Hey
Have you ever noticed when you're talking to someone online in a political fashion that they might answer
"You only have feelings you don't have any real arguments"
If you're on the Left, you probably hear this a lot.
There's this idea on online forums that the left can only reason and talk about
feelings while the right deals with cold hard facts
And why is it that some people reject obvious facts and the teachings of our Lord Sobek
who rules over the flat vaccine earth with the help of communist lizard people
Let's talk about that
[funky music]
Today I want to delve into an ideology that has captured the attention of many people
Anti-Intellectualism
It's an ideology that has reared its head in many different forms, many of whom you are probably familiar with and
And anti-intellectualism according to me at least is
pretty much everywhere at this point.
But why is that and how do we fix that?
Before I delve into this fascinating ideology I do want to make some points clear
that I feel are critical to understanding Anti-intellectualism
First off; when I refer to anti intellectualism as an ideology enough meaning it as something that you actively subscribe to.
I merely mean a shared set of ideas that constitutes a world view that is shared
among all anti intellectuals.
You may not want to be an anti intellectual
but if you believe in certain things and if you act in certain things and if you have a certain worldview,
that can be categorized as anti intellectual
I very much doubt a lot of people actually call themselves anti intellectuals.
Second of all by "anti intellectual" I don't mean "dumb" or "uneducated"
Anti intellectualism can rear its head even within top tiers of academia
and pretty much anywhere.
In fact there are many people who by any definition would be considered smart people who make a living of being and intellectuals
mostly by being morons online.
And third of all: Anti-intellectualism is an umbrella term that encompasses many different
types of anti intellectual discourse.
While there is a strong argument to be made that these ideologies are
separate and distinct from each other. My theory is that these ideologies share very common factors that are
rooted in similar ways of thinking.
I believe that they are merely expressing themselves in different ways
depending on the values of the person expressing them
and the field in question.
For example climate change denial is merely anti intellectualism in action when it comes to climate science,
the anti-vaccination movement is simply anti intellectualism in action in medical science
[More funky music]
Okay. Anti vaccination, climate change denial, a myriad of other anti intellectualist  outlets
Obviously bad things right? So how do we fix that?
Well, that was a topic of a lecture that I attended roughly five to six years ago
I should say that at the time I was fairly convinced by the arguments
But today I have a very different perspective, but we'll deal with that later.
The subject of the lecture was how do we maintain scientific integrity or:
how do we make sure that not everyone is going around not respecting the science that we produce.
The solution proposed was something called
"professionalism" which probably has another meaning
depending on where you heard it, but that's how I heard it and my opinion is the only correct one
So that's what I'm gonna call it
"Professionalism".
Basically the gist of it was that if a profession is seen as
exclusive and hard to reach the science gained within that profession will be more respected
I can see where this is coming from
I'm not gonna argue with an astrophysics over the finer points of stellar constellation creation
That's not something that I understand because, well
I'm not an astrophysicist
The science produced from these exclusive professions are more seen as established facts
but that's not because they are more respected necessarily but rather because it's hard to
understand the facts and the science that field produces
Conversly, if a scientific field is seen as something that anyone can do by spending 10 minutes on Wikipedia
then science produced by professionals within that field
their science wouldn't be as respected anymore.
And, y'know, that's understandable.
But this creates a dilemma, right?
How much can you disseminate science and information to the general public
without that profession becoming more generic or the value of that profession becoming "less worth".
In theory if science was more available to everyone that would make it more possible for people to be
"amateur scientists" which
my professor at the time and many other in academia at that lecture
saw as really bad
"Only we can do science!"
But it wasn't necessarily about science. It could be about any profession
[even more funky music]
Professionalism in this context tells us that not everyone can be an astrophysicist
Not everyone can become a historian and not everyone can become a mechanic
Like I'm not gonna argue with the mechanic over how they fix my car because I don't know shit
I don't- I never studied car science
And the point was that science could come from anywhere
but unless it's very rigid and monitored
coming from specific frameworks that science might not be up to snuff
We still have to respect scientists
[slightly less funky music]
The point was that we still have to respect that some people will know more than others
Otherwise, they said we would get things like this
The ideal is that there would be some sort of balance between
general education of the sciences but still the professionality of those who produce that science
but that balance doesn't currently exist
Right? And that's partially because of how science is currently produced but also how science is
received by the mainstream media
but as I said before I don't agree with this idea of professionalism
necessarily being the solution to anti intellectualism
Just saying: "Just listen to experts they know better and you probably couldn't do it if you tried"
isn't really something that's gonna include people to trust you as a science producer. A scientist.
