In the US it is ridiculously blatant because so much of our media thinks subtext is for The Gays. But think about how often the villain is an Evil Scientist or even just A Teacher Who Has It Out For The Protagonist? What began as an active effort has mostly just become the cultural zeitgeist where “people with advanced degrees have no common sense or street smarts” and “too much knowledge turns you into a monster” (see also: The Frankenstein Complex).
Hell, for something more blatant: Go look at the various threads about the US changing its COVID vaccination guidelines. Plenty of Europeans will pop in and say “Yeah. That lines up with what we have. You don’t need a booster every year if you are healthy”. I’ll leave it to the experts as to what defines “need” but… as someone who has somehow managed to catch COVID three or four times, I want those boosters in my muscles because it is the difference between a weekend of “I feel kinda shitty and have a headache in the center of my eyes and… fuck” versus being curled up in a bed coughing and hoping I lose consciousness for a few hours.
Anti-intellectualism is global.
In the US it is ridiculously blatant because so much of our media thinks subtext is for The Gays. But think about how often the villain is an Evil Scientist or even just A Teacher Who Has It Out For The Protagonist? What began as an active effort has mostly just become the cultural zeitgeist where “people with advanced degrees have no common sense or street smarts” and “too much knowledge turns you into a monster” (see also: The Frankenstein Complex).
Hell, for something more blatant: Go look at the various threads about the US changing its COVID vaccination guidelines. Plenty of Europeans will pop in and say “Yeah. That lines up with what we have. You don’t need a booster every year if you are healthy”. I’ll leave it to the experts as to what defines “need” but… as someone who has somehow managed to catch COVID three or four times, I want those boosters in my muscles because it is the difference between a weekend of “I feel kinda shitty and have a headache in the center of my eyes and… fuck” versus being curled up in a bed coughing and hoping I lose consciousness for a few hours.