The Origins of American Anti-Intellectualism?

[Nephtys]

Thinking on the entire issue of teaching Intelligent Design, few people seem to pay much attention to those who actually know about the topic at hand. A longwinded and flowering oration containing no facts by a speaker with no credentials is as valid as a brief dismissal by a prominent professor or scientist.

This is but one effect of (from what I've seen), an anti-intellectual bent by 'blue collar common' americans. This is the same reason so much snakeoil is sold and consumed, products which anyone with half a high-school education should be able to see right through, yet they deny any credible expert opinion.

Anyone care to offer their thoughts on where exactly this mentality comes from? If it really exists or if I'm being crazy?

[Darth Wong]

My theory is that it came from Southerners who were upset about losing the Civil War and hated everything that the North represented, including industrialization and intellectualism.

It was industrialization that made the slave plantations obsolete. It was intellectualism that led filthy liberals to decry the use of negro slaves. Ultimately, the South's lasting resentment transformed into modern anti-intellectualism, "good old days" nostalgia, and the seemingly impenetrable belief in the wholesome goodness of rural life over the evils of industrialization.

[Adrian Laguna]

Evils like cars, modern medicine, air condicioning, air craft, water treatment plants, television, modern cooking, easy access to food, leisure time, computers, internet, easy access to porn (but I repeat myself), and a bunch of other stuff? Yes, I can see how spending my entire day bent over collecting potatoes is infinitely superior to modern industrialized living.

As for the attitude of anit-intellectualism. I think another factor is a general idea among the populace that the intellectual elite are pseudo-aristrocratic snobs. Aristorcracies are rarely liked by the common folk, even if they don't realize that these "nobles" and "snobs" are the reason they are not currently draging mining carts with their own muscle power, or why they have leisure time to complain and be anti-intellectual.

Another, but I think unlikely, possibility is jealusy. Intellectuals are typically richer, healthier, and have better looking spouses than non-intellectuals.

[Darth Wong]

Ah, but you see, nostalgia for primitive pre-industrialized agrarian life only sounds absurd when you're intelligent. When you're a moron, it's so perfectly logical that you consider it self-evident.

[Akhlut]

I think it can be blamed on multiple things, really.

One of the more recent reasons for it is the idea that "intellectualism = Communism" that arose in the early 60s, if not earlier. Why trust those eggheads if they're all closet Commies, right?

Earlier than that, though, is that middle-late Medieval Christian theologians started to denounce intellectualism and learning outside of the Bible as being irreligious and Godless. I think there are many threads to that idea, ranging from "why learn anything that doesn't relate to Christ, you're going to die anyway and you're not paying attention that should rightfully be paid to God!" to "why are you reading the works of the pagans? Don't you know they're tainted?" Further, ideas that God would reveal what needs revealing would lead to very anti-intellectual feelings.

Also, some might feel that the intellectuals are too clever and wishy-washy and that a simple, hardworking man is going to be far more honest and right about things than some ivory-tower smartypants who wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

Just some of my thoughts, I don't have any hard souces on me to back those up.

[chaoschristian]

Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who idealized and envisioned the US remaining a citizen/farmer agrarian utopia?

Regardless, anti-intellectualism in the US has a very intimate relationship with Christianity and various 'spiritual revivals' that have taken place in US history. In fact, now that I think about it, everytime there has been a revival in evangelical Christianity there has also been some sort of growing expression of anti-intellectualism. This may be a good golden thread to follow - trace the history of evangelical revivals in US history (keep it to major upswellings) and see if there is a direct corrolation in anti-intellectual rhetoric. I known that one of these revivals corresponds with the Civil War era. But there have been other prior to and after the Revolution, during and after the Civil War era and on through history. Now I have to unpack all my books and see if I can put together a timeline that would support this.

You can also associate anti-intellectualism with specific Christian sects - the Amish come first to mind - that express a defiance against progress and intellectual development for various 'scriptual' reasons.

