American Unreason and Anti-Intellectualism
When I was an undergraduate, I thought it would be a good idea to get high school teaching certification as a backup. I had an amazing teacher – I hated him at the time – who asked everyone in the room why they wanted to teach. Most of the undergrads said things like “I want to help people.” Sheesh.
When he got to me, I said that I was an intellectual, and that curiosity, analysis and debate were essential for every American. He said something dismissive, and my previously-timid self stopped going to the class.
To save my grade, I finally went in to talk to him. We came to an agreement. I had to read Richard Hofstadter’s classic book “Anti-intellectualism in America,” write a report, and discuss it with him. The book provided a clear clear picture of what I would be facing in this country – pretty much for the rest of my life. Nothing else has been so accurate. I thank my professor with all my heart for forcing me to read it. The first effect it had was that I decided that I would never teach at a high school.
Now there’s a book that continues Hofstader’s insights into the contemporary situation, and I am looking forward to reading it.
Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason
Dismayed by the average U.S. citizen’s political and social apathy and the overall crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think, Jacoby passionately argues that the nation’s current cult of unreason has deadly and destructive consequences (the war in Iraq, for one) and traces the seeds of current anti-intellectualism (and its partner in crime, antirationalism) back to post-WWII society. Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists. Through historical research, Jacoby breaks down popular beliefs that the 1950s were a cultural wasteland and the 1960s were solely a breeding ground for liberals. Though sometimes partial to inflated prose (America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been grievously exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism), Jacoby has assembled an erudite mix of personal anecdotes, cultural history and social commentary to decry America’s retreat into junk thought. – from the Publisher’s Weekly Review
Laura Miller’s review at Salon is a good read in itself.
Although Jacoby scolds culture warriors like Allan Bloom, author of “The Closing of the American Mind,” for both misunderstanding and misrepresenting the upheavals on American campuses during the 1960s and ’70s, she also deplores many of the leftist remedies for those conflicts. Women’s and African-American studies departments, she argues, only “ghettoize” the subject matter they champion, and further Balkanize and provinicalize university students. Not coincidentally, the creation of those departments generated more faculty jobs without pressuring traditional professors to reassess their curricula: “Too many white professors today could not care less whether most white students are exposed to black American writers, and some of the multicultural empire builders are equally willing to sign off on a curriculum for African-American studies majors that does not expose them to Henry James and Edith Wharton.”
There are some quibbles – and it looks like I might agree with them – but this is a definite add to my Amazon wishlist!
“Jacoby has written a brilliant, sad story of the anti-intellectualism and lack of reasonable thought that has put this country in one of the sorriest states in its history.” – Helen Thomas
50% of the people in the state where I live believe that *only* creationism should be taught in public schools.
That’s an almost unbelievable percentage, Paul.
How depressing.
I believe the “anti-intellectualism” you refer to is merely a symptom of a larger disease. I think it’s an extension of the erosion of the family unit. Children and their subsequent educations are “back burnered” for a myriad of legitimate reasons and equally, excuses. The economics of the family in the last two generations has meant significantly less attention for our young. Granted, many of these changes are a reflection of our economic times, i.e. both parents working out of necessity. Nevertheless, some are lifestyle choices brought upon by the emergence of what I would term the “me” generation. The fundamental lack of basic education will eventually be the downfall of our once great nation. Cycles. Ask Rome.
Regards,
Bob
Bob Brancato’s last blog post..10 Golf Thoughts for the Weekend
Bob – I have a mixed response to this. The fetishizing of the nuclear family came into being rather late in our history, and I’m not convinced it was ever a good idea.
But I agree with you that without a safety net – the village it takes to raise a child – there will be problems. In rural communities, it was based on kinship networks, and neighbors. Other places, it might be based on other kinds of structures, like community childcare (the kibbutz, for example).
The mother-father-children core nuclear family was, I think, more than anything a way to isolate and disempower women. It had effects on everyone. Now that it has become almost impossible to maintain the average household with children on one salary, we see some effects. We see the effects of eldercare issues as well.
But I think it’s bigger than that, and there really is a history of disdain in America for “eggheads” and so forth.
It is pretty difficult even to get some acknowledgment that ignorance is nothing to be proud of, much less have any kind of conversation that involves complexity.
