Anti-intellectualism

Anti-intellectualism: The general mistrust of experts and intellectuals

• Dismissal of art, history, science, etc.

Fahrenheit 451

• Inspired by America trying to stop the spread of communism - at any cost

Ex of Anti-Intellectualism as a weapon

• Francisco Franco vs. the intelligentsia

  • ~200k people killed

• Cambodian genocide and the Khmer Rouge

• Argentinian Juan Carlos Onganía

  • La Noche de los Bastones Largos 1966

  • Currently Argentina is undergoing another anti-intellectualist movement

In the US

• McCarthyism

• 56 US military interventions in Latin America to crush leftist movements

  • Haiti (2004), Venezuela (2002), Honduras (2009), etc.

Why?

• American political culture is a reflection of American culture as a whole

• “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced nazi or the convinced community but [people who cannot distinguish between] fact and fiction”

  • Anti-vaxxers, Trump supporters, generally people who get all their education from the internet/social media