So it's not so much of a 'Southern' thing as it is a 'Christian' thing. It just so happens the at the time of the Civil War and Reconstruction the vast majority of evangelical Christians could be found in the Southern states if I'm remembering my numbers correctly.

Fast forward to today, and it doesn't surprise me a bit that we see continued evidence of a 'spiritual revival' trend and sustained attacks on science, the academy and 'pointy-headed liberals.'

[Adrian Laguna]

Ah, but you see, nostalgia for primitive pre-industrialized agrarian life only sounds absurd when you're intelligent. When you're a moron, it's so perfectly logical that you consider it self-evident.

Whee! I have been called intelligent by Mike Wong! Actually I have been called intelligent by a lot of people, but I place a lot of value on the opinions of people who are probably not biased in my favour (ie not my parents) and whom I consider to be of respectable intellect themselves.

Now, to actually important part of the post:

Also, some might feel that the intellectuals are too clever and wishy-washy and that a simple, hardworking man is going to be far more honest and right about things than some ivory-tower smartypants who wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

You bring up an interesting point. A simpel hardworking man may be very aware and knowledge-able about things relating to his workplace. Say a miner might realize that a particular area of the mine is unsafe just by looking at it. Then when an intellectual shows an incredible level of ignorance about "practical" things such as that, or how to repair a car, or make useful things (like a table or a chair), or is unable to do use any of the tools in a typical tool shed with competence. The hardworking individual decides that this intellectul's knowledge is entirely useless in all respects.

[chaoschristian]

I would think that there is strong enough evidence to refute the idea that anti-intellectualism is strongly determined along class lines.

Speaking off the top of my head, it intuitively goes against known behavioral trends in immigrant populations that have occurred in the US. Typically first generation immigrants take whatever 'blue collar' jobs they can find, regardless of past education and training, because of various social forces that prevent them from entering into their preferred industries. This population then promotes and instills a very high value on education and learning on the next generation. Because of the huge influxes of immigrants into the US throughout most of its history I would think that this weakens a connection between anti-intellectualism and class.

Another thing that comes to mind is the GI Bill. The GI Bill, which was created to provide WWII veterans with access to higher education, has been a powerful social force. It has heavily impacted the development and growth of higher education in the US and can be given a lot of credit in creating the perception that higher education is no longer optional for the majority of high school graduates. Yes, there are lots of other forces that need to be accounted for, but in terms of a single effort, the GI Bill is a strong influence. And its target demographic was and is working class people. Again, I think this helps weaken the case that anti-intellectualism is a class issue in the US.

But, I would have to really dig in and study the matter with more scrutiny and certainly more data than I can remember right now.

[Johonebesus]

Anti-intellectualism is just a component of the general anti-elitism in the U.S. America has long held a general disdain for elitist attitudes, long before the Civil War. Many of our favorite presidents benefited from a sot of "blue collar" image. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, etc. Americans have always valued the nobility of the common man, and had at least a bit of disdain for any sort of elitism.

Education is elitist. In olden times, only the wealthy could afford a university degree. A college education was a status symbol for the rising middle class, and still into the recent decades working class and farming kids didn't expect to even finish high school. Flaunting a "fancy" education has always been seen as sort of snobbish. It isn't peculiar to the South. One of the most enduring images of anti-elitism is the rural New Englander bitching about tourists and city folks. Then you have the mid-west farmer who distrusts anything from the city. Basically, anyone who is poor and/or unsophisticated doesn't like to see others flaunting their education or any other sign of wealth. It makes the poor folks feel inferior and inadequate, and that makes them mad and resentful.

In the past few decades, it has gotten much worse for a few reasons. One is the impoverishing of America. The middle class has been shrinking and the poor getting poorer since Reagan. That makes more people who are apprehensive about their station, and are keen to focus their resentment on those who aren't suffering. Remember the add against Kerry that painted him basically as an Urban Yuppie? There are simply more people who feel inadequate when measured against the traditional middle class dream, and education is one of the divides between the classes.