All you have to do is go to another country, and engage even an average child or teenager in conversation. They just know more. That’s the fact. They know more about politics, geography, history, how to argue – everything. Even sticking to English-speaking countries, talk to the average citizen in Canada, England…. it is really astounding to see the difference. If we want to continue to be able to compete for jobs and everything else, we have to see the problem here. It’s not just about children either. Part of the problem is that we have also taken away the living wage, and the dignity of an honest day’s work.
Yes, you can invoke Rome, but I think of the turn of the century in Vienna, or the “kinder gentler socialism” of Prague, or the schizophrenic cabaret/concentration camp in Germany. The preacher and the pimp, the church and the bar, the prude and the Jerry Springer guest – they are complicit with one another’s culture. Look at it as a series of self-feeding loops.
Sure, go ahead and wave that flag at Nascar, and never consider that blue collar guys who love it so much are the first ones hurt by the Republican agenda. There isn’t enough understanding even to vote for one’s own self-interest.
The manipulation of the masses is back, and the American sheep seem to love it. “Just entertain us, don’t ask us to think.”
I think anti-intellectualism runs very deep in American culture. The popular press and cultural icons bring it to center stage. The products of our best minds and scientific laboratories do not interest us while we all obsess over Paris Hilton going to jail. This is an adult and young adult phenomenon which has more to do with our image of an ideal person and our role models than it does with our families and time spent with parents or relatives.
My point about the nuclear family disintegration and disinterest is documented on a personal level that I believe expands to a much broader, national statistic. Coincidentally, many of my close friends are teachers. Their employ spans elementary, middle school, and high school ranges. Although not a sample size large enough for scientific validation, they teach in varying communities with a range of economic conditions, Maine to Florida. The single one observation they relay is the lack of attendance by parents at parent/teacher functions. One friend teaches 1st grade in probably the most affluent school district where I live. Five out of twenty four parents showed up at her first PTA meeting! She scheduled it for two consecutive evenings to facilitate attendance.
Bob
Bob Brancato’s last blog post..10 Golf Thoughts for the Weekend
This is not new. Read up on Neil Postman & his books. He’s done pretty indepth studies on this (see Amusing ourselves to death). Why are we surprised? The US Government shouldn’t be in the business of educating or providing services to it’s people. Privatization will allow competition to occur and services to be refined.
And we want universal health care? Good night! We’ll get the same thing in the medical industry as we’ve got in the school system. Lord have mercy!
Virus head stated: “How depressing” with regard to Paul’s comment “50% of the people in the state where I live believe that only creationism should be taught in public schools.”
It’s even more depressing knowing that there are some out there who believe something came from nothing! Evolutionists assume everything we see around us up to this very point in human history as evolving from nothing! What’s even more depressing is that people are convincing themselves & their children that this is true? What hope is there in life without the One True God? No wonder people go on shooting sprees and malls in this country. Without hope & without God in this world.
Another form of anti-intellectualism going on in this world…and it’s all brought to you by Government schools (so much for separation of Church & State. The athiests need their theology too!! Unfortunately, they have methodically & ingeniously cloked themselves as atheological)
Enthusiasm for a book on anti-intellectualism returns these comments – fascinating.
I suppose the thing that bothers me most is that people who truly and humbly approach the biblical scriptures with curiosity seem to have gone underground. There is such a thing as an intellectual interest in biblical texts. There is no mandate to be ignorant and strident and arrogant just because you have a faith tradition. There are many faith traditions, and also many creation narratives.
But there are also scientific facts, and I reject the framing of science as a form of religion. It is a common ground for methods of discerning the relationships of things in the cosmos. Who is to say that selection is not a method of creation? But I would quibble with literalists who have no ear for the metaphorical and mythological aspects of some of the biblical texts, which include many different genres.
How do we know what we know? That’s the study of epistomology. Curious religious minds – intellectual religious minds – explore such questions.
What hope is there is life without the “One True God”? If that’s what you need to prevent yourself from going on a shooting spree, you need help. What I object to is the either/or mentality that has thrown complexity out the window.
As for “privitization” – hasn’t that just become a codephrase for corruption and exploitation? I’m a capitalist, but I feel that there has to be some kind of mechanism that puts brakes on the pillaging that always results from rampant greed. Profit can be made without hurting people, land, food… Where is the idea of stewardship here? Isn’t government in America meant to be a kind of commons for the good of all, and by and for all? Where have these ideas gone?