When Did Right-Wing Anti-Intellectualism Start?

[ashling]

[marym625]

1. fox.

K&R

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Reagan.

May 2001 The many faces of anti-intellectualism

Universities should not subsidize intellectual curiosity. This oxymoronic statement was uttered by none other than then candidate for the governorship of California Ronald Reagan in the late 1960s. The astounding thing is not that somebody like Reagan would actually say something so outrageously stupid, but that this helped him winning the election and ushering a new era of official anti-intellectualism in America. This is continuing to this day, witness the fact that the current president, George W. Bush, has run a campaign as the (Yale-educated!) champion of the everyday man against the “pointed-head” intellectualism of rival Al Gore.

http://www.booktalk.org/01-05-anti_intellectualism.html

[LiberalArkie]

6. I remember back in the Mercury-Apollo-Gemini space flights that the liberals (Me included)

we screaming bloody murder about all the money being wasted going to the moon when it could be spent on the poor. I remember the liberals and ACLU fighting to stop keeping people in the mental hospitals because "once you got put in, they would never let you out" We were close on a lot of it, but it took the brain dead conservatives to take it way too far. They always have to do that. If a law is created to help the American Indians fight off government interference into their religious activities, the conservatives have to take it to the point to where Tony Alamo could claim that government is interfering with his religious beliefs when they stop him from having sex with children.

[marym625]

11. oy!

I forgot about this. You know how you block painful memories? This is one of them

[rogerashton]

3. 1603

in America. It has a longer history in Britain.

[davidsilver]

4. Anti-Intellectualism has always been with us

[blm]

5. When RevMoon began developing the RW propaganda empire in the 80s

that Rupert Murdoch would AMPLIFY in the 90s in his growing US broadcast empire.

Both of these global fascists had longtime alliance with GHWBush as intel 'assets'.

There was always anti-intellectualism present, but, it was the modern means to amplify it that grew it to its current power position.

[valerief]

7. It's a facet of Organized Religion and always has been. nt

[bvf]

8. Very true.

Don't want people asking difficult questions, or making awkward observations about the emperor's lack of clothing.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

9. How long has our species been conscious?

I see clear evidence back past 2000 years.

[thucythucy]

10. Absolutely. The Athenians executed Socrates

for asking too many questions.

[jwirr]

12. With raygun.

[MisterP]

13. there was a big turn around 1994: short story, Big Business needed to deny the ozone hole

and global warming more now, and they didn't need a lot of engineers any more (it was a massacre--tens of thousands of aerospace guys "rightsized": funny how the budgets for the companies themselves didn't!)

[LongTomH]

14. That 'massacre' actually took place 2 decades earlier, during the Nixon Administration.

That's when the Apollo project was being terminated and tens of thousands of engineers were being dumped.

We kept hearing the phrase: "The nation (or the public) has other priorities now!" Those 'priorities' included an expanded Vietnam war; they didn't include Johnson's War on Poverty, that was winding down too.

[hvn_nbr_2]

15. The trial of Socrates is the oldest example that comes to mind immediately.

Corrupting the young, impiety, not recognizing the official gods. The more things change...

[RufusTFirefly]

16. Richard Hofstadter won a Pulitzer for pointing it out back in 1964

Anti-intellectualism in American Life is a book by Richard Hofstadter published in 1963 that won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.



The rap against Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who ran unsuccessfully in 1952 and 1956, was that he was an "egghead."

The country has always had an anti-intellectual streak. Unfortunately, the definition of an intellectual has steadily deteriorated. These days I imagine it includes anyone who has the audacity to actually read a book without pictures.

I believe it was former major league pitcher (and one-time McGovern delegate) Jim Bouton, who was known by his teammates as "the professor" because he liked to read during trips from one major league city to another.