Personally, I believe that anyone could produce amazing knowledge or create amazing science
and sometimes it is the outside perspective that is outside of academia and
outside of the rigid framework that we currently have that allows for such discoveries
Having science and knowledge be this exclusive club for the few is not really something that will let the general public
trust the people who produce the science
if anything I believe it pushes people away from you and more often than not;
Into the arms of those who would gladly welcome anyone to believe in them
like conspiracy theorists.
I don't believe that professionalism will ever strike that balance between
exclusivity, professionalism but still being able to communicate with the general public
about the science that they produce.
My theory is that there will never be a balance
and, mostly that's fine.
And, sure climate scientists
They definitely do know more than most people when it comes to climate science.
No one is really arguing that part
Surely we are rationals here on the YouTube
Surely we, the skeptics, we focus on facts
Facts don't care about your feelings! Hmmm
A large part of why some people focus so much on specific data points
or studies or similar things is because of something that I like to call "The Science Fetish."
This is where you adore the idea of science without actually adopting the principles that the science demands
Jordan Peterson: "Men tend to be interested in things and women tend to be interested in people and there's some decent evidence that
"thing interest" is mediated by testosterone exposure in utero
which sounds pretty biological all things considered and- and you know?
I've made the claim that in my classes that I don't buy the distinction between sex and gender
which was invented by John money."
Mia Mulder: This means that data studies statistics are only relevant to you when they
confirm your ideas, and when they don't they are considered pseudo academic or pseudo scientific.
Jordan: "-back in 1955, a single theorist
and whose ideas I think we're quite badly discredited
especially by his involvement in the Johns Hopkins gender-reassignment clinic which shut down just a few years ago.
that was his baby and they decided that gender reassignment surgery was a catastrophy.
Some people apply this so liberally
that it could apply to anything that doesn't sync up with their own worldview already
This is why some people adore the phrase "facts don't care about your feelings" in almost all contexts
even in contexts where it's not even relevant to the discussion at hand
It is potentially a fact that the sky is blue
but only under certain contexts and in many contexts saying that the sky is blue would just be harmful and destructive.
It wouldn't really contribute anything to the science.  Telling an astronomer that the sky is blue
would not really help the astronomer do anything.
This is despite the fact that in most commonly understood situations saying that the sky is blue
Would be an obvious fact. It's technically correct
But it's not actually useful for the discussion at hand.
This happens often to people of fetishize so-called "hard" science
hard like...
a block of wood
The science of wood
However similar things can be said of people who fetishize the pursuit of
philosophical or theoretical fields of science
or fields of science that are more commonly referred to as "soft" science.
like
some water in a bottle
Fluid
Ever-changing
Like a liquid of knowledge
This is why most anti intellectuals don't necessarily reject "science" as a concept rather
They have a distrust of the institutions that produce that science.
In the anti intellectual mindset
these institutions have a de facto monopoly on "knowledge" and "science" and if you don't trust those
institutions that anything that the entire sphere of institutions say
is distrustful at best
[Funky music]
And this is where you get lines like "Big Pharma"
All of this is caused by a
distrust of the institutions that produce the science
If academia and science is so good.
and society has changed so much in the last hundred years thanks to science
then why is everything still crap?
Why am I a living a hard life?
Why do I have trouble feeding my family? Why are the world leaders bad?
People see that things aren't really going that well for a lot of people but critically not specifically for the people
who are in the institutions themselves
for them things seem
pretty good
Good things are awful everywhere
but not seemingly for the members of the institutions that tell us things are good.
The academics
The Coastal elites
The gut reaction, which isn't necessarily that misplaced, is that these
institutions are abusing the frameworks that are meant for the general good
but only for themselves and for their own personal gain, and this is in many cases true
We have corrupt politicians corrupt bankers. In the mindset of the anti intellectual the banker
Politician and academic aren't necessarily very different people
They are all part of "the establishment"
from this context it's easy to see why some people would use the framework that is meant for the common good and simply do it themselves.
"If this stablishment won't do it, then I sure will"
It's not necessarily that these people are dumb or egotistical
Some people are genuinely trying to share good knowledge and make the world a better place
And trying to save it from the people who abuse the scientific process for their own gains
However, many are abusive actors in this scenario using the distrust of established institutions
to sell products and to
make themselves richer.
There are many people have chosen to not try to
reform the institutions that they believe are corrupt, but rather create their own.
