Have we developed a world-wide culture of anti-intellectualism or is it more of an American phenomena?

It is the vestige of Marx’s notion of the proletariat/bourgeoisie class struggle, and it is all over the Western liberal democracies.

There are still people who imagine that in emulating the bourgeoisie and their intellectualism (born of their relative leisure) they are somehow betraying their proletariat loyalty, or if they are already members of the bourgeoisie, that they should give the impression that they are sort of rejecting their intellectualism in an attempt to court political favor with the proletariat.

That, and a collapse of big chunks of the public education system, particularly in urban school systems, and you have what you describe.

Could this be the beginning of the second “Dark Ages?”

Can it be reveresed? Of course it can but it will require a herculean effort I do not think many are willing to engage. As long as we continue to hand out participation awards, pass/fail grades and allow tenure to protect lousy teachers I believe we will continue this downward spiral. We spend near double per student than other developed countries and have mediocre at best results to show for that investment.

Kids today are simply expected to just graduate High School and very little emphasis is given to GPA or the lessons learned by the student. Even at the college level just getting the degree is all that matters on a resume. Here in Illinois decades of out of control increases in benefits for the teachers and escalating salaries for higher ups has bankrupted our school systems. And as a result, classes and after schoolprograms are being cut. I have kids in college now and it is not cheap either. But I also watched them navigate the K-12 schooling and witnessed first hand what the budgetary crisis our state has been grappeling with and what it did to their quality of education. Schools just cannot afford the teachers it needs and as a result class sizes are often 30 kids or more. One autos teacher when they once had 2. One band director for a jazz band of 60+ kids when they once had 2. Schools are seriouosly overburdened by trying to give the kids the attention and support they once were able to provide. This is what IMO is causing this “anti-intellectuallism” you are seeing.

Look under the hood of this funding dillemma and you see that over 50% of the funding allocated by the state for education is going to fund pensions, other benefits and growing salaries. All school systems are begging for increased funding especially the Chicago Public School system and right now we have a stalemate with our Governor and school board officials. Our state is flat broke and no more money is available and school and union officials won’t budge and continue to push for more money to line their pockets instead of programs for our students. I am so glad my youngest is a Senior in HS and will soon be out of this dysfunctional system we call education.

@josie Morris Berman sure thinks so.

Here is a link to The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher By John Gatto. It addresses the public education system and what views as the aims and purpose of the public school system and how it has been successful in achieving its goals of providing a permanent, relatively uneducated, un-motivated and more easily controllable working class. The base of the pyramid.

@Cruiser the above link would make an interesting read for you if you have the time.

Written in 1991, one of the think he notes is how the system produces confused, cruel, passive, violent, and materialistic kids and we are seeing the results of this system today.

Ahem, “phenomenon”.

As the Bible notes – correctly, in this case, “the poor you have with you always”, it might as well add “and the ignorant, and the stupid, and the lazy”. Which is not to conflate any of those traits, and assume that just because one is poor, then one is automatically the other things, too. However, there is a good deal of correlation, even if causation is hard to assign.

Though it is true, also, that “the poor” don’t have the same access to experiences and sources of knowledge and information as those who are better off, and “the lazy” will probably not master the discipline to become educated – which, after all, is always self-directed, no matter how good the school system, how well paid and motivated the teachers, and how on target the school’s administration. And “the stupid” simply don’t have the mental capacity, for whatever reason, to master intellectual pursuits.

Even so, we see a lot of well educated poor people, stupid rich people, and demonstrably ignorant people in charge of much of the government. Lazy people can see this on television every day, and generally do exactly that. Obviously, there is no provable correlation between wealth, education, motivation and knowledge and what we variously term “success”, either. It’s an apparent fact that those traits aren’t really required any more – if they ever really were – to achieve financial and social success.

And television and print media, obviously, not only play to that by highlighting those stories of odd and sometimes wild success despite lack of discipline, intelligence, hard work or even great intelligence, but also seek to entertain those kinds of people with reflections of themselves who somehow – against all odds – “made it”. That’s unfortunate.

It’s unfortunate because that’s not a proven route to success, as most people who have achieved success can readily attest. But they’re not often on television to make those attestations, or if they are then they’re on the “egghead shows” with low ratings and not in prime time.

I think if we step away from “popular culture and media”, then it’s easy to see that the world is not really going to the dogs. People still read for pleasure and their own edification. Book sales continue to set records every year. Symphony orchestras are thriving. Art museums aren’t closing. In fact, though I don’t have any figures, from what I can observe around me it seems that “museum attendance in general” is doing quite well. And those museums don’t cater to the stupid, the vapid and the ignorant (except in acknowledgement that we are all ignorant about many things, and the only way to get past that is to acknowledge the fact and start a learning process).

