[WS:] I think that professionalism, rationalism etc. is far too amorphous, diverse, going two ways, and inconsistent to evoke such a strong popular reaction, except perhaps in certain other academics and intellectuals who use such claims to make bombastic claims and market their own intellectual commodity.
The roots of popular aversion is not rationality (i.e. rebellion against domination, as you suggest) but aesthetics, as Bourdieu suggested in "Distinctions" In short, he claimed that aesthetic preferences become an integral part of class fraction distinctions (class fraction is a distinct subgroup of a socio-economic class in a Marxist sense). So it is beer-and-crackers vs. cheese-and-wine, football and NASCAR vs. ballet and opera, Hummer vs. Prius, Hollywood vs. Sundance, heartland (or fly-over country) vs. big city, gun rights vs. gun control and so on.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."