Within that context flaws sometimes occur and that's okay
You haven't had a thousand years of academic
foundation to build on. You're starting from scratch.
So any flaws that seemingly are discovered can be explained away with inexperience or
Institutional meddling
If your new alternative to Big Pharma is failing you can blame that on many other things and
The flaws that are presented are often downplayed.
At this point I feel like I have to admit something
I was one of these people
I was an Anti-vaxxer teen, and I was a 9/11 truther
But what changed?
Well, I went to university
The lessons that I learned in history class didn't necessarily apply to
if steel beams could melt and vaccination medicine
The scientific process that I learned however was something that I could apply to my life.
I could examine myself and the knowledge that I thought I had
It's what made me who I am today
[Funky Music]
This surely means that the solution to anti intellectualism
sas to be in the democratic process.
If everyone can do science
If everyone, like me, can have the scientific method as a part of their lives then surely
Anti intellectualism will slowly go away
[buzzer noise]
My theory is that the opposite would and has occurred. I present to you
the History Channel
Narrator: They thought it best to use
members of the human population
They could have emparted that information too Joan of Arc to give her the confidence that ultimately led her
military campaign to victory-
-and close encounters
that leave behind
mysterious clues to our past
And... Our future
[reassuring funky music]
Shows like these distribute a fictionalized version of the scientific process as
entertainment to the general public and even in the best of scenarios, you can't really make the scientific process
fun or interesting to watch on TV.
At least not without be extremely boring.
These formats can be extremely helpful
They can inspire people to partake in scientific literature or take part in any scientific field
I also want to study ancient aliens!
This happens a lot in history because history is easily repackaged as an entertainment product
rather than as a scientific field and this often inspires people sometimes to grow an interest in history
however
more often than not
Something else happens
A lot of the time you get people who fetishize the concept of history
These are the people who go into the bachelor program loving tanks, right-wing extremism
Hitler...
hang on
[antifascist funky music]
Most of these people rarely continue further into the field as they discover that the actual science of it all isn't
really as it was presented watching "The Great Tanks of World War Two"
but for people who don't pursue an education and don't have this experience
or for people who simply do their own research and end up on the wrong way
they have a very different experience.
Without a broad variety of contexts and viewpoints
this could be more scientifically dangerous than anything else.
Instead of leading the person into a balanced and checked system
it's very likely that the person can have gaps in their understanding
which can be filled with either their own biases
or the biases of someone else
If someone else is putting in their own bias
They usually have a political agenda
I'm not saying that everyone who watches ancient aliens has to get a degree in history
in order to understand the field
I am saying that without a framework or a context
people can be easily persuaded into believing conspiracy theories
or flat-out pseudoscience
Even within academic circles with a lot of checks and balances there is a lot of
potential for your own biases to seep into your research.
If you lack the framework and the checks and balances this becomes even more likely.
This isn't necessarily intentional.
Many people sometimes produce false data simply by accident
because they haven't understood a certain perspective or lack of perspective that is critical to the understanding
of the field that they're studying
[alluring funky music]
This isn't done by malice and it happens a lot of time within academic circles too.
The difference in academic circles
is that there's a lot of more people who will check your work
and eliminate those mistakes and biases.
That doesn't really exist if all the research you do is on Wikipedia
and I should say that I don't necessarily believe that democratization of science is a bad thing
I think it's an incredibly good thing that can do a lot of social good.
I do however think that without a context and without a framework
it becomes a dangerous tool that can be misused
It's popular today to diss on academia and believe me
I *love* dissing on academia
But it does provide a framework within which you can do fairly good science
It's just that a lot of people just don't do that.
When it works well academic circles and research groups
work better when they are constantly under criticism
Which is what they should be.
I'm not saying that traditional education is the only viewpoint and the only framework
But I am saying that it is a framework that most of us have access to
[Reassuring funky music]
I'm not saying that academia is the best kind of framework
Nor am I saying that it is the only kind of framework
I *am* saying that without *any* framework is very easy for conspiracy theorists
to grab a hold of the research that has no context.
Without a context it's easy for a perspective audience to fill in the gaps themselves
using their own biases or for someone with a political or commercial
agenda to fill in those gaps too. And this is how you get the really dangerous parts of anti-intellectualism
Holocaust denial. Climate change denial
Anti vaccine movements.
So how do we fix that? Well, the easy answer is education.
Funding education needs to be one of the top priorities for any political movement that wants to
counteract the wave of anti-intellectualism.
