Anti-intellectualism

In 1963, historian Richard Hofstadter published his important book, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, documenting what a careful observer would see as the obvious. I'm delighted to learn this book is still read: all library copies are checked out, with a waiting list for their return.

Now the message gets a new champion in a recent book, The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. Well, it's an age that's been around for centuries, though Jacoby finds the situation particularly troubling now:

But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.

Well, it probably doesn't matter to this new humanoid creation, Homo consumerus.

But perhaps the situation looks more extreme than it used to look because today we are bombarded more frequently by media that usually follow the anti-intellectual party line. Maybe we were just as stupid in the past as now.