The disturbing trend of anti-intellectualism

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It seems as if these days people are actually looked down upon for having a college degree. Even those attending university will claim to despise the "nerds" who enjoy research, reading and learning. Indeed, many of the anti-intellectuals have come to view universities as some sort of community colleges or trade schools where they go for a career certificate. To me this entirely removes the value from the idea of education.
Too many people who are mentally unequipped to read more than a page are going to college just because that's what their parents told them to do or because that's the goal their high school tried to push them in. It is these very people who are perpetuating anti-intellectual attitudes. That's not even mentioning people with no education whatsoever who somehow think that higher education is a waste of time, or consider college graduates worthless.

This seems like an increasingly bothersome new trend. What are the roots of anti-intellectualism, in your opinion? What do you think can be done to curtail it?

I remember in high school if you raised too much to answer the teacher's question you would not hear the end of it. They tease you for being less intelligent than them but they will beat the living crap out of you if you are smarter than them.

My guess: Mostly jealousy from people who want what other people have (i.e., education, prestige, respect, good pay) without having to work for it. Maybe a little fear. Certainly a false sense of "fairness", in that if everyone can not have a college degree, then nobody should be allowed to have one - just to be fair... ... stupid, eh?


Free college education for all of those who can make the grade - that is, everyone gets a chance to earn a 2.000 GPA or better (out of 4.000) in a university-level major (applied sciences preferred), and those who fall behind are sent to vocational school (or the military) instead.

I don't see this hostility you speak of, however of academia I have come to realize a few things which I will share here.

1. It always was, and always will be a popularity clique.
2. How popular one is depends greatly on how many paper's one can get one's name.
3. The ideas of many brilliant individuals are overlooked because they are shut out from accredited academia.

4. Industry actually rivals academia as an environment that fosters intellectual growth and human advancement, and is perhaps more efficient at this. Many times the universities actually lag in their technology development.

5. How much one can do an academia depends greatly on how much money one can raise to do it.

6. A lot of research is done not for the love of the subject or the advancement of human kind, but for the advancement of the status of the researcher.

I think anti-academia would be a better term than anti-intellectualism. I dropped out of high school, never went to college, but I spent allot of time at the library educating myself about what I wanted to know. I did go to an art school that was not challenging at all for me, but I did meet a long time friend there who has also discovered he has AS.

Heh, brings the movie "Idiocracy" to mind, "why are you trying so hard to read that sign, huh? What are you, a f**?"

I don't know why, but it apparently wasn't always this way (and isn't the same everywhere in the world). I had a landlady once who said that when she was middle school (in the 1920's), being the kid who got straight A's made her popular. And my mother, who was in middle school in Japan in the 1950's, says the same. All I know that in America in the 80's it sure as **** wasn't like that.

I think there's some connection with the cultural notion that "artists are better than scientists (or engineers, etc.)"

I think America has always been somewhat anti-intellectual, but it's definitely gotten worse since the recession. People with postgraduate degrees are applying for welfare, while high school grads are getting 60K/yr. union factory jobs. "Fancy book learnin" is ridiculed, while "common sense" and "street smarts" are glorified. It sucks especially for those of us on the spectrum, who tend to value intellectual pursuits more.

That movie wasn't far off the mark...I've been criticized quite a bit by people because I enjoy reading.

Wow, that is a scary thing.

I don't think having a degree is looked down upon, but at the same time it's not looked up to. Since any moron can waltz on in, get C's in every class, and walk out with that piece of paper, it's not really anything special anymore.

I won't argue with you that the USA is anti-intellectual, though. It definitely is. Employers only care about "soft skills" anymore. Intelligence is more likely to get you ridicule than respect.

It would depend on what the person was saying and why they were saying what they were saying.

It seems to me that many colleges, such as Rasmussen, attempt to dumb down their curriculum so as to not frustrate state educated students while they are using them as cash cows. If you want to learn a subject, go to a used bookstore and buy textbooks on that subject for cheap. You want a piece of paper which decreases in value along with the quantity of those also obtaining them, go for that too if you really think that having a college degree means that you have a college education. I'm not able to even consider that anymore after my experience with college - at the very least with the one I attended. If I go back, I will be careful to select my school on the basis of their curriculum employed and student feedback from those who have been there long enough to become disillusioned if they are going to be.

That makes sense. It seems that people are more popular if they are expressive, rather than intellectual. The general impression being that expressive people are fun, while intellectuals are considered to be dull and boring.

In my opinion, there is too much emphasis on expressing one's self through art and sports, and not enough on achievement in maths and the sciences - most kids would rather be popular than smart. When did this country lose sight of what's important and begin to embrace only the glitz and glamour of entertainment?

The 1960's through 1970's, with a brief attempted restart in caring about intellectual matters in the 1980's, drowned out by Y2K alarmist idiots running amok in the 1990's.

Its either coming from the C guys who probably could of been A guys but only worked hard enough to be C guys and know what they are doing or its coming from the A guys who are intimidated by what you have and can do.

I think a lot of it comes from the fact that intellectuals are viewed as a snobbish elite (don't ask me why such impressions never seem to extend to celebrities or the super-rich). Admittedly, academic jobs are rather cushy positions, although god knows you don't get paid much considering how educated you are. But academics are often segregated from the rest of society in a way. They travel more often, to go to conferences, they surround themselves with similar people at universities, they may be oblivious to the problems your "man on the street" is having...

I think people also have trouble appreciating the idea of learning for learning's sake now. Just about everything in the West (especially the USA) seems to have to be justified with the idea of turning a profit. Education is just a way to up your pay-grade. Pure research etc. is looked down upon as useless and a waste of money. Oh the joys of capitalism...

***Disclaimer: When I insult capitalism, do not think for a minute that I am endorsing communism. That was/is a much worse system.***

I think it comes from a few sources:

* school these days is seen as a rude infringement on the free time, so anything related to that is seen as bad.
* education is related to authority and these days people assume that this is bad
* education in the US has a price, a very high one which makes it being considered in cost/benefit terms much more, I guess, than in countries like Finland