| In 2016,during the U.S.presidential election,Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton repeatedly fabricated world-shattering scandals against each other With their teams and their supporters,for example,supporters of Donald Trump claimed that Hillary was raising underage children on a remote island,while supporters of Hillary claimed that Donald Trump had sexually abused women in earlier years.During the television debate,they both resorted to extreme personal attack and slanders to attract flow and votes,which was considered by the media and the public to be the ugliest campaign debate in the history of American elections.Under the banner of ideology,on the basis of race,gender and ethnicity,the two sides created conspiracies against each other,which proved the popularity of Anti-intellectualism in the United States.In 2020,Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that wearing a mask is a coward,that a new vaccine can control the brain,that an injection of disinfectant can kill the virus,and so on.However,what is shocking is the fact that Donald Trump’s words and deeds have gained the support and imitations of a large number of people,which proves that the Anti-intellectualism in the United States is transforming into a social ideological trend with the potential to cause harm to American society.In 2021,Richard Hofstadter’s "Anti-intellectualism in American Life"has been republished several times the whole year,reflecting the academic community’s keen interest in the American Anti-intellectualism.Given the limitations of the times and the author’s own identity as a leftist intellectual,some of the views in the book are clearly out of step with the reality of American society.However,the analysis of the United States from the religious,political,economic and educational perspective of the long-standing anti-intellectual culture by Hofstadter still provides an important research perspective.This paper aims to solve the following questions,1)American anti-intellectualism seems to be a consistent social trend of thought,but in the middle and late 20th century,social movements and groups such as"McCarthyism" and "Beat Generation" showed distinct features from those of the Anti-intellectualism in the past?2)A large number of scholars have continued adopting Hofstadter’s definition of Anti-intellectualism with few clear and convincing explanations for it.Is Anti-intellectualism an ideology,a theory,a mindset or a cultural attitude?3)In his analysis,Hofstadter tried to break the traditional "Binary Opposition View",but in essence his"anti-intellectuals against intellectuals" also followed this model,it fails to account for an important phenomenon in contemporary Anti-intellectualism,the anti-intellectual tendency of intellectuals in themselves.In summary,the central question of this paper is that,when did the Anti-intellectualism change,what characteristics did it exhibit and what impact did it have on American society?The purpose of the first chapter of this paper is to provide a brief review of traditional Anti-intellectualism from a cultural perspective in order to identify the Anti-intellectualism and its characteristics.In addition,this review of the Anti-intellectualism related to but also distinguished from the changes of the modern Anti-intellectualism aims to highlight the changes of the Anti-intellectualism.The second chapter aims to build a theoretical foundation for the following analysis.The core theoretical approach is the "Agent-Structure" of Alexander Wendts’ Constructivism.The paper borrows from American sociologist Milton Gordon’s "intellectual sub-society" theory,as it deals with what an intellectual is,when the intellectual becomes the main social group in the United States and the mobility of the intellectual in American society.In addition,from the perspective of System Theory,American society is regarded as a "political-economic-cultural" integrated social system,which explains the transmutation of American Anti-intellectualism through the changes and interactions of its subsystems.The third chapter shows the Progressive Era as the important background of this study,that is to say,the establishment of Modern America.This period marked the intellectuals as a social group in American society playing an important role.In the meantime,it laid the groundwork for the transformation of the United States under the crisis of modernity.The fourth chapter analyzes the alienation of the political,economic and cultural subsystems of the Anti-intellectualism in the context of the expansion of "Instrumental Rationality".This alienation represents the transmutation of contemporary American Anti-intellectualism.This chapter also provides the basis for the conclusion and enlightenment of this article,with the strengthening of instrumental thinking,the rise of the Internet age,the fall of intellectuals,the emptiness of thinking as the core.The fifth chapter puts forward the conclusion and enlightenment of this article.The conclusion is that,under the erosion of "Instrumental Rationality",value is being used as a tool by American political,economic and cultural subsystems,and the American social consensus as a whole is being torn apart.Partisan Politics in the United States will continue to deteriorate the political ecology of the United States,knowledge is increasingly used as the power to shape the information which make citizens lose rationality and critical thinking.Intellectuals will continue to transform into "Pseudo-Intellectuals"into the power system and the public flood.Only when the intellectuals rediscover the social role of both the intervenor and alienator can the American society develop again. |