Then there is the Right propaganda. I know there are a few persons on this board who refuse to admit the existence of a Vast Right-Wing Propaganda Network, or that it pales in comparison to the Left propaganda machine, and there are many moderates who still believe that all politicians and both parties are basically the same, and that Democrats and republicans balance each other out, but the truth is that the Right has been putting huge efforts into organized propaganda for decades, since before I was born, and there has been precious little answer from Left. Now, the fact is that education tends to make one more liberal. It is well established that the more education one has, the less likely one is to be very religious. Outside of Economics, most social sciences and humanities tend to inculcate a generally liberal world view in students. Most academics are somewhat liberal, at least according to the U.S. scale. Far right conservatism only really works when one has a narrow world view, so a liberal-arts education which broadens the student's mind and makes them question traditional wisdom and common sense is toxic to conservatism. Therefore the Right has engaged in a deliberate attack on academia, to discredit scholarship and anyone that might question republican policies based on logic. It works for the religious right, who want ignorant little Christian drones. It works for Big Money, which doesn't want science or social science/philosophy or lessons learned from history to interfere with increasing profits. It works for the rich who deflect class antagonism by focusing it onto differences of education and behavior rather than disparity in wealth. It works for Neocons who don't want logic or rigorous standards of truth and fact-checking to get in the way of their policies. Basically, modern American conservatism can't stand up to intellectual scrutiny, so the Right has set out to neuter the intellectual voice, and they have largely succeeded.

[Akhlut]

I would think that there is strong enough evidence to refute the idea that anti-intellectualism is strongly determined along class lines.

If I gave that impression, I didn't mean to. One can easily see the anti-intellectual streak in some very "upper class," moneyed people, especially right wing pundits and talk show hosts (Rush, O'Reilly, Coulter, etc.). I used ivory-tower intellectual vs. blue-collar type as a sort of archetype envisioned by many people, be they rich or poor. Don't the right wing pundits holler about how liberal intellectual elitists are trying to overthrow the will of the common man?

[Alan Bolte]

Another part of the problem is the ivory-tower attitude, and the treatment by many of science intellectuals as inferior to humanities intellectuals. Some aspects of the humanities actually need the ivory-tower approach to survive in their present states: just look at literary criticism to see how that comes about. Scientists, on the other hand, tend to be rather introverted and so are often not opposed to the ivory-tower approach simply as a matter of convenience. Were intellectuals on the whole more accessable, if they weren't seen as having contempt for the layman, they might not be seen as so elitist. Were science not clumped with the humanities under the banner of intellectualism, it might be seen as more relevent to daily life.

[Lord Zentei]

<blah, blah, snip>

It works for Big Money, which doesn't want science or social science/philosophy or lessons learned from history to interfere with increasing profits. <snippa>

Though your verbose rant is very much a case of oversimplification, this bit is particularly idiotic. How the flying fuck could social science, etc or "lessons learned from history" interfere with increasing profits, might I inquire?

[Xenophobe3691]

Though your verbose rant is very much a case of oversimplification, this bit is particularly idiotic. How the flying fuck could social science, etc or "lessons learned from history" interfere with increasing profits, might I inquire?

Robber Barons and Libertarians, perhaps?

[Darth Wong]

<blah, blah, snip>

It works for Big Money, which doesn't want science or social science/philosophy or lessons learned from history to interfere with increasing profits. <snippa>

Though your verbose rant is very much a case of oversimplification, this bit is particularly idiotic. How the flying fuck could social science, etc or "lessons learned from history" interfere with increasing profits, might I inquire?

Are you on drugs? Anyone who knows anything about history and social science will know that the brand of laissez-faire capitalism currently in vogue with the Right is a recipe for serious social problems. Hell, you routinely see pro-corporate mouth-breathers who don't even understand why antitrust legislation was first enacted, because they reject and mock those very same reasons when they are presented and applied to a current situation.

