It really gets under foot here–vaccinations cause autism, YES THEY DO!, man and dinosaurs coexisted because the world is only 4,000 years old, abstinence is the best sex education for teens, Moses is a USA founding father, climate change is a hoax. Basically, anyone who presents an educated and expert comment on an issue is allowed to be shouted down by someone far less qualified, who is then lauded as David the giant slayer.
I’m curious to know if this is a phenomenon peculiar to the USA, of if this is a general trend in Western society or if it’s a global thing. And of course, why do you think that?
I see those things as evidence of being anti-science, not anti-intellectual. Anti-intellectual may cover things like thinking artists are a bunch of freeloaders, philosophers are just full of hot air, there’s no good book that couldn’t be turned into a better movie, etc.
I think anti-intellectualism is actually fairly common (though not pervasive) throughout the world, but anti-science viewpoints seem to find a home here in the US. But there are various anti-science widely held beliefs in other countries. For example, South Koreans often believe that keeping an electric fan on at night in a closed room frequently causes death. Many Germans think that having a cross-breeze in a house (like having windows open at opposite ends of the house) causes serious illnesses and is particularly hard on some organs (kidneys? liver? can’t remember). Also, the idea that GMO foods are dangerous seems to have many more subscribers in Europe than here.
I’ve been told by noted historians* that before WWII the US was very anti-intellectual, and to some degree anti-science. Many technological advances, and particularly the Manhattan Project made heroes out of the egg heads that were previously ridiculed and/or despised. There may have been a generation of hope in the 50s through the 70s where rational thought was on the rise but clearly by the 80s there was a resurgence of simpletons.
There was a philosophical movement in Spain in the early 20th century, the so-called generación del 98 (the 1898 generation), whose dejection at the loss of the last overseas colonies (we still had several in Africa, but the sun was now definitely setting) and rejection of the present around them led to such beauties as “let them invent!” because heeeey, we had the Quijote, we didn’t need no science. Not every member of the movement produced jewels of such magnitude, but the basic idea that we had to spend our energy pining for past glories and lost laurels rather than improving the current situation was definitely anti-science.
My 11th grade Philosophy teacher hated Science with the fury which previous generations of Jesuits and Dominicans reserved for heretics. My group was all Sciences track: he never gave us a grade above pass (5 out of 10); his other group was all Humanities and they pretty much had to pee on the exam papers to get below an 8. 30 years later, he meets with my mother about once a month for some church work and every single time he tells her what a pity it is that I wasted my life going into engineering when I would have made such a great research journalist.
A few years ago, I was feeling pretty burned out at work and we were at the beginning of the crisis so every project was being put on hold; I figured I’d take a sabbatical to remove an old thorn in my side and do some coursework in Translation. Specifically, graduate school in Scotland; the majority of my classmates were anti-science and anti-technology. They were perfectly happy to spend a lot of time with their computers and smartphones, but also to not have much of an idea how to use them beyond very, very limited tasks; the weird ones found ourselves explaining such sophisticated tasks as how to take screenshots. Many of them wanted to be in-house translators, a kind of job which nowadays is basically limited to international organizations or software houses (games are a big one for this): about 1/4 of the students present when a teacher pointed this out found the notion that they might want to work in the gaming industry absolutely offensive. The teachers were, in general, worse. And the course we had to take on “international organizations” was quite limited in scope: the UN, EU, World Bank… and that’s about it. ISO and its affiliates, IUPAC and IUPAP and their affiliates, the Red Cross and other NGOs… naaah, apparently none of them is an International Organization. When I asked the teacher about maybe mentioning those (not dissecting them, just mentioning their existence), he said they were “not international organizations.” Oooo-k. Excuse me, I need to go check a dictionary, because apparently international doesn’t mean what I thought it does. Or maybe it’s organization. Anyway, it’s been several years and I still don’t understand how is the International Standards Organization not an International Organization, but maybe I’m just dumb.
climate change a hoax? you haven’t noticed any change…the world is 4000 years old, lol, ok, your perfect to ask then… explain BC as in ‘400 years ago, BC xyz happened’ so did they look at their calendar and was it counting the years backwards?as in this year 2050bc, next year would be 2049 bc,next year 2048 bc, etc…
I don’t know that man and dinasour coexisted, a few men were around, but dinos had run of the place… what happened to dinos in your opinion?
the bible is a guide… who you worship is your personal business. live and let live!!
Fair enough. I’m a fairly simple kind of guy: For me “intellectual” basically means “thoughtful and deferential to facts.” That encompasses (what I consider the best of) the humanities as well as science, where good examples are good because they reflect a studied knowledge of the subject.
Americans don’t have a monopoly on anti-intellectualism at a basic level, ISTM. You do, however, have your own flavour of distrusting the government that seems quite distinct from the rest of civilisation. Most places are very cynical of the political class and their activities, this gets taken a step further in some quarters of the US. Possibly something to do with that liberaltarianology that Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented.
Anyhow, as things like vaccines and climate change have a significant government involvement, then the usual quota of morons questioning them, common to all countries, may have a bit more impetus in the US than other places.
No. Apart from the religion/science thing which seems mainly American, most of the rest of the world is equally dumbed down. Partly a product of materialism — which informs consumerist capitalism, and was the basis of the idealistic atheist faiths such as the variants of communism and liberalism, and oddly enough the more complacent christianities, such as Prosperity and Mormonism — it is fostered by concentrating the masses minds on trivia, such as sports worship, advertising and mass media. I doubt if America has more than elsewhere of those, even if it is the great motherlode.
On the other hand we suffered enough from idealism also.
( But the severe anti-intellectual messaging of How I Met Your Mother, [ as only one instance ] and the importance of conformity to the systems and conspicuous consumption was painful, however wittily the propaganda was presented, and Veblen would have glowered. Although he prolly glowered at most things… )
I think it’s because of Fox news. Almost everyone in the US watches Fox news - its pretty hard to find someone who doesn’t. For the few who do not watch fox news, we have a special signal we give to each other when we’re out in public and think we see someone who watches something other than Fox news. It’s a small gesture, not noticeable to anyone else; with our right arm hanging at our side we stick our little pinky out. That is how we can spot each other and have a conversation about non antiscence things if the opportunity arises.
No country on earth worships science or logic in the general populace, but you’re right I have never seen the extreme paranoia of government anywhere but the US.
I mean people everywhere are cynical of the political class when it comes to stuff like corruption, but nonsense like “FEMA extermination camps” is rare.
Are you that naïve to think that challenging ideas only occurs in the modern US?
Look at history. New ideas have always been challenged. Most of history’s greatest scientists’ and philosophers’ revelations were all met with skepticism and challenge. And challenge isn’t a bad thing. It creates a dialogue for understanding and explanation to insure we all get to the right answer.
I’m an American and I love my country, but this place was founded by cranks and malcontents and several hundred years of selective breeding has produced a breed of crank the world has never seen before.
*We’re Americans, with a capital ‘A’, huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We **are *the wretched refuse. - Stripes