On Anti-Intellectualism (Part 0)

New York Times Columnist, David Brooks, wrote last week that the Republican Party has become the Party of anti-intellectualism, disdaining sophisticated thinking, and generally operating from gut instinct. Brooks highlighted Sarah Palin as emblematic of this mode of thinking, calling her a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." The remarkable thing about all this is that Brooks is known (or at least, was known) as a conservative--I like to call him and people like George Will and Peggy Noonan old school conservatives, or, "paleoconservatives"--and his words sparked discussion and the closest thing to self-examination that the conservative movement has experienced in some time.

This anti-intellectual mindset scorns "elitism" and praises the wisdom of everyday "Joe six pack" as the antidote to everything that ails America. And it has manifested itself recently in some truly absurd ways: for instance, the "debate" about how to pronounce the names of Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. Now, I normally do not begrudge those that habitually say "Eye-raq", "Eye-ran", and "Pack-istan", because I believe in freedom of accent. But when some take the time to argue that to pronounce these (correctly) as "Ee-rahq", "Ee-rahn", and "Pahk-istahn" is being "ostentatiously exotic" and "annoying", I find this dismaying. Dismaying because, to paraphrase something George Will said once, people like these think it is clever to think this way.

As David Brooks says, "Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals." And now, (neo-)conservatives value unsophistication as authenticity. To be fair, politicians have given us plenty of reasons to question their sincerity, but is electing "Joe six pack" really the solution?

There are many tangents I can take on this subject:

• Where American conservatism goes from here (please, let us save it from itself);
• A discussion of how the founding fathers would have been aghast at this mindset (those bloody elitists);
• A comparison to sports (because everything has an analogy to sports); and,
  
• A comparative analysis of anti-intellectualism around the world.
  

Maybe I will write about those some other time, but the thought that really strikes me for now is that we've seen this movie before, in the form of religious anti-intellectualism, specifically in Christianity. My wife (an Episcopal priest and a hundred times smarter than I am) has pondered this issue in her own academic and spiritual journey. By some strange coincidence, and if I may make a horribly broad generalization, it appears that in America there is some demographic overlap between the political and religious anti-intellectual groups. This is what I want to discuss, and will attempt to do so in parts over the next few weeks. Hopefully my wife will guest-write some posts (hint, hint) because I will probably end up paraphrasing what she's told me anyway. If you or someone you know has thoughts on the subject, please send them my way and I will post them here as well.