“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
— Issac Asimov
I noticed this myself as a teenager, with of all things, the popularity of Jeff Foxworthy and his whole “redneck” shtick. He glorified idiocracy and people reveled in being uneducated and just ignorant of everything. They would proudly wear shirts (or other merch) proclaiming it.
And I know it’s not the thing that turned the US towards anti-intellectualism, but it’s a time that sticks out to me still as something I can look back at as a visible manifestation of that shift.
Larry The Cable Guy was the even weirder part. It’s a character he plays with a fake accent, making fun of rednecks. Yet the rednecks were the people who loved it.
IDK it’s like if the biggest fans of The Jazz Singer were black, or if the biggest fans of Borat were native Kazakhs. Groups are rarely happy with being depicted as a caricature played by a foreigner.
And then four redneck comedians came together to form that Blue Collar Comedy Tour and it just went downhill from there.
Is that who said it? It’s at the start of a song I listen to and I never bothered to look it up.
