Will the world ever stop being anti-intellectual?
One of the most aggravating things to me in this world has to be the absolutely rampant anti-intellectualism that dominates so many conversations and debates, and its influence just seems to be expanding. Do you think there will ever actually be a time when this ends? I'd hope so once people become more educated and cultural changes eventually happen, but as of now it honestly infuriates me like few things ever have.
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Anti-intellectualism comes alongside alienation from others. It has to. Being an intellectual is essentially saying "I trust the findings of academics and will adopt their consensus." Nobody can learn about the whole span of the world, it's too much information. But when you are convinced that collaboration is weakness and compromise is failure, you have to keep the world in your head, and the only way to do that is to maintain a really simplified internal diorama from which your "truth" is derived.
This is such a great take. I've never considered it like this
Thanks, I'm already thinking of ways I am off the mark though, like how things like race science and eugenics have been the "academic" position in the past.
I think properly working the academic consensus into your mind involves also understanding that it's the product of people. It's not that different from having some trust in institutions outside of academia too. There were people in the sciences fighting bitterly against those trends, and in the long run their position became standard.
I think there's a point to be made here about trust vs faith
Yeah probably. I don't like the idea of having faith in science of course, considering that science is done by people, and people aren't infallible. But it's the best tool we have for preserving and interacting with past ideas and breakthroughs. I suppose the thing I'd have to have faith in is humanity's drive to understand a "truth" that holds up to scrutiny, instead of the characterization some have of human beings as creatures that wish only to satisfy existential terror incuriously.
That was very useful to people. It's not like a majority, even those disliking academia, will trust no scientific study or something, they just don't trust the ones they disagree with politically
This is an uncomfortable reality but the more recent examples of the sciences and humanities being considered progressive overall gives me hope.
I don't think there was ever really race science, I could be wrong here but to my knowledge it was basically all pseudo science. Maybe this is a flawed take but I don't remember any creditable research from it but lots of old white dudes telling everyone how they're better because they say so.
the difference between pseudo-science and science can be slight, and always better understood in hindsight. IQ was a big part of race science in the early 1900s, and it looks like science. It's objectively measured, systemic data. You've gotta take a step back to realise it's bullshit and too subjectively defined to be useful for anything. A big part of science is trying to think objective, and it's only been somewhat recently there's been a movement to remind people that they aren't actually objective, ever.
I get where you're going and I don't really disagree but people thought lots of things were objective while having no conclusive data.
thought, think, will think. But I kind of did say that already.
It's the exact opposite of that. An intellectual is someone with a lot of curiosity and typically rejects the status quo. Anti-intellectualism is the acceptance of what others say based on "stuff" (emotions, group affiliation). Intellectuals have been oppressed because they offer intelligent ideas to challenge a political party, religion, or the "adopted consensus".
I just responded to a pretty similar position below.
It is silly to conflate opposition to the status quo with intellectualism. Those visionaries whose ideas led to paradigm shifts were still building upon previous consensus. Sometimes being correct puts you at odds with the group, but so does being COMPLETELY WRONG.
Sometimes