[WS:] No, the qualification "in the best light possible" did not escape me. I was mostly reacting to this whole discourse of oppression and domination which I find to be either demagoguery or bad literature (it gives me indigestion ;). In real life, domination is highly situational and relative - I can dominate one situation but be totally dominated in another and this is pretty much determined by cultural-aesthetic artifices. For example, I can dominate in a situation of being an academic adviser to a bunch of undergrads who share the same cultural aesthetic values by the virtue of the fact that I read more than they did, and they value what I read. However, what I read or an attempt to explain it can put me in a subordinate position in a situation involving a bunch of philistine businessmen who scorn "bookish" knowledge and value business success and are fond of business jargon. It is not that I do not know how business operates, but I am not as conversant in the business jargon that involves both verbal and non-verbal communication (figures of speak, assertiveness, tone of voice, body language etc.) as they are and this puts me in a subordinate position. Likewise, I can be in a subordinate position by the virtue of not being conversant in the cultural-aesthetic values and jargon of high school students in a "ghetto" school. Being a foreigner can put me in a culturally dominant position in Russia, but in a culturally subordinate position in the US. And so on.
So the bottom line is that almost everyone is both dominant and dominated, depending on social situations and cultural aesthetic artifacts that make a difference in those situations. This is my main lesson from Bourdieu (and Goffman, and Weber, and Veblen, and Durkheim too).
To go back to the subject, the term "anti-intellectual" is a part of the jargon of certain academic and literary circles that identifies and assigns a value to those they perceive as their enemies. It is rather obvious that those 'enemies' would not use the reverse of that jargon word but rather come with their own, e.g. egg-head, book worm, nerd and so on. Both jargon terms serve the same function of expressing cultural identity and values of the speaker in relation to different social groups. When I say "anti-intellectual" I identify myself with the literati and their value system that, inter alia, holds in low esteem those who lack erudition. When I say, "egg-head" or "punditocracy" by contrast, I identify myself with the populist culture and values espouse by various groups that, inter alia, hold in low esteem those who publicly show their erudition.
Now to claim that the latter reject rationalism, knowledge, expertise etc. strikes me as nonsense, since "being in the know' seems to be a universally appreciated thing. What they reject is not knowledge, but certain manifestations of it, e.g. "practical or technical" knowledge vs. "pie in the sky bookish erudition." It is quite obvious to me that, say, a truck driver who scorns erudite literati would have a high appreciation of an engineer or scientist who has knowledge relevant to him (e.g. knowledge about combustion engines.) The latter can be more "intellectual" than literary erudition, so clearly the truck driver is not "anti-intellectual" when it comes to this manifestation of knowledge. I had a good opportunity to observe this behavior in my father, himself an engineer, who oozed contempt for the "literary culture" (and thus was "anti-intellectual" in a sense) but loved classical music, opera, theater, and literature. Needless to add that I ostentatiously embraced the "literary culture" to piss the old man off.
I suspect that Cox posed the question of "intellectualism" as a typical of him act of passive aggressive behavior toward people associated with "high culture," and identification with popular "folk" culture. It is a passive aggressive attack disguised as intellectual inquiry - something that intellectuals and literati do quite well. A redneck would simply say "Stop using them five dollar words." or "Shut up, you twerp."
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."