anti-intellectualism current trend?

[Eric J in MN]

A few weeks ago on Fox News, I saw Susan Estrich, who was Michael Dukakis' campaign manager, say that while it's fine for a law professor to say people are innocent until proven guilty, politicians shouldn't say that (she was commenting on Howard Dean's statement that even though Usama bin Laden is very likely to be found guilty, he didn't want to publicly state what Usama bin Laden's verdict should be before there is a trial).

Last week the Club for Growth released a tv ad implying that people who read the NY Times may be part of a "left-wing freak show."

Shouldn't news analysts try to understand a statment as deeply as possible, instead of condemning a statement because someone who is uneducated might misinterpret it?

Shouldn't people be congratulated for reading the newspaper instead of just accepting tv summaries?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Yes this is an element of fascism

trying to down play any intellectual pursuit

[truth2power]

8. My thought exactly. Add that to the list.

Well, it's already on the list (of indicators of fascism) but you know what I mean.

[salinen]

2. Welcome to the freak show

It's billy-bobs world now. And he likes it when Rush tells him what to think.

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. I think you have two different issues going here

One, the notion of innocent until proven guilty, would probably lose by a landslide if voted on in a referendum.

The transistion away from the rule of law, to guilty if the regime says so, secret trials, secret laws, is very popular.

Things that you may have been taught in school are rights are now considered privileges, to be bestowed or denied according to the will of the regime.

While the question about intellectualism is related in that obviously such policies are not compatible with a lot of thought and analysis, intellectualism has never been a popular concept in mainstream US culture.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Sad to say

when Argentina and Uruguay revoked their people's human rights in the 1970s on a account of a few minor domestic terrorist incidents, most people applauded the moves.

In fact, Argentina didn't overthrow its rightwing generals until after they had killed 30,000 of their own people. Even then, the generals weren't overthrown for imprisoning and killing people without due process but for losing the Falkland Islands war.

Regrettably, ordinary people have a tremendous tolerance for dictatorship, as long as it's not they who are being targeted.

[VOX]

4. Remember * referring to his detractors as "elites" and "professor types?"

His exact quotes was, “...elites, these kind of professor types that love to read their names in the newspaper”...

That line was included in that absurd propaganda "book" published in 2002: Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon .

Anti-intellectual? You bet.

[saltpoint]

5. Eric J --

-- this is one of the best questions I've seen posted on this site, including your original and the others' responses. Accept my thanks, all.

[greekspeak]

7. Not just a current trend

This is not just something that has cropped up. When I entered college over 11 years ago, I remember hearing people on the radio, in the newspapers, on television, lambasting the educated as commie-liberal-pinkos. It wasn't new then.

History other than the scoured WASP version is "revisionist."

Science other than creationism is "sinful."

Translate that to other fields.

Thinking, questioning, exploring, innovating, and progressing are dirty words. Participating in these activities makes one an elitist egghead who needs to spend some time in the "real world."

Bet you can trace much of this anti-intellectualism back to the rise of the conservative christian political movement of the seventies.

[Malva Zebrina]

10. Probably true

and so therefore any threat of any scientific advance will be met with "biblical" ammunition.

Why is it so threatening? Because those who are fearful and those who are scared will try anything to squelch any advancement they do not and cannot understand because they lack the intelligence to do so. They are, to be blunt, rather stupid and uneducated but rely upon the religion to support their conclusions by which they would intimidate others who do not believe the same. :shrug:

Now we have the people who are so scared of what will happen to them after they die, that they will support anything thge unelected, the undemocratic hierophants tell them to, no matter how irrelevant, that will confirm their belief that they will live after they die, even if it means killing others who would confront them in that belief.

And there you have it--the religious attraction that will support any heinous activity for the support and the satisfaction in the belief that there is life after death!! Believe in killing the "infidel" and you will be "saved" ????

Which means you will live forever and forever and forever,watching others burn to death in some imaginary lake of fire, including your sons and daughters, BTW, and you are supposedly happy doing this while playing your harp forever in a heaven where there is nothing else to do but watch the torture of others, and you can do this, if only you will consent to killing those who do not believe in the same god so you can go to "heaven" and be assured that you will never die,like all of the nature that you observe around you. Nope, you are "special" and singled out by a god--and he singles you out because you "obey" his commands.

Sorry I cannot subscribe much to that fairy tale.
.

[Selwynn]

9. What do you mean "current" trend? :)

It's always been that way.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. Eisenhower won in '52 and '56 because of his anti-intellectualism platform

Adlai Stevenson, who would have kicked butt as president, was labeled an "egghead" and that implied that the public could not trust him.

Remember the banner in the penthouse of Lonesome Rhodes in A Face in the Crowd by Elia Kazan: There is nothing more trustworthy than the ordinary mind of the ordinary man. That sums things up nicely as far as American tradition.

[flaminbats]

12. I agree with Susan Estrich...we need a new approach!

I hope that all candidates for President announce that she is guilty for the deaths of 9/11, unless she can prove herself innocent of any possible or feasible connection with terrorism. And that she be immediately horsewhipped, and later publically crucified because of her terrorist crimes against our country.

[mitchum]

13. Not a recent trend at all in America

Anti-intellectualism has a long tradition in this country. The downside of Jacksonian democracy. Populism is not always a good thing.

[ComerPerro]

14. Here's the problem:

If you read and discuss, you are likely to start thinking about things for yourself. And, if someone is trying to install a fascist government with state-run propaganda, they don't want the citizens doing anything that encourages independent thought.

[cthrumatrix]

17. ding ding ding ---- the dumbing down of america program

it's easier to fool people when they are in "fear"...then when they do not have to rely upon the govt...in fact they start to read and question and demand answers and like democracy.

which is what shrub and others are trying to avoid -- transparency on all issues

[Arugula Latte]

15. "Anti-Intellectualism In American Life"

Wasn't that the name of that classic book? Something like that. (I guess I'd know for sure if I were a true intellectual.) I believe it was published in the 50s or 60s. Sadly, this country largely likes to pooh-pooh anyone with too much fancy book learnin'. Keep 'em ignorant, that's the motto...(you know, they're more likely to vote Republican and take the Bible literally that way).

[no_hypocrisy]

16. Richard A. Hofstadter

http://www.textbookx.com/product_detail.php?detail_isbn=0394703170