The Stupidity of Left-Wing Anti-Intellectualism
Historically the right has been anti-intellectual because intellect wants to resist authority and capital. CRT-bashing, Woke-hating leftists who join the right's crusade are useful idiots to power.
One of my favorite theories in psychology is called the Minimal Group Paradigm. It’s an amazingly simple human experiment showing an exceptionally resistant and powerful human tendency. Namely, when you are categorized into a group based on any distinction you can imagine, you will start to show in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. The more you emphasize the made-up group distinction, the more in-group favoritism and out-group derogation will be experienced among the group members.
Now, take note of me saying “made-up” distinction. I can literally divide my students based on any arbitrary distinction imaginable — such as people who like bright colors, versus people who like darker colors — and from the moment they are assigned to these two groups they will distinguish themselves from each other by seeing the other group as more negative than their own. This phenomenon is so powerful, that you see it all over the world.
Why am I mentioning this theory now? Because it is one of the most important theories to consider if we want to understand and overcome global inequality rooted in capitalist hierarchies. The minimal group paradigm is one of the central reasons why the division of us, as human beings, into “racial” groups, for example, is so successful. The powerful tendency to show in-group favoritism based on a categorical distinction that is totally made-up, has us now divided for hundreds of years. We can see the same happening with religious and many other identities.
As of late, another division has been rearing its (ugly) head, and before we realize it, it will be yet another successful categorical distinction put forward by the ruling class to divide us up. Namely, the distinction between the “bookworms”, or the “theoretical left”, versus the so-called “boots on the ground”, “real-life experience” working class left.
Increasingly, within left spheres, we see rejectionist anti-intellectual statements such as “I don’t need theory, I live the class struggle”, or “all these people only know theory but don’t understand real life”. In turn, we see well-off, highly educated leftists demean those with low educational attainment as the “dumb dumb left”.
Indeed, what we see here is the dawn of a minimal group paradigm-style manufactured division that will render the left toothless and completely ineffectual. When do we leftists finally start to understand that such manufactured distinctions serve a function: They divide you, make you weak, and allow the ruling class to play you like puppets.
By repeatedly emphasizing that there is a “theoretical left” versus a “boots on the ground left”, you are unwittingly replaying the minimal group paradigm experiment. The continuous emphasis on this binary group distinction creates disdain and negative sentiments towards the out-group and positive sentiments towards the in-group. That is, if you consider yourself part of the “boots on the ground”- left, you will increasingly identify with a category that has been created for you by others, while at the same time you de-identify or even reject the made-up category with which it has been contrasted, namely the intellectual left. Understand that you are being played in order to keep you from binding with others.
The distinction is false, nonsense and ridiculous. It is almost as ridiculous as dividing people up into groups of tall people and short people and then saying that the tall people are real leftists and the smaller people are not. That doesn’t make sense, does it? Well, that same stupidity occurred when our unscientific ancestors divided us up by saying that a lack of melanin in your skin implied that you are smart and superior, as opposed to the so-called stupidity and inferiority of melanated individuals. A ridiculous idea, but unfortunately very powerful as it abuses the human tendency revealed by minimal group paradigm.
So, again, the distinction between the intellectual and non-intellectual left is nonsense. I, myself, am boots on the ground. At the same time, I come from an intellectual family with parents who both were raised in working class families. My Dutch mother was raised in a family of socialists whose father fought with other socialists against Nazi Germany. Comparably, my father comes from a family that experienced colonial Algeria, whose father also fought against Nazi Germany (for the French, that is). I am at the same time an academic at one of Asia’s most prestigious universities, comparable to what the Ivy-league is to Americans. Does that make me an elitist? No. My academic work is full of resistance, and I spend my free time contributing to social activism.
Similarly, I know working class individuals who never finished studies but read books, who are intellectually engaged and incredibly smart. I think about my brother Nick Cruse of the Revolutionary Blackout Network who has no PhD, but is exceptionally smart, likes to read books and loves to discuss leftism from mutual aid activism to Marxist and decolonial theory. We are one and the same. We have this diversity of characteristics within us as individual human beings. That is the beauty of our complexity: we are intellectuals, we are boots on the ground, we are kind and we are strong. Do not let anyone pull any of these characteristics out of you, and then assign to you just one or two of these characteristics to subsequently say that the rest of them belong to other groups.
They did that with race and skin color already, do not let them do that again.
Anti-intellectualism on the left is an exceptionally dangerous trend. Without theory and academia, the working class will be convinced by unscientific heuristics. That is, they will be convinced by the simplest, most popular ideas and solutions, regardless of their truth.
How, without theory, would you explain Black people disproportionately being stuck in poverty? One could say that they have an inherent tendency to be more lazy, or even criminal. Such derogatory explanations are particularly attractive — getting back to minimal group paradigm — when there is a motivation to derogate the out-group based on made-up identities. In other words, my friends, you need theory and thinkers to unpack and explain the structural, institutional and systemic boundaries that have been set up for people of color that reproduce and maintain their disadvantage. Furthermore, without theory, how would you explain climate change? You could say it’s a hoax. You may even start believing in Q-anon or “white replacement theory”.
Being anti-intellectual is playing in the hands of the right, including the “liberal right”. That is where they want you because it maintains the status quo.
Likewise, without people out on the streets, in their workplaces, churches, homes, and communities educating and organizing people, turning an impotent mass of individuals into a powerful unified body to work as one for political change, what use are theorists? If there were only people writing about theory for each other, and no boots on the ground, you would only have an impotent mass of intellectuals.
Historically the right has been anti-intellectual because intellectuals on the left have consistently proven to be threatening to power and capital. It is the theoretical left that unpacks systems of unfairness and inequality, think about people like Karl Marx, Kwameh Nkrumah and Malcolm X. It is also why the right is so afraid critical race theory. Again, emphasizing the stupidity of leftists joining in on the anti-CRT hype and anti-intellectualism in general. It is the theoretical left that educates young minds in our universities in such a way that they start to question authority and systems of power as well as social inequality. Unsurprisingly, all over the West the right-wing has begun a crusade against “left-wing indoctrination” on our universities, something we see not only in the US, but in European countries such as the Netherlands and the UK as well. Again, intellectualism is threatening to power, and leftists who join the opposition against it are useful idiots to power.
As an academic myself, I ask of you to critically think for yourself. Think and question. Do not blindly jump on populist phrases and one-liners such as “the woke mob”, “SJW’s” or, as we see now: “We don’t need books and theory on the left”. You are playing in the hands of power by adopting these populist catch phrases.
Always ask yourself the question why so many people put so much effort and energy in demeaning, demonizing and insulting social movements on the left. The fact that they do so, means it is threatening and therefore of significance.
The crusade against schools of thought and movements attached to them, such as CRT, BLM, Marxism, and now the “theoretical left” is evidence of their potential for change and their inherent power: people are willing to put so much blood, sweat and tears into ridiculing them because they are afraid. It threatens their comfortable and privileged position.
Think about it, if you want to cook a very tasty pie. You can stand in the kitchen and just do something at random. Or you can learn how to cook a tasty pie from a book and then apply what you learned in real life. This is how we must see leftist activism. To know what to fight for and how, we must understand what we are fighting and why. In other words, we need thinkers and we need doers. And most often, thinkers are doers and doers are thinkers.
There is no real division, we are one and the same.