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In reply to the discussion: America's Dangerous Turn to Anti-Intellectualism [View all]defacto7
(13,485 posts)Anti-intellectualism has been part of the US culture since the 1860s. It has fluctuated over time, but it's a slow rot that is now exploding due to a culture of greed that has so easily used our expanding media information/misinformation machine to sell complacency and dull public interest in anything that can't be spread on toast. Living a life of luxury is the goal instead of making ourselves and our world better for having lived. Our collective intelligence has basically crashed in the last 150 years and most within the last 40. I spent many hours in my post-grad school archives reading personal letters and other communications of average as well as highly educated people from the 18th and 19th century's. The profound difference in language skills and sheer memory compared to the present can't be more evident. But the slow downward pace made it practically invisible to notice until now.
We are truly devolving.