Anti-Intellectualism

Obligatory Seriousness

Stupid Question: If intellectuals are so smart, why can’t they understand anti-intellectualism?

Snappy Answer: Because anti-intellectuals are incapable of forming sufficiently qualified questions. In other words, yes there is a such thing as a stupid question. These are questions that can lead to no understanding because they are either:

1. Uninteresting.

2. Loaded with false assumptions.

3. Accusatory and disingenuous.

4. Purely rhetorical.

5. Troll.

Intellectuals, especially those who know how much they do not know, are generally unwilling to spend their limited time discussing such questions.

That said, there is an excellent section in David Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity that takes a good amount of time describing what he calls static societies.

A static society is one in which a great deal of effort is made to suppress new ideas and change. In such societies, creativity is looked down upon, whereas loyalty and conformity are emphasized. Such static societies are anti-intellectual by definition, even though there may be many smart and clever people in them.

Culture A set of shared ideas that cause their holders to behave alike in some ways.

Rational meme An idea that relies on the recipients’ critical faculties to cause itself to be replicated.

Anti-rational meme An idea that relies on disabling the recipients’ critical faculties to cause itself to be replicated.

Static culture/society One whose changes happen on a timescale longer than its members can notice. Such cultures are dominated by anti-rational memes.

Dynamic culture/society One that is dominated by rational memes.

Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity (p. 396). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

That should clear everything up.