Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America

[Pyrrho]

The tragedy in Charleston last week will no doubt lead to more discussion of several important and recurring issues in American culture—particularly racism and gun violence—but these dialogues are unlikely to bear much fruit until the nation undertakes a serious self-examination. Decrying racism and gun violence is fine, but for too long America’s social dysfunction has continued to intensify as the nation has ignored a key underlying pathology: anti-intellectualism.


America is killing itself through its embrace and exaltation of ignorance, and the evidence is all around us. Dylann Roof, the Charleston shooter who used race as a basis for hate and mass murder, is just the latest horrific example. Many will correctly blame Roof's actions on America's culture of racism and gun violence, but it's time to realize that such phenomena are directly tied to the nation's culture of ignorance. 

In a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that evolution and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell,”(link is external) where the chairman of a Senate environmental panel brought a snowball(link is external) into the chamber as evidence that climate change is a hoax, where almost one in three citizens can’t name the vice president(link is external), it is beyond dispute that critical thinking has been abandoned as a cultural value. Our failure as a society to connect the dots, to see that such anti-intellectualism comes with a huge price, could eventually be our downfall. 

...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our...ng-america

[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, 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.

The article continues with:

In considering the senseless loss of nine lives in Charleston, of course racism jumps out as the main issue. But isn’t ignorance at the root of racism? And it’s true that the bloodshed is a reflection of America's violent, gun-crazed culture, but it is only our aversion to reason as a society that has allowed violence to define the culture. Rational public policy, including policies that allow reasonable restraints on gun access, simply isn't possible without an informed, engaged, and rationally thinking public.

Some will point out, correctly, that even educated people can still be racists, but this shouldn’t remove the spotlight from anti-intellectualism. Yes, even intelligent and educated individuals, often due to cultural and institutional influences, can sometimes carry racist biases. But critically thinking individuals recognize racism as wrong and undesirable, even if they aren’t yet able to eliminate every morsel of bias from their own psyches or from social institutions. An anti-intellectual society, however, will have large swaths of people who are motivated by fear, susceptible to tribalism and simplistic explanations, incapable of emotional maturity, and prone to violent solutions. Sound familiar?

...

Is that satisfactory to you?  If not, you might want to continue reading at:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our...ng-america

[Pyrrho]

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.

I am not sure who you are asking.

I think the primary reason is religion.  It is very antagonistic to critical thinking.  Religion, in fact, depends on poor critical thinking for its survival.  But that is not the only factor.  

Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was an existential angst about our future, which kept many policy makers interested in promoting science as a way of making sure that they did not get ahead of us in everything.  For example, if you examine the history of Sputnik, the first satellite, it was the Soviets being ahead of us in space.  That terrified policymakers, and so we poured massive amounts of money into science and technology.  It was patriotic to study science, to keep us ahead of the Soviets.  But we do not have that motive any longer with the breakup of the Soviet Union.  So we do not have the same focus any longer.  That might be why we canceled our Superconducting Super Collider.

There are also various corporate interests involved (which is mentioned in the article).  Business depends on people buying things, not on them making good buying choices.  If people are easier to sucker, that, at least in the short run, is good for many businesses.

And there are politicians who benefit from a lack of critical thinking.  Some of our politicians would never be elected if their constituents were all intelligent, reasonable, and good at critical thinking.

I think in connection with that is the history of the Republican Party over the past few decades, becoming entangled with fundamentalist Christians, which has not done the country any favors.  It is pushing us backwards, or trying to, and has had some successes in pushing us backwards.  It has had a corrupting influence on our educational system, including subjects in science and sex education.

There are likely other factors involved.

[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.