Anti-Intellectualism: The Hatred Against Intellect
Anti-intellectual is a philosophy claiming that rationality and wisdom are of inconsequential role in the world, or that wisdom would never become capable of understanding the true nature of the world.
Anti-intellectualism is ideological discrimination toward intellect and intellectuals. It can take the form of assigning the image of “nerds” to people who picked up intellectual jobs for their career, as well as discounting these people as useless lesser humans. It can also take the form of discrediting intellect and glorifying empiricism, discrediting cautious rationalism and glorifying intuitions and decisiveness. But in order not to mistake it with the commonly-found hatred between groups of people with clashing views, it is important to note that the said hatred has become strong and widespread enough to become an ideology; so strong it could even stir up physical political acts in the real world.
Fundamentally, anti-intellectual is a philosophy claiming that rationality and wisdom are of inconsequential role in the world, or that wisdom would never become capable of understanding the true nature of the world. Wisdom doesn’t have the merit to be seen as superior to stupidity, because both are states of ignorance. And for that reason, the believers of this philosophy value feelings over thoughts, intuition over logic, action over heuristic, results over means, experience over principle and order, etc. Dictatorial governments are among the biggest fans of this theory; they often promote this theory among the population to the point of radicality in order to deprive the people’s favor for the progressive dissidents [1] .
And with that, the manifestation of anti-intellectualism doesn’t stop with the behaviors of disregarding order and social norms or antagonizing science, such as anti-vaccination or believing in Creationism. The culling of millions of people during the Spanish Civil War, in the Cultural Revolution in China, the Armenian Genocide done by the Ottoman Empire or genocides done by Nazi Germany, the Red Khmer rules in Cambodia, etc., each and every of these was a part of anti-intellectualism.
But then the question is, why do intellect and the intellectuals always so easily become prey to the masses’ hatred, why do they always receive the Number 1 priority for the purges of dictatorships?
While indeed this article won’t be able to perfectly answer this question, it will show you the things that we’ve found in search of that answer.
1. The worship of intellect.
The Intellectuals in fact have always been one of the more privileged groups throughout the history of mankind. Knowing a lot has always been an advantage in any society from the most primitive to the post-industrial society; a part of this might have stemmed from the role of language in the construction of the society, or from the reverse process where the community’s way of life played a role in forging the language, whichever is true. And thus, unlike in the natural world where the raw power and other physical attributes are pretty much the sole determinants for the status and influence of an individual within its community, a human can still earn for himself respect with the power of wisdom aka of their profound understanding of the community’s accumulated knowledge. And most importantly, there is no such thing as a divine commandment insisting that those who pursue intellect have to sacrifice physical wellness in return like in some kind of deal with the devil. The ancient paintings depicting famous scholars often portrayed them as men with great build, or at least not flimsy. Even if these drawings, as argued by some, might just be a glorified image of the great thinkers, they at the very least reflected the image that the old societies had of these people, which is not quite the same as the one we have nowadays. Even Diogenes, a thinker who was said to have a much peculiar wanderer-like lifestyle, or “living like a dog” as the ancient texts called it, was portrayed as a stately man with lots of spirits.
The fresco The School of Athens depicting an assembly of various ancient Greek philosophers from different ages, drawn on the dome of a reception room in the Apostolic Palace was one of the examples for the respect toward knowledge, which was such a big thing for society it was openly supported by the largest religious organization in the world at the time. At the center of the fresco laid the portraits of Plato and Aristotle, the two great philosophers with great influence on mankind’s system of knowledge, both were champions of rationality and symbols for the glory of intellect and the intellectuals [2] .
Plato was particularly fond of intellect and of those who possessed it. He claimed (orally so, as reported by Socrates) that wisdom and rationality were things that should be placed even before love, politics or morals, and that it was natural for the wisest to rule over others (in The Republic). Plato even went as far as advising the aristocrats to use noble lies to rule the masses as they weren’t intelligent enough to see the complete truths that only the intelligent aristocrats could see [3] .
