Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> I don't see what it has to do with anti-intellectualism, though. Populism
> wasn't anti-intellectual. Populism and progressivism was where all the
> ideas were in that era -- and where all the intellectuals were. It was the
> corrupt political establishment that was anti-intellectual on principle.
> They thought ideas created expectations and got in the way of backroom
> deals.
This seems about right. At least part of the legend of u.s. anti-intellectualism is grounded in the belief of intellectuals that they ought to have higher salaries. I would agree that college teachers (and journalists and tech writers) should probably be paid higher, but I don't think anti-intellectualism plays a large role in setting salary scales (except, perhaps, the anti-intellectualism Michael refers to here). I did not encounter anti-intellectualism among my fellow workers at Detroit Transmission when I worked there in the summer of 1955. In fact one older worker (assuming perhaps that all young people might be apt to quit school) urged me not to quit the grad program I was in. I never encountered it in the Air Force or among even the "non-skilled" people at NSA. And I never encountered it among the Black population of Bloomington during the '60s.
A rampant empiricism may, among some leftists and libertarians, encourage what appears to be anti-intellectualism and, as Lenin pointed out a century ago, opposition to a particular theory is apt to disguise itself as anti-theory. Serious anti-semitism is (or was) perhaps more rampant among intellectuals and businessmen than among the general population -- at least within my memory, which goes back quite a ways. My impression was that most Country Clubs would not accept Jews even in the '50s and '60s. I don't know whether that is still true or not.
Carrol
P.S. On the stats Yoshie posted on the party preferences of poor evangelicals etc. Many evangelical congregations are mixed racially. There is a corner building with a big Jesus House sign in west Bloomington that I occasionally drive pass, and every time I pass it there are half a dozen or more people smoking out in front of it -- both white and black. A lot of so-called "poor white" conservatism may be racism. That might have less effect at least in some evangelical churches. The local depression support group, with a large evangelical or born-again membership, has always been one of the least racist predominantly white groups I have ever encountered. I don't know whether more than anecdotal evidence is available on this or not.
>
> Michael
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