The honesty of anti-intellectualism

Eric Raymond has a post that breaks down the different varieties of anti-intellectualism:

... the intelligentsia has displayed a consistent political pattern over the last 150 years: believing in its own intellectual and moral superiority, it has sought a leading role in politics, promoting a vision of itself as benign philosopher-kings who can steer society to virtue, equality, and fulfillment.

The whole post is very interesting, and the only thing that I would add is that the source of all the types of anti-intellectualism spring from the same source.  Progressive intellectualism has been in decline for at least fifty years, and has become so degraded that there are no longer any first rate Progressive Intellectuals (such as John Kenneth Galbraith) - or even second rate intellectuals like Pat Moynahan.  Instead, we're left with dregs like Thomas Friedman and Thomas "What's the matter with Kansas" Frank.

And yet during this decline, Progressive Intellectuals' self-regard has only increased, their plans for reshaping society (with themselves at the top) have only become more grandiose, and their distaste for argument has become absolute.  And that's the rub.

As they've taken over the Press, Hollywood, the University, they've been increasingly able to prohibit increasing types of opposition argument.  Campus speech codes, the MSM narrative black hole (compare and contrast: coverage of the Tea Party and coverage of the Occupy movement).  Dissent from their program is not allowed, and is met with withering contempt.  They consider it not just wrong, but illegitimate.

And this really is the mother lode vein running through their philosophy.  Their reaction may be paternalistic, as in Obama's bitter/clinger remark or Frank's What's the matter with Kansas, or it may be naked contempt - anything to do with Sarah Palin or George W. Bush.  But at the heart, it's the same instinct.

It's been like this for a long, long time, but has gotten very blatant over the last 25 years (say, since Ronald Reagan).  If you don't agree with them, you're stupid, or ignorant, or misguided, or suffer from false class consciousness.  Or something - anything to avoid actually listening to your ideas and fearlessly debating them the way that a true intellectual would.

Raymond, of course, sticks the knife in:

Of course the intelligentsia, sensing this, caricatures the opposition as yokels, know-nothings, and reactionaries. But the uncomfortable questions won’t go away. If you’re so bright, why the constant sucking up to dictators? If you’re so bright, why are modern art and literature such a depressing wasteland? If you’re so bright, why do so many of your grand social-engineering schemes end in corruption and tears?

The Progressive Intellectual movement used to be more self aware, and self critical.  It used to do a much better job of policing it own, of slapping down silliness like North Korea not starving its population (seems that's "not documented", or something), or how Vaclav Havel was worse than a Stalinist hack.  The drivel that comes out of the degraded Progressive Intelligentsia these days is simply stunning in its childishness.

And yet the contempt of that intelligentsia is turned on us, because we dare to stare dumbfounded at the ruin of their hothouse philosophy.  It doesn't matter which of Raymond's types of anti-intellectual you are, you can feel the contempt they have for you.

That's the source of our returned contempt.  The differences are merely one of form; the motivation is the same.  As a generation of intellectual ankle-biters turn their scorn on the American public, it's not at all surprising to see that scorn returned, with interest.  And at least the anti-intellectual sentiment has decently strong arguments on its side - arguments unafraid to clash in the rough and tumble arena of ideas.