Aristotle, despite having many of his ideas disagreeing with those of Plato, actually shared many similarities with his predecessor when it comes to their views of intellect. On one hand, Aristotle’s system of theories had a lot to do with logic and rationality, and thus it is to be expected that he definitely adored humans’ ability to understand logic and wise people. On the other hand, ‘Aristotle-as-a-character’ also claimed in Protrepticus that ‘intelligent man’ was the ultimate standard for goodness, as they would always look to make the choice that brings the best of benefits (“it is clear that the intelligent man will choose most of all to be intelligent”), and for that reason, should be the most authoritative; he also thought of intelligence to be the best of all qualities [4] . Aristotle’s reason had put out the value and privilege of the intelligent man as “a course of nature”. Following his footstep, other great philosophers like Descartes and Kant also placed such a high value on intellect that they virtually considered it the power to identify the existence or the authority to decide morals.
What’s more, even the political condition of Europe ever since Ancient Greek had always been built around the philosophies of the said great philosophers; for example, the Athenian democracy characterized by the rules of white male intellectuals was also founded based on the reality that the intellectuals had very high social status within the society; and it was a reality instead of an idealistic scenario. Within governments, scholars and philosophers were generally the groups to be kept close by the political leaders. Through various ages of history, this situation didn’t seem to change so much, even though the system of knowledge and viewpoints had grown to become more and more intensive and advanced. For example, as the Age of Enlightenment emerged to put an end to the Age of Mysticism and to champion rationality, scientists and scholars also got to ride the wave. Or during the post-industrial-revolution period, when universal first education rose to popularity, “to do well at school” or “to become an intelligent and knowledgeable person” were also seen as a way for a person to change their life and advance to higher levels on the social hierarchy (or at least that was people believed, even though that might or might not be true in reality).
In the East, intellect also formed the backbone of the imperial examination system and of the bureaucratic government; and the scholars thus enjoyed a great deal of respect and even intimidation.
And so, in general, to value intellect and the intellectuals was more or less a structural norm for any societies and civilizations throughout history. That was the reality, or at least what was recorded as history, with the intellectuals playing a dominant role in the task of recording history.
2. The hatred against intellect.
The hatred of intellect was not exactly a standalone thing, but instead was often a part of the more apparent conflicts within the society. For example, in the 20th century, the socialist countries were particularly uninterested with the scholars to embrace the market economy and tried to exterminate them. The new government worked to get rid of the group of scholars that were embraced by the overthrown government and system of ideology. For example, the scholars patronized by the Tsardom were deported from Soviet Russia as the Bolsheviks claimed the authority [5] . The United States during the colonial era, which was built by the “commoners” who were daring enough to cross the ocean to find themselves a new homeland, also showed some great conservatism toward the views of the intellectuals from the old continent who were previously their master [6] . This resistance, in such a country as the United States itself, has persisted all the way till today, except that they have even more reason to do so nowadays as their “commoner” forefathers, in midst of their pursuit of political freedom, had given birth to what was the greatest country in the world throughout the XIX and XX century.
Isaac Asimov said, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge” [7] .
In feudal-age China, the purging of government officials from previous dynasties as well as burning or prohibiting their works was also a common practice, especially when they stood against the will and the outlook of the new dynasty. The most evident example of this in fact just took place in the XX Century: The Cultural Revolution. It was a massive stain of defilement to the legacy of this country: A decade of violence against the intellects, universities with widespread plundering, which had cost the country a massive portion of its accumulated intellect and culture. The uneducated Red Guard youngsters were extremely excited to terrorize universities and to execute the “toxic intellects”.
And so, most of the black spots in history created by the hatred of intellect as a movement took place in periods of political precarity, where the totalitarian governments led by dictators were looking to get rid of the dissidents. What affected the fate of intellects were the deeper and more inherent political relationships instead of the hatred of intellect by itself. We are not afraid of AI, but we are afraid of a future scenario where we become slaves to the power-vested AIs. We are not afraid of our smart friends, but we are afraid of a future scenario where they go up to the higher social hierarchy and bring forth changes that will either alienate them or just straight up be disadvantageous for them.
