Tag Archive

meritocracy

The Demos, Polis, and Meritocratic Technocracy: Anti-Elitism in Recent U.S. History

Richard Hofstadter asserted, in his 1963 classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, that anti-intellectualism is about resentment and hostility toward “the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it.” On the latter, it was about categorizing intellectuals as outsiders, servants, and scapegoats.[1] It would be foolish to deny that instances of these attitudes and behaviors have occurred, both in the past and present. Yet, as my reading in the historiography grows (in terms of Hofstadter’s heirs), a lack of evidence, or at least evidence that can be interpreted in different ways, is pointing me to a Read more