True Anti-Intellectualism

The press, commentators, academics, and pseudo-philosophers slur other points of view as “anti-intellectual” when those views fail to conform to the consensus of science, academia, or the mainstream understanding of either. While even serious analysts may conflate such contrary points of view with the naive irrationality of the “flat-earth” crowd, that characterization both demonizes intellectuals who have taken an unpopular view and ignores the greater evil- proudly true anti-intellectuals.

Set aside your opinion of the views of conservatives, liberals, middle America, Europeans, or city-dwellers. The veracity of any of their political paradigms is not relevant in identifying what I called anti-intellectual. Whether or not those at the forefront of intellectual inquiry are right is ultimately irrelevant when considering the non-intellectual. That is to say, one cannot criticize a non-intellectual Liberal for holding a Liberal perspective. The reasons to be Liberal or Conservative are unclear to society since the people who study the issues for a living cannot themselves come to consensus. Society should not turn non-intellectuals into pariahs as punishment for not holding intellectual comprehension.

While liberal societies should not reflexively mock conservative individuals and vice-versa, that does not imply that the lack of intellectual understanding is somehow a good thing. On all sides of the debate, there exists an attitude that it is somehow bad to provide reasons for one’s opinions. It is almost as if one’s ability to cite sources and facts or the ability to pick out the flaws in another’s argument is offensive. Frequently, conversation makes apparent that there is no reason that a non-intellectual has chosen a point of view, leaving the non-intellectual feeling naked and benighted. Instead of asking themselves why they chose that point of view, the non-intellectual may lash out at the offending criticism as not being supportive or for being overly abrasive.

The desire for communal or friendly support is fine for the trivial, subjective choices of ballet, basketball, or beerpong, but it is quite another for anything that has demonstrative effects, such as the case of politics. In such areas, truth is the only thing that matters, not pleasantries. The idea that it is somehow offensive to demand reasons to justify views and decisions and to provide evidence for one’s own drags society down to an illicit orgy of irresponsibility, irrationality, and emotion.

The inability of intellectuals to come to a consensus is not a moral carte blanche to believe whatever you want to believe. It is easy to hold idly a position knowing that one can go home and in ten minutes find a passage from Bill O’Reilly or Lewis Black, or some other book with a pundit, his expression serious and his arms crossed, on its soft-cover, whenever some waxing intellectual invokes some unknown argument. That ease does not make an idle position justified. This self-affirming dishonesty has two particular flavors: unjustified relativism and simple close-mindedness.

Relativism, while varied in specific meaning and intent, has a general guiding principle. There is no real truth and that anything an individual perceives is equally valid to what anyone else sees. This is a subject that can be rationally debated and discussed intellectually; whether or not the nature of the world is relative is a fact that is objectively true or untrue. Unjustified relativism assumes relativism without citation or argument, insisting that discussing cosmic truth is petty, and that therefore whatever position taken by the individual is sacred. It sidesteps the importance of discussing important issues by citing a vague, philosophical concept brimming in controversy. One’s deep understanding of the intricacies of relativism may justify a general indifference to reality, evidence, and facts proffered exogenously from one’s individual truth, but it does not justify unsupported conjecture ex post.

Simple close-mindedness believes itself to be unmitigatedly and objectively true, but finds the other side of the argument too offensive to take seriously. Those exemplifying this exhibit emotional, negative reactions upon hearing evidence in favor of the views with which they disagree. The desire to reach the goal confounds any discussion of whether or not the goal should be reached in the first place. Learning why intellectuals of the opposition believe what they believe becomes an annoyance, something they don’t want to consider. Such understanding only muddles their ability to construct a counter-factual army of straw men used to guilt a portion of the other side of the argument out of association with the other side. To the close-minded, learning is only learning, and learning is only beneficial, when those pretenses of truth and intellectualism favor the selected goals.

Any argument can retain such specious auspices when truth stops being the rubric of choice. Either flavor of anti-intellectualism mentioned boils down to one factor, pride. Intellectuals know more than us. I personally am not an intellectual. That recognition does not justify my ignorance and blind spots. Instead, that recognition should guide anyone towards filling those blind spots. Failure in prioritizing the discovery of true intellectual discussion renders one anti-intellectual, a personification of boasting ignorance and willful non-understanding. It is unreasonable to demand that we all become intellectuals; it is not to ask that we do not become anti-intellectuals.