American anti-intellectualism more popular than ever, and why not?

First published on K12NN Wire on December 28, 2014

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"The capitalists, from the start, complained that universities were unprofitable. These early twentieth century capitalists, like heads of investment houses and hedge-fund managers, were, as Donoghue writes "motivated by an ethically based anti-intellectualism that transcended interest in the financial bottom line. Their distrust of the ideal of intellectual inquiry for its own sake, led them to insist that if universities were to be preserved at all, they must operate on a different set of principles from those governing the liberal arts." — Chris Hedges

Last week I came across a two year old essay written by Professor Patricia Williams for The Guardian. I recall reading her piece some time ago (the Arizona book bannings being covered by Schools Matter as well), and reposted it on facebook with a bit of my own commentary. The post received a few interesting comments. A teacher posted the link and my commentary to the "Badass Teachers Association" (BATs) page, and to my surprise it garnered over 180 "likes" and more than 55 comments.

I believe that this is because this is a critical conversation we should be having publicly, over and over. I'm going to reproduce my commentary here, and rather than expand on it, I'll leave it to readers to add their own thoughts.

We see this anti-intellectualism in Marshall Tuck, Tom Horne, and John Huppenthal's shuttering of Ethnic Studies programs and book banning. We see it in the proliferation of adjunct professors in higher education, and the spreading infestation of predatory, for-profit schools. We see it in corporate curricula like Common Core State Standards (#‎CCSS), and the proliferation of the K-12 privatization project embodied in charters and vouchers. The war on tenure at all levels of education is further evidence. It isn't just right-wing, religious reactionaries fueling anti-intellectualism, as the demands of neoliberalism require that both critical thinking, and the institutional memory of the working class be squelched. Anti-intellectualism is a prelude to the unchallenged dominance of the plutocrat class and their corporate state. — Robert D. Skeels

Two quick things. My compañero in struggle, Jose del Barrio, had commentary I felt worth reproducing here:

"There has been an unfortunate uptick in academic book bannings and firings, made worse by a nationwide disparagement of teachers, teachers' unions and scholarship itself. Brooke Harris, a teacher at Michigan's Pontiac Academy for Excellence, was summarily fired after asking permission to let her students conduct a fundraiser for Trayvon Martin's family." — Jose del Barrio

Lastly, a perfect example of anti-intellectualism. Here's a direct quote from a racist that has been trolling me on twitter: "Professors are failures at life, thus they teach"

@rdsathene you think that you know something because you took some classes? Professors are failures at life, thus they teach

— Sadico Solitario (@dasanman69) December 28, 2014

Yet Eli Broad, the Walton fortune heirs, Bill Gates, David F. Welch, Charles and David Koch, Richard M. DeVos, and their ilk aren't waging a war against teachers, professors, and intellectuals?

A Note from the Principal's Office at AERA: Make Your Service "Academic"

Our language has a common phrase to measure irrelevancy, and when a situation gets really irrelevant, we may hear that "it's academic."   The phrase is derived, perhaps, from the cloistering of knowledge and expertise within a discipline so much so that it has no bearing on worldly events or no potential for human understanding outside the guild that created it.  

Much of the scholarship produced within the disciplines, and particularly in subjects wishing to be disciplines, e. g., education, meets the criteria for irrelevancy, that is, it is "academic."  And much of it never gets beyond its own inner circle who don't read much of it, anyway, except to make decisions on who gets to stay in the guild once the probationary term of service is over.  

 And so earlier this week when AERA members received a weird email from AERA urging all of us toward "academic service," it came as a real surprise.  According to AERA President, Bill Tierney, who should know better, "Service never seems to count for promotion, tenure, or prestige."  

Really?  

Even though service does, indeed, lag behind scholarship and teaching when weighing the tonnage of tenure dossiers, it remains one of three criteria ostensibly used when making tenure decisions.  

So what would Bill Tierney have us do?  Obviously, he would like for those engaged in public service, whether pricking the corporate gas bags who wish to control public education, or circulating petitions to replace corporatist, Arne Duncan, or doing any of the other public intellectual work that so desperately needs our informed hands and minds, to do our work with the same kind of deliberatation, caution, and timidity that characterizes the best of "academic" work. 

A common criticism of academics is that our decision making is not “nimble”: We are too deliberative when we need speedy resolution. I am certainly in favor of more focused decision making, but the reflective culture of academe has an important contribution to make in a world where political and civic discourse has become corrosive, and tweeting and TV shouting matches dominate. As academics we have the opportunity—the responsibility—to temper the divisive, thoughtless, destructive exchanges of the public arena. Our experience with academic service is not just a source of personal inspiration. It is a model for public service.

So yes, let us, indeed, "temper our divisive, thoughtless, and destructive exchanges" when such practices do nothing to promote humane schools, democratic education practices, social justice actions, and corporate-free education zones.  Otherwise, all is fair game, Bill.  Whether you know it not, these corporate socialists who are taking over the universities where you and the AERA elite feel so safely ensconced don't play by Robert's Rules, and you cannot exercise power by simply being polite, deliberative, or "academic.  

I remember someone saying "power concedes nothing without a demand."  Oh yes, that was Frederick Douglass.