Anti-Intellectualism and the affect on society

Has any state benefited in the long-term from anti-intellectualism? The only thing I can think of as a benefit is short-term stability due to the loss of the most eloquent critics of a regime. In the long-term, the society suffers technologically due to the lack of people able to create new technology and maintain existing technology, poor decisions in a multitude of subjects due to the loss of people with expertise in those subjects and a rigid refusal to adapt to changing circumstances.

Just a tangential rant, and no judgement on you OP, but Asimov is my favorite author of all time, and I hate it when people quote him as if they're his intellectual peer. The man could get a request from his editor, have the final draft of a full novel on said editor's desk 48 hours later, and it would be fucking amazing. He's got hundreds of books in all but one section of the Dewey Decimal System. He made an informational book about fucking carbon gripping and entertaining. The man was a true genius; you are not. Stop looking down your noses at others from behind a pithy quote of his posted on your facebook wall.

any state worth his salt gives complete academic and illectual freedom, then reap the harvest

Huh? I just needed a picture for the opening post and thought this would be a good one. I wasn't trying to imply that I was an intellectual peer to him at all.

Again, no judgement on you, OP. Your pic fits the context fine. I just hate that he's being gradually associated with holier-than-thou euphoric fedorans. In fact, I probably should've kept my bullshit out of your thread all together.

More to your point, your hypothesis certainly seems to be the pattern. I can think of no better example in the past century than Cambodia where anti-intellectualism wasn't some side-effect or secondary goal in order to achieve security, but rather the chief aim of his new regime. Even today, decades after Democratic Kampuchea, the country struggles to run its infrastructure and government at a functional level due to the gaping chasm Pol Pot left in his people's collective education and competency.

>Again, no judgement on you
You already made a judgment, anti-intellectual scum.

>holier-than-thou euphoric fedorans.
You derailed this thread with your holier-than-thou attitude and jerking off to the memory of a writer, completely missing the point of the thread.

>I probably should've kept my bullshit out of your thread all together.
Then GTFO already. Your posts are annoying as hell. Better yet, never post on social media again, insufferable faggot.

anti-intellectualism is a thing, but we should not equat disagreeing with a prominate intellectual with anti-intellectualism.

a man can really only be an expert on a few subjects even within a field like physics or history. He can be well informed on many others, and in other things he is just another relatively smart person with an opinion.

Its one thing to dismiss there work in the former but in the other areas they are no more an expert than any other person with a slightly above average IQ and the ability to read.

>Has any state benefited in the long-term from anti-intellectualism?
The USA has largely maintained social control via manipulating the prevalence of cues encouraging social deviance in media preceding periods of economic downturn. I had an article by a senator that went more in-depth into this that I lost, but the gist is that there is a correlation between expanding what is normal behavior prior to periods of economic downturn. Furthermore, USA does not want people to be thoroughly educated in a non-partisan way, so that they can easily be more manipulated. This would make fabricating pretexts for war, supporting Military Industrial Complex or petrodollar, difficult among an educated populace, and in a sense, one can say meme culture was largely what the USA aimed to create: a vacuous culture where people spout simple-minded statements that lose all nuance of complex topics.

I am not trying to reduce all anti-intellectualism of meddling of state, but I do feel middle and high school curriculums, indeed, function at indoctrination rather than comprehensive knowledge in the humanities of USA. I would say it is a bit more complicated in higher-level education.

People need to learn to use encyclopedias before speaking out of their ass. They need to be taught to be meticulous and thorough before forming opinions because not all opinions matter. Some are substantiated by evidence and actual research whereas others are just simple-minded memes being passed endlessly about (e.g., "we use only 50% of our brains", "right brain is creative, left brain is logical", blah blah). In other words, the Anglosphere has to be weakened because it has become way too philistine and more of an emblem of evil at this point. The torch has to be passed on.

>all anti-intellectualism of meddling of state
all intellectualism as consequence of the state's covert meddling*

>ass
asses -- ignore typos, tired

>Has any state benefited in the long-term from anti-intellectualism?

Ask Mao

Why do conservatives have this paranoid belief he was some kind of subversive Marxist infiltrator? He seems rather apolitical to me, more of a Machiavellian type character on political strategy.

Shit nevermind, I was thinking of Saul Alinsky

Kys anti-intellectual scum.

I don't buy into it's all an evil government conspiracy meme. That to me is not intellectual and it originated with colonial guilt and the JFK assasination conspiracy theories in the 60's. Failure is mostly just laziness, stupidity, shortsightednes, and yes, a degree of selfishness by the elite. Education sucks mainly because of individualism run amok in a postmodern society where all opinions are held equal, and religious morons are allowed to infiltrate the government.

Fuck off brainlet

What is wrong with anti-intellectualism? An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.

You take the advice of a doctor only because if the doctor fucks up they might face a malpractice lawsuit and lose their career which they spent years in med school and as an intern for and because all their medication and practices have been peer reviewed in the open by scientists all over the world. Not because the doctor is an "intellectual".

I am pretty sure most people could sit down and study special relativity and come to understand it with enough effort, some might take longer than others though they would eventually. Likewise intellectuals are susceptible to human flaws.

Society already hates a smartasses who think they are better than everyone else, however not if they have "credentials", then they give them fauning respect and believe everything they say without question. The plucky auto-didact who does question them becomes the bad guy, and of course the sacred intellectual can simply dismiss them and need not answer their question. It is a recipe for ignorance. I think we need a good dose of anti-intellectualism, America in particular is in sore need of it.

Good lord

>he's incapable of critically assessing ideas before accepting them

I was about to say, the only thing he actively pushed in his old books is everyone should smoke and if you don't, there's something up about you.

Imagine a teacher taught you "all swans are white" then someone said "I know of a black swan". You would say "good lord, what a dumbass, I was taught all swans are white, intellectuals like me know all swans are white".

That is intellectualism. To be a good thinker and critically assess ideas you must be anti-intellectual.

No user, anti-intellectualism is the "you think you're better than me?" mindset.

I came here to shout racial epithets at people, but this is fun. What you're saying is that less-scrupulous intellectuals are perhaps excusing themselves from scrutiny by labeling dissenters "anti-intellectual," right?