This is more about social change, but we find it mostly centered around politics. If this becomes popular we may see these terms like Anti-Intellectualism become more used.

Radio host Papantonio: Anti-intellectualism ‘has become almost epidemic in America’

Progressive radio host Mike Papantonio sang the praises of author Susan Jacoby on his radio show on Friday, echoing the theme of her 2008 book The Age of American Unreason in saying, “Anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism have become almost epidemic in America,” and saying the only hesitation one should have in reading the book is how scary her findings are.

“Chances are, if you are one of those corporate media-following bone heads who still believe that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, or Saddam Hussein blew up the Twin Towers, or Obama is a secret Muslim, or Obama wants to take your guns, or Obama has FEMA prison camps set up for Teabag Republicans, then search no further,” said Papantonio, who is also president of the National Trial Lawyer Association. “You truly are the undereducated, child-like, impressionable, irrational, dangerous cog in America’s political system that puts Democracy most at risk.”

In her book, Papantonio explained, Jacobs found that more than 40 percent of Americans under the age of 44 did not read a single book over the course of the previous year. And their concentration had deteriorated to the point that politicians needed to condense their messages into 8-second soundbytes to grab their attention, leading her to conclude that the country was now “ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism,” compounded by schools’ increased emphasis on passing standardized tests instead of comprehensive education on subjects like civics and humanities.

“If the Susan Jacobys are right and anti-intellectualism is a trend in America, then spoon-feeding our children with facts and figures designed merely to pass a standardized test will never prepare them to preserve democracy,” Papantonio said. “The truth is when we firmly grasp timeless themes that can be found in novels like The Grapes of Wrath, Elmer Gantry or 1984, we are on our way to better protecting democracy against the Mitch McConnels, the Rush Limbaughs, the Rand Pauls, Peter Kings, Louie Gohmerts, the Bill O’Reillys and Glenn Becks who infect the process of intelligent conservative rational thinking.”

Watch Papantonio’s defense of Jacoby’s work, posted online on Friday by Go Left TV, below.