[MD] Anti-intellectualism in politics and history.

[david buchanan]

QUOTES FROM PIRSIG that I take as evidence against anti-intellectualism, which has infected a few MOQers.

"a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social values is absolutely superior to one that does not."

"And this is a war in which intellect, to end the paralysis of society, has to know whose side it is on, and support that side, and never undercut it." 

"Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control over society, were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social control of intellect. ... The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelm this century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution."


"The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution.  This conflict explains the driving force behind Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an all-consuming glorification of social authority and hatred of intellectualism.  His anti-Semitism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His hatred of communists was fueled by anti-intellectualism.  Hisexaltation of the German volk was fueled by it.  His fanatic persecution of any kind of intellectual freedom was driven by it. In the United States the economic and social upheaval was not so great as in Europe, but Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, nevertheless, became the center of a lesser storm between social and intellectual forces."  

"...In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no meaning. There is no such thing as "human rights." There is no such thing as moral reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else.   ..This soup of sentiments about logically nonexistent entities can be straightened out by the Metaphysics of Quality. It says that what is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-vs-society, the moral right of intellect to be free of social control. Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by consent—these "human rights" are all intellect-vs-society issues. According to the Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to the evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life. They are for real." 

QUOTES from Wikipedia:

"Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible." 

"Anti-intellectualism is a common facet of totalitarian dictatorships to oppress political dissent. The Nazi party's populist rhetoric featured anti-intellectual rants as a common motif, including Adolf Hitler's political polemic, Mein Kampf."

"Critics have alleged that much of the prevailing philosophy in American academia (i.e., postmodernism, poststructuralism, relativism) are anti-intellectual: 'The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is -- second only to American political campaigns -- the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time'.”