Advertisement
anti intellectualism in american life: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life Richard Hofstadter, 1966-02-12 Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society. As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, complex, shifting picture of the life of the mind in a society dominated by the ideal of practical success. —Robert Peel in the Christian Science Monitor |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Age of American Unreason Susan Jacoby, 2009-02-01 A scathing indictment of American modern-day culture examines the current disdain for logic and evidence fostered by the mass media, religious fundamentalism, poor public education, a lack of fair-minded intellectuals, and a lazy, credulous public, condemning our addiction to infotainment, from TV to the Web, and assessing its repercussions for the country as a whole. Reprint. 75,000 first printing. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Paranoid Style in American Politics Richard Hofstadter, 2008-06-10 This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The State of the American Mind Mark Bauerlein, Adam Bellow, 2015-06-16 In 1987, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind was published; a wildly popular book that drew attention to the shift in American culture away from the tenants that made America—and Americans—unique. Bloom focused on a breakdown in the American curriculum, but many sensed that the issue affected more than education. The very essence of what it meant to be an American was disappearing. That was over twenty years ago. Since then, the United States has experienced unprecedented wealth, more youth enrolling in higher education than ever before, and technology advancements far beyond what many in the 1980s dreamed possible. And yet, the state of the American mind seems to have deteriorated further. Benjamin Franklin’s “self-made man” has become a man dependent on the state. Independence has turned into self-absorption. Liberty has been curtailed in the defense of multiculturalism. In order to fully grasp the underpinnings of this shift away from the self-reliant, well-informed American, editors Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow have brought together a group of cultural and educational experts to discuss the root causes of the decline of the American mind. The writers of these fifteen original essays include E. D. Hirsch, Nicholas Eberstadt, and Dennis Prager, as well as Daniel Dreisbach, Gerald Graff, Richard Arum, Robert Whitaker, David T. Z. Mindich, Maggie Jackson, Jean Twenge, Jonathan Kay, Ilya Somin, Steve Wasserman, Greg Lukianoff, and R. R. Reno. Their essays are compiled into three main categories: States of Mind: Indicators of Intellectual and Cognitive Decline These essays broach specific mental deficiencies among the population, including lagging cultural IQ, low Biblical literacy, poor writing skills, and over-medication. Personal and Cognitive Habits/Interests These essays turn to specific mental behaviors and interests, including avoidance of the news, short attention spans, narcissism, and conspiracy obsessions. National Consequences These essays examine broader trends affecting populations and institutions, including rates of entitlement claims, voting habits, and a low-performing higher education system. The State of the American Mind is both an assessment of our current state as well as a warning, foretelling what we may yet become. For anyone interested in the intellectual fate of America, The State of the American Mind offers an accessible and critical look at life in America and how our collective mind is faring. |
anti intellectualism in american life: America at 1750 Richard Hofstadter, 1973-01-12 Demonstrates how the colonies developed into the first nation created under the influences of nationalism, modern capitalism and Protestantism. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Inventing the Egghead Aaron Lecklider, 2013-04-09 Throughout the twentieth century, popular songs, magazine articles, plays, posters, and novels alternated between representing intelligence as empowering and as threatening. In Inventing the Egghead, Aaron Lecklider cracks open this paradox by examining representations of intelligence to reveal brainpower's stalwart appeal and influence. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Intellectual Life in America Lewis Perry, 1989-02-15 This historical study of intellectuals asks, for every period, who they were, how important they were, and how they saw themselves in relation to other Americans. Lewis Perry considers intellectuals in their varied historical roles as learned gentlemen, as clergymen and public figures, as professionals, as freelance critics, and as a professoriate. Looking at the changing reputation of the intellect itself, Perry examines many forms of anti-intellectualism, showing that some of these were encouraged by intellectuals as surely as by their antagonists. This work is interpretative, critical, and highly provocative, and it provides what is all too often missing in the study of intellectuals—a sense of historical orientation. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Secular Religion of Franklin Merrell-Wolff Dave Vliegenthart, 2018-01-16 In The Secular Religion of Franklin Merrell-Wolff: An Intellectual History of Anti-intellectualism in Modern America, Dave Vliegenthart offers an account of the life and teachings of the modern American mystic Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887–1985), who combined secular and religious sources from eastern and western traditions in order to elaborate and legitimate his metaphysical claim to the realization of a transcendental reality beyond reason. Using Merrell-Wolff as a typical example of a modern western guru, Vliegenthart investigates the larger sociological and historical context of the ongoing grand narrative that asserts a widespread anti-intellectualism in modern American culture, exploring developments in religious, philosophical, and psychological discourses in North America from 1800 until the present. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Between Race and Reason Susan Searls Giroux, 2010-07-28 Inquiring into the future of the university, Susan Giroux finds a paradox at the heart of higher education in the post-civil rights era. Although we think of post-civil rights as representing a colorblind or race transcendent triumphalism in national political discourse, Giroux argues that our present is shaped by persistent raceless racism at home and permanent civilizational war abroad. She sees the university as a primary battleground in this ongoing struggle. As the heir to Enlightenment ideals of civic education, the university should be the institution for the production of an informed and reflective democratic citizenry responsible to and for the civic health of the polity, a privileged site committed to free and equal exchange in the interests of peaceful and democratic coexistence. And yet, says Giroux, historically and currently the university has failed and continues to fail in this role. Between Race and Reason engages the work of diverse intellectuals—Friedrich Nietzsche, W. E. B. Du Bois, Michel Foucault, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jacques Derrida and others—who challenge the university's past and present collusion with racism and violence. The book complements recent work done on the politics of higher education that has examined the consequences of university corporatization, militarization, and bureaucratic rationalization by focusing on the ways in which these elements of a broader neoliberal project are also racially prompted and promoted. At the same time, it undertakes to imagine how the university can be reconceived as a uniquely privileged site for critique in the interests of today's urgent imperatives for peace and justice. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Anti-Intellectual Presidency Elvin T. Lim, 2008-06-16 Why has it been so long since an American president has effectively and consistently presented well-crafted, intellectually substantive arguments to the American public? Why have presidential utterances fallen from the rousing speeches of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and FDR to a series of robotic repetitions of talking points and sixty-second soundbites, largely designed to obfuscate rather than illuminate? In The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, Elvin Lim draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents' ability to communicate with the public. Lim argues that the ever-increasing pressure for presidents to manage public opinion and perception has created a pathology of vacuous rhetoric and imagery where gesture and appearance matter more than accomplishment and fact. Lim tracks the campaign to simplify presidential discourse through presidential and speechwriting decisions made from the Truman to the present administration, explaining how and why presidents have embraced anti-intellectualism and vague platitudes as a public relations strategy. Lim sees this anti-intellectual stance as a deliberate choice rather than a reflection of presidents' intellectual limitations. Only the smart, he suggests, know how to dumb down. The result, he shows, is a dangerous debasement of our political discourse and a quality of rhetoric which has been described, charitably, as a linguistic struggle and, perhaps more accurately, as dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. Sharply written and incisively argued, The Anti-Intellectual Presidency sheds new light on the murky depths of presidential oratory, illuminating both the causes and consequences of this substantive impoverishment. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Age of Reform Richard Hofstadter, 2011-12-21 WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and preeminent historian comes a landmark in American political thought that examines the passion for progress and reform during 1890 to 1940. The Age of Reform searches out the moral and emotional motives of the reformers the myths and dreams in which they believed, and the realities with which they had to compromise. |
anti intellectualism in american life: How Fascism Works Jason Stanley, 2018-09-04 “No single book is as relevant to the present moment.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen “One of the defining books of the decade.”—Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • With a new preface • Fascist politics are running rampant in America today—and spreading around the world. A Yale philosopher identifies the ten pillars of fascist politics, and charts their horrifying rise and deep history. As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century. Alarmed by the pervasive rise of fascist tactics both at home and around the globe, Stanley focuses here on the structures that unite them, laying out and analyzing the ten pillars of fascist politics—the language and beliefs that separate people into an “us” and a “them.” He knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations. He makes clear the immense danger of underestimating the cumulative power of these tactics, which include exploiting a mythic version of a nation’s past; propaganda that twists the language of democratic ideals against themselves; anti-intellectualism directed against universities and experts; law and order politics predicated on the assumption that members of minority groups are criminals; and fierce attacks on labor groups and welfare. These mechanisms all build on one another, creating and reinforcing divisions and shaping a society vulnerable to the appeals of authoritarian leadership. By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics—charged by rhetoric and myth—can quickly become policy and reality. Only by recognizing fascists politics, he argues, may we resist its most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals. “With unsettling insight and disturbing clarity, How Fascism Works is an essential guidebook to our current national dilemma of democracy vs. authoritarianism.”—William Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope |
anti intellectualism in american life: Anti-intellectualism in American Media Dane S. Claussen, 2004 In this book, Dane S. Claussen argues that the news media have fed vocationalism and self-doubt in higher education, and anti-intellectualism throughout American culture. Analyzing articles in popular national magazines since the G.I. Bill of 1944, Claussen finds that media have overwhelmingly portrayed college as a time and place for students to play sports, date and marry, drink and take drugs, protest, join fraternities and sororities, go on vacations, avoid the draft, escape their parents, and, perhaps most of all, network and find jobs - in short, do almost anything except research, study, write, think, or debate. In the tradition of Richard Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning Anti-intellectualism in American Life and Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind, Claussen illustrates the counterintuitive and underestimated - nearly overlooked - role of the news media in higher education and anti-intellectualism. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The American Political Tradition Richard Hofstadter, 2011-12-21 The American Political Tradition is one of the most influential and widely read historical volumes of our time. First published in 1948, its elegance, passion, and iconoclastic erudition laid the groundwork for a totally new understanding of the American past. By writing a kind of intellectual history of the assumptions behind American politics, Richard Hofstadter changed the way Americans understand the relationship between power and ideas in their national experience. Like only a handful of American historians before him—Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles A. Beard are examples—Hofstadter was able to articulate, in a single work, a historical vision that inspired and shaped an entire generation. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Generous Thinking Kathleen Fitzpatrick, 2021-01-05 Can the university solve the social and political crisis in America? Higher education occupies a difficult place in twenty-first-century American culture. Universities—the institutions that bear so much responsibility for the future health of our nation—are at odds with the very publics they are intended to serve. As Kathleen Fitzpatrick asserts, it is imperative that we re-center the mission of the university to rebuild that lost trust. Critical thinking—the heart of what academics do—can today often negate, refuse, and reject new ideas. In an age characterized by rampant anti-intellectualism, Fitzpatrick charges the academy with thinking constructively rather than competitively, building new ideas rather than tearing old ones down. She urges us to rethink how we teach the humanities and to refocus our attention on the very human ends—the desire for community and connection—that the humanities can best serve. One key aspect of that transformation involves fostering an atmosphere of what Fitzpatrick dubs generous thinking, a mode of engagement that emphasizes listening over speaking, community over individualism, and collaboration over competition. Fitzpatrick proposes ways that anyone who cares about the future of higher education can work to build better relationships between our colleges and universities and the public, thereby transforming the way our society functions. She encourages interested stakeholders to listen to and engage openly with one another's concerns by reading and exploring ideas together; by creating collective projects focused around common interests; and by ensuring that our institutions of higher education are structured to support and promote work toward the public good. Meditating on how and why we teach the humanities, Generous Thinking is an audacious book that privileges the ability to empathize and build rather than simply tear apart. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Social Darwinism in American Thought Richard Hofstadter, 1959 Tracing the impact of Darwin on thinkers throughout the gilded Age and the Progressive era, 'Social Darwinism' shows how a politically neutral scientific theory has been adapted with skillful rhetoric to contradictory purposes. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Apostles of Reason Molly Worthen, 2016 In Apostles of Reason, Molly Worthen offers a sweeping history of modern American evangelicalism, arguing that the faith has been shaped not by shared beliefs but by battles over the relationship between faith and reason. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Anthem Ayn Rand, 2021-07-07 About this Edition This Digital Student Edition of Ayn Rand's Anthem was created for teachers and students receiving free novels from the Ayn Rand Institute, and includes a historic Q&A with Ayn Rand that cannot be found in any other edition of Anthem. In this Q&A from 1979, Rand responds to questions about Anthem sent to her by a high school classroom. About Anthem Anthem is Ayn Rand’s “hymn to man’s ego.” It is the story of one man’s rebellion against a totalitarian, collectivist society. Equality 7-2521 is a young man who yearns to understand “the Science of Things.” But he lives in a bleak, dystopian future where independent thought is a crime and where science and technology have regressed to primitive levels. All expressions of individualism have been suppressed in the world of Anthem; personal possessions are nonexistent, individual preferences are condemned as sinful and romantic love is forbidden. Obedience to the collective is so deeply ingrained that the very word “I” has been erased from the language. In pursuit of his quest for knowledge, Equality 7-2521 struggles to answer the questions that burn within him — questions that ultimately lead him to uncover the mystery behind his society’s downfall and to find the key to a future of freedom and progress. Anthem anticipates the theme of Rand’s first best seller, The Fountainhead, which she stated as “individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s soul.” |