[Lord Zentei]

Though your verbose rant is very much a case of oversimplification, this bit is particularly idiotic. How the flying fuck could social science, etc or "lessons learned from history" interfere with increasing profits, might I inquire?

Are you on drugs?

Well, if caffeine counts.

Anyone who knows anything about history and social science will know that the brand of laissez-faire capitalism currently in vogue with the Right is a recipe for serious social problems. Hell, you routinely see pro-corporate mouth-breathers who don't even understand why antitrust legislation was first enacted, because they reject and mock those very same reasons when they are presented and applied to a current situation.

Antitrust legislation was designed to combat cartels, and the importance of doing this is learned from economics more than history. Of course there will be creatures of various interest groups that seek to combat this.

[Kuja]

My favorite boogyman to blame is the movie industry. Ever since the 50s and 60s, Hollywood's been churning out stock plots with mad scientist fucks things up, Joe Blow saves the day, maybe with help of less mad scientist. Of course there were exceptions like Invisible Invaders and The Day the Earth Stood Still which depicted science and scientists in a positive light, but they were largely outnumbered.

Take a look at The Thing (From Another World). The head of a scientific group goes nuts and starts working to actively disrupt the plans to kill the evil alien. The message? Don't get immersed in scientific work or you'll start to go nuts.

Take a look at The War of the Worlds. And I mean the good 60s version, not that Spielberg piece of tripe. What's the message there? Science can't produce, only faith in God can save humanity.

This has been the rule of moviemaking ever since it spawned and it's continued all the way up to now with movies like The House of the Dead and Doom. Now I'm not saying these are good movies, far from it, they're pretty fucking awful (but they're the only ones coming to mind at the moment). The problem is that people see these movies and others like them and come away with an anti-intellectualist message. Don't be a scientist. Be a working-class hero.

*shrug* I probably overblow the effect by a lot. But one thing's for certain; it isn't helping.

[Lord Zentei]

The fact that the early USA was built by the efforts of pioneers and frontiersmen probably plays a significant role in the national conciousness with regards to the idealization of rugged red-blooded individualists over city dwelling intellectuals.

[Darth Wong]

Antitrust legislation was designed to combat cartels, and the importance of doing this is learned from economics more than history. Of course there will be creatures of various interest groups that seek to combat this.

So you say, yet major sources like the Wall Street Journal continue to pooh-pooh the rationalization behind antitrust law whenever someone tries to apply it to a modern-day analogous situation. Did you know that the WSJ virtually went on a crusade to stop the breakup of the Bell monopoly back in the day?

[LadyTevar]

You bring up an interesting point. A simpel hardworking man may be very aware and knowledge-able about things relating to his workplace. Say a miner might realize that a particular area of the mine is unsafe just by looking at it. Then when an intellectual shows an incredible level of ignorance about "practical" things such as that, or how to repair a car, or make useful things (like a table or a chair), or is unable to do use any of the tools in a typical tool shed with competence. The hardworking individual decides that this intellectul's knowledge is entirely useless in all respects.

I think this is a major point, myself. Growing up in a small town, I often heard variations on a single phrase: "He might have book-learnin, but he's got no common sense". In my town, book-learnin' was fine and dandy, but unless you had some common sense to get something done right the first time, you were useless.

[Lord Zentei]

Antitrust legislation was designed to combat cartels, and the importance of doing this is learned from economics more than history. Of course there will be creatures of various interest groups that seek to combat this.

So you say, yet major sources like the Wall Street Journal continue to pooh-pooh the rationalization behind antitrust law whenever someone tries to apply it to a modern-day analogous situation.

To be fair, antitrust legislation can sometimes be convincingly argued against by the fact that under appropriate market conditions, cartels are unstable, since individual members would earn more if they cheated on their cartel partners and lowered prices, and the fact that overregulation can cause more harm than good, but can be politically difficult to get rid of, which is why economists are at times suspicious of it.

