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LIBERAL ONLY: "The Election that Could Break America" -- Disturbing Atlantic Article

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
Perhaps the anti-intellectualism has driven some of the brighter people from the Party. I've never seen a study on it.

Anti-intellectualism, as you know, has deep roots in American politics, religion, and culture -- ever since the early 1800s, at the least. It seems to have roots in the Cavalier culture from England that mainly settled and shaped the American South, but Tocqueville felt it was also a natural outgrowth of democracy itself. It's infection of the Republican Party is a more or less recent development -- since the 1970s. Prior to that, the Republicans were the 'intellectual party' and the Democrats were the 'anti-intellectual party'. Apparently, it arrived in the Republican Party via the Evangelicals. It might be noted that the Evangelicals -- in so far as they are related to the Fundamentalists -- got their start as an explicitly anti-intellectual movement. The intellectuals the Fundamentalists were reacting to were the German philologists of the late 1700s and early 1800s. The philologists were busy putting their scholarly tools to the task of analyzing the Bible. They were making discovery after discovery that did not jive well with the King James translation, nor with much of the theology that had been based on the translation. Naturally, humans being humans, one of the responses to those discoveries was to turn anti-intellectual.

Does any of that help?

Some interesting tidbits for me to go and research.
Thank-you sir.

(I'm aware really only of post 1900 anti-intellectualism in the US, and even then only in certain contexts)
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Some interesting tidbits for me to go and research.
Thank-you sir.

(I'm aware really only of post 1900 anti-intellectualism in the US, and even then only in certain contexts)

I'm no scholar of the subject. That's just stuff I've absorbed in passing over the years while reading up on the sex lives of the early Americans.
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm no scholar of the subject. That's just stuff I've absorbed in passing over the years while reading up on the sex lives of the early Americans.

You know me, mate. I'd prefer people not to try and give me answers. Just a hint at what I could be looking for is enough.
Cheers!!
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Perhaps the anti-intellectualism has driven some of the brighter people from the Party. I've never seen a study on it.

Anti-intellectualism, as you know, has deep roots in American politics, religion, and culture -- ever since the early 1800s, at the least. It seems to have roots in the Cavalier culture from England that mainly settled and shaped the American South, but Tocqueville felt it was also a natural outgrowth of democracy itself. It's infection of the Republican Party is a more or less recent development -- since the 1970s. Prior to that, the Republicans were the 'intellectual party' and the Democrats were the 'anti-intellectual party'. Apparently, it arrived in the Republican Party via the Evangelicals. It might be noted that the Evangelicals -- in so far as they are related to the Fundamentalists -- got their start as an explicitly anti-intellectual movement. The intellectuals the Fundamentalists were reacting to were the German philologists of the late 1700s and early 1800s. The philologists were busy putting their scholarly tools to the task of analyzing the Bible. They were making discovery after discovery that did not jive well with the King James translation, nor with much of the theology that had been based on the translation. Naturally, humans being humans, one of the responses to those discoveries was to turn anti-intellectual.

Does any of that help?


I would also add that the denial of science comes from the Fundamentalists as well. More specifically, the Creationists have been science deniers for 150 years now. This was manifested as early as the Scope's trial, but became a much more important part of the Republican party under Reagan (with Falwell) . One of the ways they operated was to produce textbooks questioning evolution and get them adopted in larger states like California and Texas. It took a series of court challenges to override their laws dictating 'equal treatment'. I think this (along with abortion) was one reason that the Republicans turned so forcefully to changing the courts.

The creationist mindset also inclined them to conspiracy theories that the scientists all 'know' creationism is correct, but refuse to say so for fear of being ostracized. It wasn't much of a step from there to climate change denial. As far as I can see, the QAnon movement is also derived from this conspiracy theory mindset.
 
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