Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America

[Pyrrho]

[Alex K]

Pyrrho, I'll agree that anti-intellectual attitudes are a serious issue in the US, but the connection to the Charleston shooting seems forced, and it therefore leaves a very bad taste in my mouth to use the shooting as a talking point in this fight. I'd rather not join the ranks of those who use the latest tragedy to raise awareness for their pet issue. It just seems too far-fetched to be justified.

[Dystopia]

In your opinion what causes this anti-intellectual culture? I'm curious - There are many countries in the world, some of them are the roughly the same size or bigger than the US (and with larger demographics) - There is, most likely, an historical/cultural cause.

[Alex K]

The most obvious source would be the puritan Christan roots of early settlers, which still seem to define and shape the general attitudes of society towards sex and science - but it has been said that opposition against the latter, like young earth creationism, is a relatively young phenomenon....

[Anomalocaris]

I think another reason is that America's own primary, secondary, and university education system is not anywhere close to up to the task of producing sufficient number of native science and engineering talents.   Consequently much of America's scientific preeminence and technological accomplishments have been built upon foreign talents who came to the U.S. to take advantage of our still adaquete graduate schools and career opportunities.

I think this created a social and cultural separation between the large portion of intellectual elite upon whom America had built her preeminence, and the cultural milieu in which ordinary Americans swim daily.  I suspect the typical native born American is less likely to have a friend or relative who is  a serious scientist, or the sort of engineer who dives deeply into the science behind his craft, than in other comparably advanced countries.

So I think Americans are more likely to think intellectualism is somehow foreign, although through the sort of propaganda induced cognitive dissonance that easily infect the undereducated and self complacent, they also tend to think the fruit of this intellectualism is not only their right by birth, but something from which they are entitled pick, chose, and alter to suit their personal cultural, political and psychological makeup.

[nihilistcat]

I dunno ... the shooter in Charleston had references (in his scrabble brained manifesto) that sound a lot like scientific racism (which has been long refuted). So yeah, if we were doing a better job educating our kids, you have to think it would be helpful with social issues like racism. That said, I'm not going to take the leap and say that it would have prevented this shooting (that would be wild speculation).

[Pyrrho]

[Pyrrho]

[nihilistcat]

It's a really great article.

[Pyrrho]

I dunno ... the shooter in Charleston had references (in his scrabble brained manifesto) that sound a lot like scientific racism (which has been long refuted). So yeah, if we were doing a better job educating our kids, you have to think it would be helpful with social issues like racism. That said, I'm not going to take the leap and say that it would have prevented this shooting (that would be wild speculation).

It is certainly difficult to definitively show that a specific act is caused by poor education.  The author of the article, however, does not make that mistake.  He says that this sort of thing is going to continue as long as the underlying problem is not properly addressed.  As long as people are not good at critical thinking, they are going to think all sorts of bad things, and those will lead to bad actions.  Of course, we will have great difficulty in proving that a specific bad action is caused by poor education of critical thinking skills.

In short, I do not disagree with what you state in that post, nor is there anything in the article to which I linked in disagreement with what you state in that post.