Did you know that the WSJ virtually went on a crusade to stop the breakup of the Bell monopoly back in the day?

No, not really.

Anyway, my main gripe was the idea that big money somehow benefitted from anti-intellectualism in general and that they somehow promoted it; but actually a well educated populace is more productive and a well to do populace consumes more, so that is not really the case.

[Darth Wong]

Anyway, my main gripe was the idea that big money somehow benefitted from anti-intellectualism in general and that they somehow promoted it; but actually a well educated populace is more productive and a well to do populace consumes more, so that is not really the case.

No, a skilled workforce is more productive. There is a subtle difference between skills training and education; you can generate a skilled workforce by putting most of the population through tech schools and community colleges. But that's not the kind of education that one needs for political, social, and scientific awareness.

[Rogue 9]

Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who idealized and envisioned the US remaining a citizen/farmer agrarian utopia?

It was, but he was hardly anti-intellectual. He also founded the University of Virginia.

[Darth Wong]

Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who idealized and envisioned the US remaining a citizen/farmer agrarian utopia?

It was, but he was hardly anti-intellectual. He also founded the University of Virginia.

Besides, at the time, the economies of major world nations were primarily either agriculture or resource-based anyway. Agrarianism is not as absurd in that context as it is today.

[Haruko]

Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who idealized and envisioned the US remaining a citizen/farmer agrarian utopia?

It was, but he was hardly anti-intellectual. He also founded the University of Virginia.

I admire Thomas Jefferson greatly. Ever read his letters? Some of the most impressive material I've had the pleasure of reading. He was also an avid scientists and mentor of James Madison.

"A final example of Jefferson's separationism may be drawn from his founding of the University of Virginia in the last years of his life. Prepared to transform the College of William and Mary into the principal university of the state, Jefferson would do so only if the college divested itself of all ties with sectarian religion -- that is, with its old Anglicanism now represented by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The college declined to make that break with its past, and Jefferson proceeded with plans for his own university well to the west of Anglican-dominated tidewater Virginia. In Charlottesville this new school ('broad & liberal & modern,' as Jefferson envisioned it in a letter to [Joseph] Priestly of 18 January 1800) opened in 1825 with professorships in languages and law, natural and moral philosophy, history and mathematics, but not in divinity. In Jefferson's view, as reported in Robert Healey's Jefferson on Religion in Public Education, not only did Virginia's laws prohibit such favoritism (for divinity or theology was inevitably sectarian), but high-quality education was not well served by those who preferred mystery to morals and divisive dogma to the unities of science. Too great a devotion to doctrine can drive men mad; if it does not have that tragic effect, it at least guarantees that a man's education will be mediocre. What is really significant in religion, its moral content, would be taught at the University of Virginia, but in philosophy, not divinity. If Almighty God has made the mind free, one of the ways to keep it free is to protect young minds from the clouded convolutions of theologians. Jefferson wanted education separated from religion because of his own conclusions concerning the nature of religion, its strengths and its weaknesses, its dark past and its possibly brighter future."
-- E. S. Gaustad; "Religion," in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986, pp. 282-283

"... Jefferson, who as a careful historian had made a study of the origin of the maxim [that the common law is inextricably linked with Christianity], challenged such an assertion. He noted that 'the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or that such a character existed...'"
-- Leo Pfeffer; Religion, State, and the Burger Court, Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1984, p. 121

"He [Jefferson] rejoiced with John Adams when the Congregational church was finally disestablished in Connecticut in 1818; welcoming 'the resurrection of Connecticut to light and liberty', Jefferson congratulated Adams 'that this den of priesthood is at length broken up, and that a protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace American history and character.'"
-- Edwin S. Gaustad; Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 49

"... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 358

Hardly a simpleton like the average Southerner.

[Haruko]

He was also an avid scientists

Correction: "avid practitioner of science."