anti intellectualism in american life: Better Living Through Criticism A. O. Scott, 2016-02-09 The New York Times film critic shows why we need criticism now more than ever Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A.O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics--himself included--can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative, and urgent activities of modern existence. Using his own film criticism as a starting point--everything from his infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar's animated Ratatouille--Scott expands outward, easily guiding readers through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovich and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' Drawing on the long tradition of criticism from Aristotle to Susan Sontag, Scott shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive. The time for criticism is always now, Scott explains, because the imperative to think clearly, to insist on the necessary balance of reason and passion, never goes away. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Death of Expertise Tom Nichols, 2017-02-01 Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both. An update to the 2017breakout hit, the paperback edition of The Death of Expertise provides a new foreword to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise issues a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age that is even more important today. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Post-Intellectualism and the Decline of Democracy Donald N. Wood, 1996-08-30 Our society's institutional infrastructures—our democratic political system, economic structures, legal practices, and educational establishment—were all created as intellectual outgrowths of the Enlightenment. All our cultural institutions are based on the intellectual idea that an enlightened citizenry could govern its affairs with reason and responsibility. In the late 20th century, however, we are witnessing the disintegration of much of our cultural heritage. Wood argues that this is due to our evolution into a ^Upost-intellectual society^R—a society characterized by a loss of critical thinking, the substitution of information for knowledge, mediated reality, increasing illiteracy, loss of privacy, specialization, psychological isolation, hyper-urbanization, moral anarchy, and political debilitation. These post-intellectual realities are all triggered by three underlying determinants: the failure of linear growth and expansion to sustain our economic system; the runaway information overload; and technological determinism. Wood presents a new and innovative social theory, challenging readers to analyze all our post-intellectual cultural malaise in terms of these three fundamental determinants. |
anti intellectualism in american life: American Labyrinth Raymond Haberski, Jr., Andrew Hartman, 2018-12-15 American Labyrinth contains a stimulating and useful collection of essays by historians reflecting on American intellectual history.... As a whole, the book convinces the reader that the field of intellectual history is enjoying a renaissance. The book will be especially prized by intellectual historians, but historians of many different persuasions will find these essays rewarding too.―Choice Intellectual history has never been more relevant and more important to public life in the United States. In complicated and confounding times, people look for the principles that drive action and the foundations that support national ideals. American Labyrinth demonstrates the power of intellectual history to illuminate our public life and examine our ideological assumptions. This volume of essays brings together 19 influential intellectual historians to contribute original thoughts on topics of widespread interest. Raymond Haberski Jr. and Andrew Hartman asked a group of nimble, sharp scholars to respond to a simple question: How might the resources of intellectual history help shed light on contemporary issues with historical resonance? The answers—all rigorous, original, and challenging—are as eclectic in approach and temperament as the authors are different in their interests and methods. Taken together, the essays of American Labyrinth illustrate how intellectual historians, operating in many different registers at once and ranging from the theoretical to the political, can provide telling insights for understanding a public sphere fraught with conflict. In order to understand why people are ready to fight over cultural symbols and political positions we must have insight into how ideas organize, enliven, and define our lives. Ultimately, as Haberski and Hartman show in this volume, the best route through our contemporary American labyrinth is the path that traces our practical and lived ideas. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Orientalism Edward W. Said, 1995 Now reissued with a substantial new afterword, this highly acclaimed overview of Western attitudes towards the East has become one of the canonical texts of cultural studies. Very excitingâ¦his case is not merely persuasive, but conclusive. John Leonard in The New York Times His most important book, Orientalism established a new benchmark for discussion of the West's skewed view of the Arab and Islamic world.Simon Louvish in the New Statesman & Society âEdward Said speaks for interdisciplinarity as well as for monumental erudition¦The breadth of reading [is] astonishing. Fred Inglis in The Times Higher Education Supplement A stimulating, elegant yet pugnacious essay.Observer Exciting¦for anyone interested in the history and power of ideas.J.H. Plumb in The New York Times Book Review Beautifully patterned and passionately argued. Nicholas Richardson in the New Statesman & Society |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind Mark A. Noll, 2022-03-15 Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995) “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture? Over twenty-five years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Program Era Mark McGurl, 2011-11-30 McGurl offers a fundamental reinterpretation of postwar American fiction, asserting that it can be properly understood only in relation to the rise of mass higher education and the creative writing program. The Program Era will be at the center of debates about postwar literature and culture for years to come. |
anti intellectualism in american life: How to Be a (Young) Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi, Nic Stone, 2023-01-31 The #1 New York Times bestseller that sparked international dialogue is now a book for young adults! Based on the adult bestseller by Ibram X. Kendi, and co-authored by bestselling author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist will serve as a guide for teens seeking a way forward in acknowledging, identifying, and dismantling racism and injustice. The New York Times bestseller How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi is shaping the way a generation thinks about race and racism. How to be a (Young) Antiracist is a dynamic reframing of the concepts shared in the adult book, with young adulthood front and center. Aimed at readers 12 and up, and co-authored by award-winning children's book author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist empowers teen readers to help create a more just society. Antiracism is a journey--and now young adults will have a map to carve their own path. Kendi and Stone have revised this work to provide anecdotes and data that speaks directly to the experiences and concerns of younger readers, encouraging them to think critically and build a more equitable world in doing so. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life Richard Hofstadter, 2012-01-04 Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society. As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, complex, shifting picture of the life of the mind in a society dominated by the ideal of practical success. —Robert Peel in the Christian Science Monitor |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Sociology of the Professions Keith M Macdonald, 1995-09-26 This much-needed book provides a systematic introduction, both conceptual and applied, to the sociology of the professions. Keith Macdonald guides the reader through the chief sociological approaches to the professions, addressing their strengths and weaknesses. The discussion is richly illustrated by examples from and comparisons between the professions in Britain, the United States and Europe, relating their development to their cultural context. The social exclusivity that professions aim for is discussed in relation to social stratification, patriarchy and knowledge, and is thoroughly illustrated by reference to examples from medicine and other established professions, such as law and architecture. The themes of the book are drawn together in a final chapter by means of a case study of accountancy. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The U.S. Constitution: The Citizen's Annotated Edition Ray Raphael, 2016-10-11 A Vintage Shorts Original Selection As Khizr Khan dramatically demonstrated at this year’s Democratic National Convention, the U.S. Constitution is the central point of reference in our political debates—the bedrock document from which we derive our policies on topics as diverse and galvanizing as immigration, gun ownership, voting rights, taxation, policing, and war. It dictates the structure and workings of our government; it sets forth our rights as citizens and, as such, shapes the parameters of our lives. Presidents come and go, but the Constitution remains the supreme law of the land. In this essential edition, acclaimed historian Ray Raphael guides us through the Constitution clause by clause and amendment by amendment, illuminating the origins of its content, the intentions of its framers, its evolution throughout the centuries, and its meaning today. Thoughtful and nuanced, lively and highly readable, this Constitution is for all of us to read and refer to—the ultimate political fact-checking source for every American. An ebook short |
anti intellectualism in american life: Idiot America Charles Pierce, 2010-05-04 NATIONAL BESTSELLER The three Great Premises of Idiot America: · Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units · Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough · Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States. Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves. |