On the other hand, the embering hatred of intellect within the masses is slightly more complicated. It can be the combined result of a lot of things, namely the political conflicts from the previous period, the conflicts between the existing political parties, between religions and science, as well as the rise of media empires and the new role models that are constantly created in this day and age.
Many works have shown that mass media has been portraying a false image of life in university, devaluing their education and portraying it like a non-factor in the overall life prospect of the students [8] , as well as forging easy-to-understand pseudo-knowledge targeting at certain groups within the society [9] , and tarnishing the contribution of intellects by portraying them as individuals alienated by the society [10] while promoting appealing role models that succeeded without education or intellect.
With all that, the hatred of intellect has spiraled up to the point of that it can threaten the civilized society; it has become so ubiquitous that the examples of it could be seen anywhere across the news; and, as pointed out by a study, the anti-intellectuals also accounted for the majority of the people to refuse to take up measures like quarantine or wearing masks in the early days of the pandemic [11] .
3. So intellect is despicable after all?
Despite how I can never bring myself to like the anti-intellectual movement (maybe because I feel like I’ll become one of its victims one day?), I also can never bring myself to agree with the radical culture of intellect worship like that of Plato. The endorsement of a certain standard, like one that requires everyone to do well academically, can also give birth to frustration among those who are incapable of meeting that standard. This doctrinization forces the entire mankind to live in a simplified world that on one hand makes things consistent and easily manageable but on the other hand does not work to guarantee happiness, progress and peace. In the same fashion, when you doctrinize the practice of reading books and long articles, you are also indirectly criticizing those who are doing the opposite, calling them out as deplorable enemies of civilization. The individuals who don’t enjoy reading books, how are they supposed to feel about themselves, being surrounded by society so hateful toward them?
The easily foreseeable consequence of this coercive radicality is that when the suppressed group somehow gets their hands on the tools of political power, they will build up their position on the opposite side in order to protect themselves and those in the same situation. In reality, this process has already started and is still taking place, because when the diversity of choice is guaranteed, most people will choose to separate themselves from intellect rather than living close to it.
In the case that you truly believes the value of wisdom is permanent, and want to guide people toward that path, by setting up incentives for the selected excellent individuals, you are also indirectly practicing inequality and discrimination, especially when too much privilege is granted to the winners in the race in comparison to the losers’; because, after all, we are living in one same society. And what’s more, there is the risk that even the starting line for each individual in this race might have been unequal in the first place, while its outcome represents too much decisive power to the fates of each individual in the society. If intellect can become the source to so much menace, is it really so valuable?
So, at the end of the day, I believe I simply don’t possess the authority and capacity sufficient to make a decision or to propose a solution that can reverse this black mass of turmoil. But there is one common pattern in our history that I’ve come to notice, that is the radicality on one side will give birth to radicality on the other side as well, and the zealotry when combined with radicality is often the shortest way to great evils.
Perhaps the solution might be for us to be mindful of our own flaws before criticizing those of others. Unfortunately, despite how easy it sounds, it might not be the easiest thing to do, for us mundane humans.
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References:
[1] Holman, C.Hugh (1985). A Handbook to Literature (Hardcover) (4th ed.). Indianapolis: ITT Bobbs-Merrill. p. 27. ISBN 0–672–61477–4.
[2] “School of Athens | painting by Raphael | Britannica,” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2021, Accessed: Jul. 27, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.britannica.com/topic/School-of-Athens.
[3] “On the dark history of intelligence as domination | Aeon Essays,” Aeon, 2017. https://aeon.co/.../on-the-dark-history-of-intelligence... (accessed Jul. 27, 2021).
[4] Hutchinson & Johnson 2015, p. 22.
[5] Catherine Baird. Revolution from Within: The Ymca in Russia’s Ascension to Freedom from Bolshevik Tyranny, 2013, ISBN 9780986219900
[6] Hofstadter, Richard Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1962), p. 46.
[7], [8], [9], [10] Pyle, George (6 April 2020). “George Pyle: It can be hard to know who to trust. And easy to know who not to”. The Salt Lake Tribune.
[11] E. Merkley and P. J. Loewen, “Anti-intellectualism and the mass public’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 706–715, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1038/s41562–021–01112-w.
