Academic Elitism Will Be The End Of Us All
(An opinion piece/mini-essay)
Content warning: this article briefly mentions historical and modern-day manifestations of racism, ableism, and cisheterosexism.
“Let’s bring back academic elitism in 2026”
Recently, there has been an increasing number of discussions around the topic of the rise of anti-intellectualism (1). At first, it simply seems like a genuine concern (which it undeniably is) about what dangers it entails in the context of shifting governmental and societal attitudes towards reactionary conservatism in many parts of the world and how people in power and the ultra-rich are benefiting from keeping everyone else ignorant of the systems that we are negatively impacted by and how they work. However, I believe it is important to keep several nuances in mind when discussing this problem, and one of the most important of these I consider to be the role of formal education and science institutions and how a lack of critical analysis of contemporary academia and deep education reforms poses a danger to truly democratic societies.
A chicken or an egg?
Firstly, we need to define what exactly “anti-intellectualism” is. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2) provides us with two definitions of the term:
1. “The philosophic attitude or doctrine that assigns intellect or reason to a subordinate place or denies the power of intellect to grasp the true nature of things”.
2. “Hostility toward or suspicion of intellectuals: hostility toward inquiring, speculative, or academic habits of thought”.
In some debates, anti-intellectualism and academic elitism are treated as the opposite sides of the spectrum, while I would personally argue they are, at the very least, two sides of the same coin, or even, being more precise, one is the cause, and the other is the symptom.
Also, I would argue that many instances of anti-intellectualism are a direct consequence of late-stage capitalism and neoliberalism. People are either simply too physically, emotionally and intellectually exhausted by being overworked and are constantly worried about having enough money to make ends meet (3), placing educating themselves on deeper societal issues lower on the priority list to simply let their body and mind rest; or they are feeling disappointed in their everyday conditions, making them turn away from mainstream views to pursue fringe and conspiratorial thinking circles, scapegoating the progressive thinkers and marginalised people for the problems caused by the politicians and the ultra-rich (4).
The war on schools, colleges and universities, as well as on the public libraries, museums and other educational sites by the ruling right-wing parties is an attempt to keep people from being aware of the true causes of their struggles. If focusing specifically on higher education, keeping academia limited or completely closed off, be it in the form of cosmic tuition fees, little-to-no accommodations for Disabled people, keeping articles behind a paywall, a huge one at that, treating dormitories and canteens like commodities, and so on, is to sentence lower-income and marginalised communities from getting both awareness and financial opportunities afterwards to either far-right radicalisation or potential death from poverty.
“Double dehumanisation” of the academics
In his book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (5) (one of my personal favourites of political literature of all time so far), Brazilian educator and thinker Paulo Freire argues that upholding the toxic power dynamics between the oppressor and the oppressed is deeply harmful and dehumanising not only for the former but for the latter as well. In my opinion, the educators and scientists (as well as medical workers, although it is a slightly different topic) suffer from what I choose to call “double dehumanisation”.
On one hand, educators’ (not only in higher education institutions but also in primary, secondary and other levels as well) and researchers’ intense emotional and intellectual labour is underpaid, overworked and, commonly, societally underrated (6, 7); in some fields, the job positions are highly competitive and not secure (8). Such treatment and conditions imply that such careers are viewed as not respectable and therefore are dehumanised (well, like any other labour in the current socioeconomic climate, but still). The more saddening fact is that educators are largely responsible for being the backbone of truly just and democratic societies around the world, and no wonder they (alongside the creatives) historically were significant targets of various repressive regimes. Or, in the words of a famous Armenian-American singer and activist, Serj Tankian (9) (in his 2012 song “Uneducated Democracy”):
“Without an education, there is no real democracy,
Without an education, there is only autocracy”.
But at the same time, many of them are treated with unquestioned authority, free of any biases and bigotry only “the commonfolk” possess, and therefore, absolutely all the research is never biased and should be assumed to be correct, just because one says so (more on that in the next subchapter) (10).
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Thus, treating the academic as both an underpaid and exhausted worker undeserving of better pay and conditions and a holy, untouchable, all-knowing entity fuels a specific kind of dehumanisation, which keeps the toxic cycle going.
Historical and contemporary complicities of (mostly Western) academia
Apart from pressures from the governments and the ultra-rich, academia also has a range of its own independent issues. Like any other institution, it is not an exception when it comes to enforcing systems of oppression. Eugenics used to be treated as a mainstream, totally legit science, deeply rooted in racism and ableism. Residential schools were a major tool in genocide against Indigenous peoples under the guise of education and making them “civilised”. Proper period products were not a thing until relatively recently, and we still use deeply uncomfortable, at least, and painful, at worst, speculums at the OB/GYN (11). Many doctors still believe Black people have “thicker” skin and don’t know how to care for patients with darker skin tones properly (12). Homosexuality and being transgender used to be considered a “mental illness”; intersex newborns are still undergoing unnecessary, invasive surgeries (13). If we consider all of the above so-called “science”, it is incredibly cruel and white/Western European, cishet male, and colonial.
It brings me back to one of my previous points. You cannot keep academia just and equitable and, therefore, truly open to everyone if we pretend that historical and modern-day systems of oppression and biases in it are not challenged. Keeping it diverse, centring, and actually listening to the most marginalised is one of the main keys to saving it. It keeps both the students and the future researchers, as well as the educators and scientists, safe from dehumanisation.
And by keeping everyone in academia safe and respected, removing barriers to it and fighting for fair working conditions, education becomes truly accessible to all, and therefore plays a huge role in battling the actual anti-intellectualism and rise of fascism.
References:
- https://spectator.com/article/bring-back-elitism/
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-intellectualism
- https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230525-why-young-workers-are-putting-in-so-much-overtime
- Abbas, T., & McNeil-Willson, R. (2025). From margins to extremes: economic factors, social integration and the radicalisation of European youth. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 46(5), 781–797. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2025.2565763
- Freire, P. (2017). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Classics. ISBN-13: 978–0241301111
- https://theconversation.com/survey-of-academics-finds-widespread-feelings-of-stress-and-overwork-130715
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-27985795
- Larson, R. C., Ghaffarzadegan, N., & Xue, Y. (2013). Too many PhD graduates or too few academic job openings: the basic reproductive number R0 in academia. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 31(6), 745–750. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2210
- https://genius.com/Serj-tankian-uneducated-democracy-lyrics
- Kozlowski, D., Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C. R., & Monroe-White, T. (2022). Intersectional inequalities in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(2). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113067119
- https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/women-redesigning-speculum/555167/
- Hoffman, K. M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J. R., & Oliver, M. N. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(16), 4296–4301. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516047113
- https://interactadvocates.org/intersex-resource-topics/treatment-and-outcomes/