anti intellectualism in american life: An American Dream Norman Mailer, 2018-11-01 As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism Kevin O. Cokley, 2014-11-11 Why do students who belong to racial minority groups—particularly black students—fall short in school performance? This book provides a comprehensive and critical examination of black identity and its implications for black academic achievement and intellectualism. No other group of students has been more studied, more misunderstood, and more maligned than African American students. The racial gap between White and African American students does exist: a difference of roughly 20 percent in college graduation rates has persisted for more than the past two decades; and since 1988, the racial gap on the reading and mathematics sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) has increased from 189 points to 201 points. What are the true sources of these differences? In this book, psychology professor and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Black Psychology Kevin Cokley, PhD, delves into and challenges the dominant narrative regarding black student achievement by examining the themes of black identity, the role of self-esteem, the hurdles that result in academic difficulties, and the root sources of academic motivation. He proposes a bold alternate narrative that uses black identity as the theoretical framework to examine factors in academic achievement and challenge the widely accepted notion of black anti-intellectualism. This book will be valuable to all educators, especially those at the high school through undergraduate college/university level, as well as counselors associated with academic and community institutions, social service providers, policy makers, clergy and lay staff within the faith-based community, and parents. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The Making of an American Thinking Class Darren Staloff, 2001 This pathbreaking study offers a radical new interpretation of the political, religious, and intellectual history of Puritan Massachusetts. More than simply a theologically inspired Biblical commonwealth, the church state of the Bay Colony was a seventeenth-century one-party state, where congregations served as ideological cells. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury, 1993 A book burner in a future fascist state finds out books are a vital part of a culture he never knew. He clandestinely pursues reading, until he is betrayed. |
anti intellectualism in american life: American Violence Richard Hofstadter, Michael Wallace, 1971 |
anti intellectualism in american life: Intellectuals and Society Thomas Sowell, 2012-03-06 The influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and others who have wanted to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the climate of opinion shaped by those intellectuals. Intellectuals and Society not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the things they have advocated but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their views and visions have emerged. One of the most surprising aspects of this study is how often intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society -- and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those views. |
anti intellectualism in american life: The American Political Tradition and the Men who Made it Richard Hofstadter, 1973 Originally published: New York: Knopf, 1948. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Summary of Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life Everest Media,, 2022-07-22T22:59:00Z Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 During the 1950’s, anti-intellectualism became a common part of American vocabulary. The term was used to describe the fear that the critical mind was at a ruinous discount in this country. #2 During the Eisenhower administration, the country seemed to be turning away from anti-intellectualism. The launch of Sputnik by the Soviets in 1957 brought about a period of national self-reflection, and people began to realize how anti-intellectualism was affecting American life. #3 The political culture of the 1950s was not as hostile to intellectuals as it seems today. President Eisenhower had a lot of respect for intellectuals, and he recruited many talented people for his administration. #4 American anti-intellectualism is not a new phenomenon. It has been present in our country for a long time, and it is a complex of related propositions that describe a variety of unwelcome phenomena. It is not a single proposition, but a complex of related propositions. |
anti intellectualism in american life: Intellectuals in Politics Nissan Oren, 1984 Modern politics has ushered in the era of the professional adviser, the expert co-opted from the world of ideas and the world of actions. From Woodrow Wilson through the Carter administration the increasing presence of intellectuals in the making of national and international policy has highlighted the interdependence between the practice of statecraft and the study of statecraft. What are the moral responsibilities, the social obligations, the philosophical motivations of members of the community of scholars brought into contact with the political destines of entire nations? What happens when expertise meets power? These are some of the thoughts presented here in the collection of essays by eight leading intellectuals. |
Download Free Antivirus for Windows 10 PCs & Laptops | Avast
I had recommended Avast™ to a co-working friend because he said his computer was running slow. He said he ran the anti-virus twice and his computer speed improved. Michael S. 2023 …
Download Free Antivirus Software | Avast 2025 PC Protection
While it’ll keep your computer relatively safe against most types of malware, its anti-phishing protection is limited to Microsoft Edge — so you’ll need Avast Free Antivirus to protect you on …
Download Free Antivirus Software for Windows 11 | Avast
Strengthen your Windows 11 PC security and protect your entire home Wi-Fi network, plus get advanced tools like anti-malware security, Wi-Fi security scans, and more — all completely free.
