(Anti)intellectualism
I am, by most definitions, an intellectual.
I say this less like how people say I just really like going to the gym, and more how people say I kind of like Nickelback. I have a master’s degree in sociology, and I have 2.5 years left before I complete my Ph.D. This is technically as “intellectual” as it gets, except that I am young and a woman, and even white women are generally only accepted as “legitimate” intellectuals after pointless and repetitive informal social tests. (See examples like: Oh, you like films? Name one movie nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars in 2002.)
For the most part, I’m fine with remaining relatively outside the intellectual elite. I have zero interest whatsoever in ingratiating myself to the white upper class. Intellectuals function for the most part in American society as mouthpieces of the status quo; speaking for the whole of society, sometimes even advocating for surface-level change, but ultimately still sending their children to those same old wealthy private schools and blaming people of color for taking their jobs. (Yes, even “intellectuals” believe these things. White intellectuals are still white, after all.)
Elitism is a phrase we often use to refer to people who believe that belonging in restrictive and clique-ish circles is “better” than being excluded, but elitism is also a sociological theory. A former professor of mine is the sociologist who coined the term “culture wars” that we hear so often today, and he blatantly considers himself an elitist. This means that he believes culture is created by the upper-class elite and trickles down to the public. I have several pointed concerns about this philosophical worldview, as I’m sure you do reading this, but it’s clear to see why this perspective would be appealing to him. He, like most men of his tenured-and-wealthy-from-a-large-university status, considers himself “self-made” (although his uncle has a Ph.D. from the same field) and has proudly told me on more than one occasion that he has never been to McDonald’s. (I had the unfortunate responsibility of explaining to him who R. Kelly was a year ago when the topic came up in a seminar.) His belief that the elites create culture provides him with an inflated sense of influence over the general population. Although many other privileged people may not hold this view, this belief that the “experts” are the ones creating a culture is what sits at the foundation of most pretentiousness and gatekeeping.
At the same time, there is a great deal of angst about the rise of anti-intellectualism in America. One Google search tells me this, with article titles like “Anti-intellectualism is Killing America” and “How Anti-intellectualism Gave Rise to Donald Trump”. Academics love to perceive ourselves like some kind of oppressed, misunderstood class of people. And yet, it’s true that universities are more and more becoming a philosophical battlefield where differing political priorities are made clear—not simply partisan values, but economic ones. What is turning a bachelor’s degree into a job requirement doing to liberal arts education? What will the transition from learning as an end to learning as a means to an end (usually employment) do to the structure of higher education?
It’s also true that universities are becoming more and more conservative by the day—as they say, “follow the money”, and money and liberation are usually opposite goalposts. Genuine education, the kind that allows for self-advocacy and empowerment, will be increasingly difficult to come by. But this is not the anti-intellectualism that American intellectuals typically fear. Actually, many of these intellectuals are quite conservative! They fear being devalued—like how one devalues the American dollar. They fear becoming obsolete. So they dig their talons into The New York Times and lament their growing irrelevance as the rising wave of young academics of color takes to Twitter to make their work more accessible to the general population.
Let’s be clear: the reason pretentious academics are becoming obsolete is because they are obsolete. Most of the academics clinging on for dear life are white and male, and highly invested in maintaining the status quo in education. But white men are losing control over public discourse, and are becoming increasingly aware that no one really cares what they have to say anymore. But elitism begets paternalism, so if you really think you know better than everyone else, why would you listen to the ignorant masses?
As long as there are “intellectuals” in the United States, there will be debates about what it means to be one—who gets to stake a claim on the title, and what level of power should (or can) they have. But as long as academia and higher education remains in the clutches of white supremacy, education will never serve the public—only the white men it was designed to send through the pipeline. And as long as that’s the case, you’ll have white men as delusional as my cohort mate, who once claimed that those who don’t get Ph.D.’s don’t get them because they “don’t have the wattage”, which is one of the most outlandish and offensive things I have ever heard. LOTS of people are smart enough to get Ph.D.s! But many of those people don’t have the money, the support system, or the desire to do so. It is absolutely bonkers to assume otherwise. But that’s how pretentiousness works—it relies upon a fictionalized reality where the reason you know more than other people is because you are better than other people.