That means that schools, high schools
Universities, libraries and all kinds of educational venues have to be more accessible and readily available
When these work well, they provide a fundamental framework that rarely limits the
exploration of the self and the exploration of your research while combating
The most basic flaws that most research can create but this isn't the permanent fix
Unless that education keeps up with changes in society
We are right back at square one.
New biases that are created as society evolves will be able to seep into the more
outdated education systems and
then education isn't as valuable anymore.
And even when a well-funded education system works really well
it will not work a hundred percent of the time. That just won't happen
There will always be people who are lost causes and people who will flat out reject any science that doesn't conform with their own worldview.
However, that's actually fine. As I said before. I don't think the battles will ever exist
And that's fine
We live in a society and that means the system doesn't have to work 100% of its time as long as it works
most of the time
we live in a society
w e   l i v e   i n   a   s o c  i e t y
[Societal funky music]
Pick up the stains
There's so much stains on the floors.
Okay, so this video has been going on a while now and you probably think:
"What does this have to do with left or right discourse?
What does this have to do with anything, really anything, really, outside of fringe YouTube circles and Facebook groups?"
Well, anti intellectualism has its effects in real life, too
And that's why I'm on the floor more grounded to reality.
For example
What happens within a field when anti-intellectualism within the field becomes more mainstream
than the established field itself.
Well, I know that that was a big word soup, but this has already happened
and it's something that is a danger to both institutions, academics,
students and followers of the field
We're talking about gender studies.
Gender studies institutions and academics and thinkers and writers
are all facing many different kinds of hardships
partly from governmental issues,  partly from
Social outcry on the Internet and also from bomb threats in certain cases.
this has of course happened in conjunction with the more and more mainstream idea that
gender studies is not a real science.
That it's SJW mumbo jumbo with bunch of lesbians and unlimited amount of genders.
Most of the criticism I hear against gender studies are things that you would in many other circumstances deem as
Blatantly anti intellectual. "It's trying to promote feminism as this divine interventionist Religion thing"
But the people say that and most people who criticize gender studies actually have no idea what gender studies even is.
But that doesn't stop them from being critical of it.
If you go online to search for criticism against gender studies, you can find tons of anecdotal evidence
But that's also the case for pretty much every single scientific field
The reason that gender studies gets a hard rap is because
well, some people have an agenda against gender studies because of
false preconceived notions about what it is.
Or because of anti-intellectualism.
Like, you know, the thing I'm talking about in this video
One of the reasons gender studies is one of the focuses of
modern-day more mainstream anti-intellectualism
is simply because it gets more reported on.
It's more popular to talk about gender studies as a concept
and it's also more popular to rail against in gender studies as a concept
and if you know YouTube, you know that a lot of people have kind of made a living out of
being against things.
Now you may think I'm defending gender studies as a concept here
I'm actually not
I'm more criticizing the unfair treatment that gender studies get.
It's not like I'm seeing bomb threats go out to shady psychological courses.
That doesn't really happen in the same degree.
Now, there are some people who will probably comment on this video saying that well
"The reason that people dislike gender studies is because you can't get a job in it"
I really hope that those people have the exact same problems with a lot of other scientific fields
where you can't get a job.
[failure horn sound]
It should also be noted that getting a job within academia is a job
If you're a problem with gender studies is that it doesn't lead to a "real job" then
I hope that you have the exact same criticism for most academic fields
You could very well argue that being an astrophysicist isn't the real job because it doesn't actually contribute to anyone in society
It's just science for the sake of science
and I would argue that gender studies is similar but in a different way
But what do you care?
Like, this is probably still just some fringe group on the internet and maybe it rears its head
going against certain academic fields,
but it doesn't actually impact the normal everyday existence of our lives. Does it?
Well, I'm sorry to tell you that some of your favorite people are
probably a little bit anti intellectual and
so am I.
Within political discourse. There is a clear pattern between how the left and how the right
argue within themselves and with each other
In general you can say that there is a theoretical way of arguing and a
materialist way of arguing and both of these types of arguing exist across the political spectrum.
However, there are patterns and you have probably heard of some of these before
"Facts versus feelings"
"Emotions versus logic!"