Avast | Download Free Antivirus & VPN | 100% Free & Easy
Join 435 million others and get award-winning free antivirus for PC, Mac & Android. Surf safely & privately with our VPN. Download Avast today!
Avast | Download Free Antivirus & VPN | 100% Free & Easy
Join hundreds of millions of others & get free antivirus for PC, Mac, & Android. Surf safely with our VPN. Download Avast!
Linux Antivirus | Avast Business
Our CommunityIQ technology provides real-time Linux anti-malware protection and speeds up workstations by protecting files on the server, using less power with multicore support.
Télécharger antivirus gratuit | Protection Avast 2025 pour PC
Téléchargez l'antivirus gratuit d'Avast pour PC Windows. Antivirus moderne, rapide, simple et 100 % gratuit. Essayez-le !
Anti-Tracking Software | Download Avast AntiTrack
Using anti-tracking software enhances your online privacy protection, so your privacy can be fully secure and protected. To easily detect and remove hidden malware or other threats, try using …
The Best Free Antivirus Software for Windows in 2025 - Avast
Feb 2, 2022 · Features you’ll get: In DigitalTrends’ roundup of the best free antivirus tools for 2022, they note the “impressively broad reach” of AVG AntiVirus FREE’s feature set. In …
Avast Store | Buy Antivirus Protection | Avast
How much do Avast Premium Security and Avast One costs? Compare Avast products and prices and select the right security solution for all your devices.
Download Free Antivirus for Windows 10 PCs & Laptops | Avast
I had recommended Avast™ to a co-working friend because he said his computer was running slow. He said he ran the anti-virus twice and his computer speed improved. Michael S. 2023-08-28
Download Free Antivirus Software | Avast 2025 PC Protection
While it’ll keep your computer relatively safe against most types of malware, its anti-phishing protection is limited to Microsoft Edge — so you’ll need Avast Free Antivirus to protect you on …
Download Free Antivirus Software for Windows 11 | Avast
Strengthen your Windows 11 PC security and protect your entire home Wi-Fi network, plus get advanced tools like anti-malware security, Wi-Fi security scans, and more — all completely free.
Avast | Download Free Antivirus & VPN | 100% Free & Easy
Join 435 million others and get award-winning free antivirus for PC, Mac & Android. Surf safely & privately with our VPN. Download Avast today!
Avast | Download Free Antivirus & VPN | 100% Free & Easy
Join hundreds of millions of others & get free antivirus for PC, Mac, & Android. Surf safely with our VPN. Download Avast!
Linux Antivirus | Avast Business
Our CommunityIQ technology provides real-time Linux anti-malware protection and speeds up workstations by protecting files on the server, using less power with multicore support.
Télécharger antivirus gratuit | Protection Avast 2025 pour PC
Téléchargez l'antivirus gratuit d'Avast pour PC Windows. Antivirus moderne, rapide, simple et 100 % gratuit. Essayez-le !
Anti-Tracking Software | Download Avast AntiTrack
Using anti-tracking software enhances your online privacy protection, so your privacy can be fully secure and protected. To easily detect and remove hidden malware or other threats, try using …
The Best Free Antivirus Software for Windows in 2025 - Avast
Feb 2, 2022 · Features you’ll get: In DigitalTrends’ roundup of the best free antivirus tools for 2022, they note the “impressively broad reach” of AVG AntiVirus FREE’s feature set. In addition to …
Avast Store | Buy Antivirus Protection | Avast
How much do Avast Premium Security and Avast One costs? Compare Avast products and prices and select the right security solution for all your devices.