vietnam, to the failures of the Great Society which increased welfare dependency in the United States, by forcing fathers out of the homes of their children by threatening the families with men at home with the removal of their welfare payments. Thanks to that great Liberal Robert Byrd.

Have you any examples of this?

Hey 1st post

I think the most prominent "anti-liberal academia" commentator (that I have listened to and read about) is David Horowitz. Check out the wiki page on his book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America".

I do not recommend it for intellectual rigor, but as an example of the type of thought that permeates the discussion.

Horowitz takes more of an "academia is a bunch of brainwashing communists" approach, but I think much more widespread is the sort of pseudo-populist idea that academics regard themselves as elevated compared to those around them, as if they are, by virtue of their place in academia, in possession of some special knowledge.

In the movie "Away We Go" one of the couples that the main characters meet are a couple of hilarious hippies whose life is so non-mainstream that they refuse the gift of a stroller from the main characters; they don't want to "push" away their kids.

IMHO, most people that you pass on the street are as intelligent as anyone in academia (you just have to ask them about something they care about). I have had some amazing conversations with people on the bus, in coffee shops, in bookstores etc.