Action Will Be Taken - Left Business Observer.
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is at once a sweeping history of hostile attitudes toward ideas in the United States and, by Hofstadter’s own account, a deeply personal work of analysis, prompted by the “atmosphere of fervent malice and humorless imbecility” stirred up by McCarthyism.The anti-intellectualism of the American right wing is not something new. Joseph McCarthy employed rhetoric that tried to tie intellectualism to communism. Apart from McCarthy’s demagoguery, the right has always expressed distrust and disdain for intellectualism. It’s not difficult to understand why either.Anti-intellectualism works as the kind of counterpart to the pathologisation of conservatism. And of course, the bitter anti-intellectual reaction of the right, which sometimes seems to affirm.
This blinkering is especially virulent in the U.S. where a petit-bourgeois populism is the native radical strain, and anti-intellectualism is almost hard-wired into the culture. And because activistism emphasizes practicality, achievability, and implementation over all else, a theory dedicated to understanding deep structures with an eye towards changing them necessarily gets shunted aside.Anti-intellectualism is defined as the “opposition to or hostility towards intellectuals, or to an intellectual view or approach” (Merriam Webster). The anti-intellectualism movement is characterized by the contempt for advanced education, the liberal arts, and science.
The Next Right-Wing Populist Will Win by Attacking American Higher Education. “America hits peak anti-intellectualism” is how Salon interpreted the Pew survey.