Or rather it's the idea of "facts" versus "feelings"
It's no secret that the left loves to have philosophical and theoretical arguements a lot
and it's no coincidence that some of the bigger voices within leftist circles currently are philosophers:
My father, and of course:
Dark Mother
and before I go any further I should say that I adore their content, a lot
However, sometimes within very philosophical or theoretical discussions
Ii's easy to become too abstract. And when you become too abstract, it's easy to get lost within the theory and
miss critical perspectives
This is the cause for many of my disagreements with Contrapoints and the fabled "aesthetics" video
which will not be mentioned again.
That's not to say that there's no knowledge or wisdom to be gained from having those discussions
There is and it's very good knowledge and it should be valued.
However, it's easy to lose critical aspects of your ideology
when you're only worried about being theoretically coherent within the theory itself
This is why it's not uncommon to see dozens of leftists groups fighting each other over small trivialities of
differences within the ideology when practically they could just have a little compromise and have much more practical
impact on the real world.
We do love our philosophy discussions.
Of course these kinds of discussions happen within right-wing circles too,
but they're not as mainstream as they are within leftist circles.
Capitalists aren't arguing what kind of capitalism they should do. They just do capitalist things.
I mean, come on
We left wingers. We love our theories
[das Funky Music]
But at least this is better than the right-wing science fetish.
A fetish which takes facts as some kind of
absolute unit of scientific measurement
and I can't even get into like why facts are mostly socially constructed anyway,
unless we're talking about the most fundamental parts of the universe
and even then I'm kind of sketchy.
The right wing is obsessed with
facts and statistics and individual reports which could potentially
give their site or their argument some credence or substance
But as any trans person on the internet knows this doesn't really extend to the level that it should
Similarly to how the left can often over-rely on theory, the right has a tendency of over relying on facts or rather "factoids"
Seeing a right wing commentators talking about facts you can see that they only take in the fact that support their own argument
and totally ignore everything else as pseudoscience or SJW bullshit
The problem here is a lack of theoretical context.
Being able to put facts into perspective and into a context is critical to actually
understanding what the facts mean.
Of course there is value in those discussions too,
data gathering is one of the most important bits of material science
But without a theoretical framework, it just becomes nothing.
It's a bunch of bricks that you could build a house with but right now it's just a bunch of bricks.
I would say that the over reliance on facts and statistics without context is
probably more dangerous to society than an over-reliance on theory
simply because the society we live in currently does value facts and statistics more than it values
theoretical arguments.
And you know that sucks and really sucks and shouldn't be like that, but that's the way the world lives on and
I can't fix everything. Okay?
While I assign a pattern between the left and the right on this
both of these kinds of over-reliances can be found in both sides of the political spectrum
Neither of these problems are exclusive to either sector of the political spectrum
They exist everywhere and it's a problem everywhere
but at least currently there is a pattern that exists.
Thinkers and philosophers on the left do currently prefer these
fluidly, but coherent within themselves explanations while other thinkers prefer these hard and blocky explanations.
I'm not saying that there should be a balance between the political ideologies because I'm a leftist and
What
What I am saying is that in the pursuit of knowledge we need to balance these two.
We need to balance the liquid, fluid, explanations of ideology, philosophy and theory
with the material, hard, blocky science of facts.
If we want to push the frontiers of leftist discourse while also working against anti intellectualism
We need to merge the wooden hard nature of facts and science and statistics
with the fluid and liquid nature of philosophy and theoretical arguments
We need to merge these ideas into a balanced sweet and thick, viscous liquid
Something that we can all...
That we can all take care of.
(I meant to say "take part of" but I'm not doing another take of the syrup-scene)
This is so bad
Why did I do this
I'm just dripping in syrup
This was a really bad idea
Why did I do this?
 
I want to get a special shout out to Kim?
Ibrahim Aldridge
Ryan Kola
Emma (not) Goldman
I'm not super sure how to pronounce your name. I'm sorry if I did something wrong.
Let me know and I'll fix it
Dan Sinfield
William Pietri
Again, I'm awful with names
Christopher Steinmuller
I should be able to pronounce that one since it's very close to my own name
Thank you all for being great fans and subscribers
If you want to see more of my content
You can subscribe to my channel and you can leave a comment. You can like the video.
If you do leave a comment
I try to respond to most of them
As long as you're nice to me
If you want to give me financial support
You can do that on patreon at patreon.com/miamulder
Every donation really does help in my conquests to take over the world with my plants.
Why have I done this?
This is the dumbest sh*t I've ever done
I just wanted to be part of leftist youtube where we all pour liquids on each other
Why did I pick honey all of things? It's the hardest thing to clean up!
And it's past midnight!
I have no idea how to do this!
Need to go, I'm so sorry
