by Worker’s Red Horizon
As CMU students return to campus this fall, it is important to discuss the disease that infects their education. This is a man-made disease that tears families apart as it reinforces bigotry and greed in the country we call home. This disease has a name, the “Anti-Intellectual Movement.” The Anti-Intellectual Movement is a product of conservatism and capitalism, and it fortifies the commodification of information, leading to an uneducated society. This work shall examine the intricacies of the movement, as well as call out its presence at CMU.
Defining the term “anti-intellectualism” is essential, as without an understanding of its meaning, no argument about it can be truly meaningful. In this article, anti-intellectualism is a movement and its components that try to undermine facts in support of a fictional “truth” to create an uneducated and easily manipulated society. Important members of the movement include Charlie Kirk, who brands college as a scam, Robert F. Kennedy, who promotes a “healthy” America by spouting pseudoscientific claims, and Jordan Peterson, whose political commentary relies on bigotry and fragile arguments that he attempts to back with his PhD. Knowing some examples of anti-intellectuals, in addition to the definition of “anti-intellectualism” itself, one may progress to an explanation for the root causes of this movement in the United States.
First, conservatism is a significant cause. All conservatives believe that progress is limited and that there is a point at which trying to strive further only leads to disorder. In this manner, conservatism is inherently anti-education, as the goal of education is to promote progress, regardless of a society’s successes or failures. The second leading cause of the movement intertwines with conservatism; this is capitalism. The primary objective of capitalism is to maximize profits, so if lying is profitable, capitalists will engage in deception to the fullest extent to accumulate maximum wealth. In tandem, because information is a commodity in a capitalist society, capitalists will privatize education as much as they possibly can to raise the price of information.
However, capitalism and conservatism have another goal in their anti-intellectualism. This goal is to prevent the public from gaining class consciousness. It is a fact that education makes people generally more left-leaning and, therefore, more likely to advocate for the destruction of capitalism. So, if capitalists can prevent education from falling into the hands of the impoverished (the people with the least to lose and most to gain), there will be fewer individuals to stand in their way of maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. In addition, if education is too expensive for the ordinary person, only members of the bourgeoisie will have access to it, and therefore never make the full shift to the left.
The reasons above are why the horrific privatization of schools and the Trump administration’s attacks on the Board of Education are so dangerous, as privatizing schools makes education less available, especially for the groups that need it the most. These groups are the marginalized peoples of society whose interests are never recognized. Because things like institutional racism beget poverty for minorities, their children will be less likely to have the best education, and will stay blind to the wrongdoings of the society that beats them down. Thus, the anti-intellectual movement not only impacts college campuses but also K-12 education, thereby affecting every American, regardless of whether they pursue higher education or not.
Finally, it is not only the conservatives and capitalists in charge of the system that are part of the problem, but even the educators themselves can be a problem, and often are, as CMU’s administration and professors demonstrate. Many are familiar with John Marshall’s heinous acceptance of White supremacy on campus, but fewer are familiar with one of the most important figures in allowing it to happen. This figure, of course, is Christi Hein, the co-chair of the Free Speech and Civil Discourse Committee at CMU, who also teaches political science classes. Hein is a friendly and humorous professor who holds a dark side. Students from her Spring 2023 US Government class recall her spouting lies about topics such as White privilege, the 2020 election, as well as women’s reproductive rights.
One of the most bizarre moments from her class was when she showed No Safe Spaces, a documentary narrated by the notorious pseudo-intellectual Dennis Prager. In one scene, the film explains that DEI programs in education are a form of reversed racism that holds White people back. This is the type of rhetoric that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and other oppressors spew to make White people feel persecuted so that they may vote against the interests of the working class, oftentimes shooting themselves in the foot in the process. People like Jared Taylor spout the same arguments when explaining the fictitious Great Replacement Theory.
As for election denial, Hein cited 2000 Mules, another right-wing “documentary” that promotes the idea that the Democrats stole the 2020 election through widespread voter fraud. When she brought it up, she stated that she did not know whether or not Democrats stole the election. Time and time again, evidence indicates that this was not the case, and the fact that she promotes disinformation makes it very clear where she stands in the Anti-Intellectual Movement. Other delusional lies she spouted were regarding abortions, as she claimed that there were abortion parties in New York, and that in some unnamed state, women were able to have abortions up to two weeks after giving birth.
Overall, conservatism and capitalism work together to maintain hierarchy and prevent the public from gaining class consciousness. Politicians are not the only ones involved in this movement, but many educators also participate, as Christi Hein’s erroneous claims make evident. The bourgeoisie has a chokehold, not only on our nation, but on the world, and access to education will provide us with immunity to the disease that torments us all.
###
The Revolutionist is 100% volunteer run and subscriber funded. We do not sell our soul for advertising dollars, nor do we prostrate ourselves for grants from the non-profit industrial complex. We are community media. Join the community! Subscribe today at whatever rate you can, and get a hard copy of The Revolutionist in your mailbox. Subscribing subsidizes free distribution copies.
The Revolutionist 