Day by day, public opinion strays further and further away from higher education. Among all demographics, the public perception regarding the importance of a college degree has reached an all-time low. Social media floods our feeds with anti-college and anti-institution rhetoric that only intensifies the antipathy toward learning. The Trump administration continues to crack down on elite institutions it deems breeding grounds for “woke propaganda.” So yes, anti-intellectualism — without a doubt — is a pressing problem; however, students, professors and scholars are not the sole victims here. In some regards, they might even be the perpetrators.
When we see videos of influencers shooting off at the mouth about how useless college is, we often get upset. We ask, “Who does this person think they are criticizing the degree I worked so hard for? How dare they criticize my intelligence?” We call them clueless, idiots or even some more colorful terms. These are completely fair sentiments: Such notions like the one stated above directly attack the values we live by. Yet, if we look inward for just one second, we see that — whether consciously or subconsciously — we equate higher education with intelligence itself. These viewpoints do not always remain internal.
People without degrees are treated as “less capable” or “less cultured.” Even if the argument “college is useless” has some semblance of merit, the moment it comes from someone scholars deem as uneducated, it automatically becomes nonsense political jargon. Scholars don’t want to listen to what these people have to say. Imagine how alienating it must be for intellectuals to dismiss the same group it claims to want to enlighten.
How can we claim to be pro-discourse when we refuse to engage with those dissimilar to us?
I cannot talk about intellectuals as agents of anti-intellectualism without mentioning the classism and elitism present in higher education redefined as meritocracy. The term “merit” masks privilege. It fails to acknowledge the factors out of our control that lead us toward or push us away from higher education like socioeconomic status, legacy status and early educational advantages. Meritocracy does not exist, but when scholars act like it does, they turn failing to attend college from a simple circumstance to a moral failing. They paint those who did not attend college as “lazy” or “uninspired.”
It creates a divide: the “educated” vs. the “ordinary.” It’s no help that learning can be deliberately exclusionary through papers behind absurdly expensive paywalls or unnecessarily complex jargon in writing for the sake of showing off knowledge, rather than actually trying to inform people. Academia quickly becomes an exclusive club dedicated to feeding the egos of those within it. For the people outside the club? Tough luck.
And not only are “the ordinary” left out of a club they had no way of entering, they are constantly demonized for it. Look at the media around us. It mocks the “ignorant conservative” or “know-nothing hillbilly.” The mockery doesn’t breed reflection within these individuals — it breeds resentment.
I acknowledge that there is some undeniable irony in me, a college student at the University of Notre Dame, writing an article accusing the very institution I am a part of and that I support as the reason for the rise of anti-intellectualism. I want to make it clear that I love higher education. I love learning. I believe that our desire to decipher our world, to engage with one another to find answers to the unknown, make us better, more perceptive people overall. But that is a very easy belief for me to hold when college was always on the table for me. Even as a single mother who didn’t get a college degree until she was 40, my mom never once made it seem like college was not in my future. I was practically groomed for higher education, whether it was my local community college or Harvard.
I imagine that many other Notre Dame students experienced the same fate, whether it was through elite college preparatory K-12 schools or parents who simply wanted their children to have a better life than they did. Most of us are lucky enough to have been raised seeing the value of education.
Nature vs. nurture. It’s as simple as that. Neither I nor anybody at this institution had any innate ability that made us “worthy” of attending college. In the same vein, people not attending college does not mean they are worth any less. We are all products of our environment. Rather than turning education into “us” vs. “them” slop, we should do what we can to understand one another.
Higher education is not the sole reason for the rise of anti-intellectualism, but it still plays a role. As members of an institution that prides itself on the innate dignity of all people, we should keep that in mind when we engage with others from different backgrounds, especially on the grounds of education.
Sophia Lekeufack is a freshman from Boyds, Md. currently living in Lyons Hall. When she's not studying political science or crying doing her Program of Liberal Studies readings, you can find her crocheting, walking or playing BS. You can contact Sophia at slekeufa@nd.edu
