Anti-intellectualism is often explained away as ignorance. That is a convenient story, but it is far too simplistic. Many people who distrust experts are not uninformed, irrational, or incapable of thought. Some are highly articulate, politically aware, and selective in the expertise they choose to trust. They may rely on engineers to build bridges, surgeons to perform operations, or accountants to manage taxes, while simultaneously rejecting economists, climate scientists, university academics, or public-health authorities. The issue is rarely intelligence alone. More often, it is rooted in trust, identity, status, and how people psychologically respond to authority (Hofstadter, 1963).

In 1963, historian Richard Hofstadter famously described anti-intellectualism as a recurring suspicion toward intellectual life in democratic societies. Decades later, that insight still resonates. Across many countries, universities are portrayed as composed of detached elites, scientific consensus is dismissed as ideology, and evidence competes with emotionally satisfying certainty. Expertise is not simply challenged; it is often reframed as arrogance (Hofstadter, 1963; Merkley, 2020), while ordinary opinions are celebrated as more authentic and trustworthy, a trend increasingly amplified by social media.

This matters because modern societies depend on specialised knowledge. Public health, aviation, infrastructure, medicine, law, finance, and technology all rely on expert competence. When trust in knowledge erodes indiscriminately, societies become more vulnerable to manipulation, charismatic misinformation, and decisions driven more by emotion than evidence (Nichols, 2017).

It Is Often About Identity

People like to imagine they evaluate facts objectively. In reality, information is often filtered through identity. When evidence threatens political loyalties, moral beliefs, religious commitments, or group belonging, rejecting it can feel psychologically easier than reconsidering one’s worldview.

Accepting new evidence may require an uncomfortable admission: Perhaps my side was wrong, perhaps my beliefs are........

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