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The price you pay for being smart.
What does anti-intellectualism mean for our democracy? Getty Images hide caption
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What does anti-intellectualism mean for our democracy?
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Anti-intellectualism is on the rise. And by "anti-intellectualism" we mean the backlash to scholars in fields like the humanities.
According to two intellectuals, Dr. Ally Louks and Jason Stanley, the humanities help us better connect to other humans. According to a lot of online haters, they're worthless. In November 2024, Dr. Louks recently posted her Cambridge University dissertation online and was piled on by a loud group of right-wing anti-intellectuals.
Today, Brittany revisits her convo with Dr. Louks, and Jason Stanley, a professor of Philosophy at Yale University. They investigate the backlash to Dr. Louks, higher education at large, and why "anti-intellectualism" is prevalent in Republican politics. For more, read Jason Stanley's book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.
This episode originally published January 27, 2025.
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This episode was produced by Liam McBain, with additional support from Corey Antonio Rose and Barton Girdwood. It was edited by Jasmine Romero. Our Supervising Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our Executive Producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
English (US) ·