So, yeah, a lot of things could be better. But it’s not so bad.

America (a.k.a ‘Murica) leads the way in anti-intellectualism and proud ignorance.

Of course that’s not the entire picture, nor does it apply equally to everyone.

American public education is pretty bad in many places. Society and culture are I think largely led towards idiocy by various corporate influences. Media and advertising aimed to appeal to as many people as possible, and especially the gullible ones, creates messages that normalize dull-witted thought patterns.

e.g.

“Coke it it! The biggest taste you’ve ever found! Coke is it! The one that never let’s you down! Coke is it! The most refreshing taste around! Coke is it… Coke is it!”

“Get that Pepsi feeling AT THE DOG WASH!”

“Bushels of flavor swimmin’ in the flakes! of Kellogg’s Fruitful Bran!”

The education system also tends to focus on teaching obedience more than critical thinking. And of course the news media has become a combination of over-simplification, distraction from anti-corporate information, and bending the truth.

I think it’s possible, and in some ways is occurring. The media and education have become some bad that many young people are finding replacements for both on the Internet from foreign and independent sources. On the other hand, the Internet is also full of other sources of disinformation and horribly moronic, dumb and offensive crap.

@rojo What a scathing rebuttle of our education system as it has devolved into today. Mr Gatto details exactly what I was referring to. I forwarded the link to all the teachers I personally know. Thanks!

Anti-intellectualism is not just American phenomena.

and @josie dark ages never existed.

It’s stronger in America than anywhere else I know. Assimov was right.

I am not an anti-intellectual.

I just cannot stand smug assholes who would have everyone believe that intellectualism is the solution to every-single-goddammned thing.

Intellectualism is not a thing.

^ Who suggested it was?

You did.

Intellectualism may not be the all-inclusive solution to all ills, but I’d wager it solves a lot more (over 50% at least) than it’s opposite.

@olivier5

I didn’t suggest it was “a thing.”

I suggested that some people always consider it to be “the answer.”

One needn’t pretense themselves to be an intellectual to make unbiased observations, seek empirical data, refer to historic precedents, conduct investigations and experiments, etc.

Believe me, due to what I’ve married into, I know that intellectualism is only good for ruining what would have otherwise been great dinner party conversation.

@SecondHandStoke you say intellectual like it was a bad word.

^

Isn’t doing or thinking intelligently more than enough?

I’m sorta bright, but being such isn’t my title or hobby.

There’s so much more to my identity.

——-

Obviously, no one wants to be considered, or associated with, the dumb.

I posit this is reflected in the comments and upvotes we’ve seen above.

@SecondHandStoke I know a lot of intellects and don’t run across many, if any, who engage their intelligence as a hobby. I have more observed intellects as a whole often are lacking in social skills and came come across as conversationally boring and I find they don’t get sarcasm either. My older sister is one of those and my eyes quickly glaze over with her non-stop scientific data and facts and her sense of humor is founded on more science and facts I have no hope of getting the humor while she is laughing her ass off.

@SecondHandStoke Do you think that there is a case for the dumbing down of America or do you think that we are just as intelligent and creative as we were 70 years ago?

What I meant by “intellectualism is not a thing” is: there is no ideology called intellectualism. “Intellectualism” means noting.

Marking this to answer later.

The phenomenon of anti intellectualism doesn’t extend to China where people are desperate to give their children the best education possible and are willing to spend large sums of money to do so.

That Trump could be elected president shows the extent of anti-intellectualism in the U.S. His crudeness, vulgarity and indifference to the truth speak volumes. When asked what books he has read lately, he said that he is too busy to read. Holy cow! Even Dubya was a regular book reader.

I spoke one time to someone from India about public school teachers. He said that in India teachers are given great respect, even though their salaries were comparable to American teachers. In the U.S., teaching is looked upon as a repository for losers. By contrast, in Finland, which does fairly well in international tests, teachers are required to get a masters degree, there are way more applicants than available positions. Finnish teachers are also given comparatively higher salaries.

Here are the results of the most recent PISA tests. Not something for the U.S. to be proud of.

@LostInParadise Do you think that here in the US we are ACTIVELY pursuing dumbing-down or do you think it is just a byproduct of our society and what we consider culture?

It is more of a disrespect for academics. Former Vice President Spiro Agnew used the phrase “effete intellectuals” to describe Vietnam War protesters. That phrase does a good job of encapsulating a certain attitude. People who succeed in academia are undeserving elitists while those who do well in business are deserving of our respect.