The Nine Circles of Anti-Intellectualism

On a journey through a hell of our own making.

Dante’s Inferno, the first of three parts of Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s journey to God, is an epic poem depicting Dante’s descent into hell. Though Dante’s tale is the most famous depiction of hell, it is by no means the only one or the most unsettling. It is increasingly clear that hell is not limited to the hands of a wrathful god but a proven possibility among mortals.

One hell that society is well versed with is social media. Hiding behind their screens, people are armed with the freedom to spew hateful and incorrect things. In spite of close access to the Internet, language has never been more butchered in the hands of digital dwellers. Any and all words or phrases with three syllables or more are bastardised into toy swords, wielded for online squabbles. The weapon of choice at the moment is ‘anti-intellectualism.’

Anti-intellectualism is hostility to intellect, intellectualism and intellectuals. It is expressed through the depreciation of art and the humanities as time-wasting and pointless in the wider scheme of society’s progression. Anti-intellectuals often present themselves as champions for the people as they believe people interested in pursuing intellect are elitist. But the problem is not knowledge, the problem is that it is limited to a wealthy few. The desire to seek knowledge and to create art are innate to us as human beings. You cannot present yourself as a champion for people when you fight against that.

Like sin, anti-intellectualism manifests itself in various ways. It is a fiendish terrain and the journey seems to be endless.

Misuse of pretension 

Partially why we’re here in the first place. In the dictionary, pretentiousness is defined as the quality of trying to make yourself appear or sound more important or clever than you are. On the Internet, pretentiousness means someone expressing interest in art that other people are unfamiliar with. Whether it’s an old film, foreign or both, people, especially artists, cannot express their love for these pieces of art without a mob surrounding them. Earlier this year in an interview, actor Austin Butler shared that his favourite childhood was spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). People felt his answer was pretentious because of the film’s age, in spite of the fact that westerns are one of the least ‘pretentious’ film genres. Butler credited his father for getting him into the film which makes the accusations even more strange. Of course artists are likely to engage with art the general public haven’t heard of before. It is how they develop and improve their craft. People claim to love art but are hostile towards the process. The misuse of pretension is also a misidentification, for it is the mob that is putting up a front of superiority. No one wants to engage with art created by people who hate it.

Incuriosity

This circle is very close neighbours with the first circle of anti-intellectualism. People happen across something and their knee-jerk reaction is to mock it, instead of wanting to know more. Yet, people love using multisyllabic words they barely love to win arguments. It is all about the appearance of intellect and only that. We should want to be challenged, we should want to progress. Incuriosity often gives way to bigotry. White, cishet men have everything catered to them in art and intellect, often at the expense of marginalised people. There is nothing for them to be curious about. When a piece of art is created by POC, women, members of LGBTQ+, disabled people for other people in that group, privileged groups feel a sense of discomfort that they name as something equal to the oppression that marginalised people have faced for centuries that prevented them from exhibiting their art in the first place. “They are being forced to confront their incuriosity, and they resent it.” observes Martin Weller on his blog. It’s the same mindset people have to foreign films. Subtitles have granted us access to a wider range of stories yet people treat them like hindrances. Incuriosity encourages the silencing of marginalised voices to maintain the limited white, male, cishet Western view of the world. 

Those ‘Eastern European cinema’ TikToks

Xenophobia formed within the circle of incuriosity has magnified and become its own circle. In a bid to make fun of “film bros” (another phrase that has been misused on social media), TikTok users rag on Eastern European films. It is always this specific region because it is the furthest East these TikTokers can go without being racist. Cowardice is often a trait found among the unintelligent. 

First resident of the third circle of anti-intellectualism.

These posts fail to make the films they’re insulting uninteresting. Quite the opposite. Upon further research, the film in question is The Painted Bird (2019). The area in Eastern Europe is never identified. It is a co-production between three countries, none of them being Serbia. It is an adaptation of a book of the same name, written by Jerzy Kosiński, a Polish-American author. In turn, TikTokers who make these posts make the films they’re defending less palatable. They also participate in a lot of hypocrisy. The Painted Bird being almost 3 hours in length is a point against it but Avengers: Endgame released in the same year is over 3 hours. Surely military propaganda being that long makes it ineffective? As for it being black and white, it’s a film created in the 21st century so clearly that is a stylistic choice. Either way, denigrating a black and white film because you assume it will be boring is not the mindset of someone who is old enough to be on social media making these posts in the first place. The film follows a young boy, not a pigeon. Even if it did, that is something refreshing and would attract audiences, not repel them. Maybe The Painted Bird is exactly what executives and audiences need to see.

The decrease of spaces dedicated to art

The topic of cultural venue closures has been focused on cinemas, bookshops, clubs, cafes but the lack of spaces dedicated for art starts in much earlier stages. It begins in primary schools when children are given less and less time to draw and create outside of their studies. It continues in high school and sixth form when drama productions are cancelled and courses are discontinued due to lack of resources. It festers in higher education when the government slashes funding for arts degrees in favour of STEM ones and when they refer to art degrees as ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ in a bid to devalue them. The government is not neglecting the arts industry; it is actively dismantling it. People who love art have few physical spaces to engage with it. Aspiring artists have no place to be inspired in and working artists have nowhere to meet. With every closure, a past is lost forever and a future is obliterated. The government insists on selling the lie that the arts aren’t viable but the industry brings billions to the UK economy every year. Why is so little of it being invested back into these spaces?

Art engagement being branded as media consumption

Or worse, content consumption. No one knows more than artists that words have power. Art executives are using that power against artists to disparage the arts while demanding money from audiences. When executives push the production of content instead of art, no wonder engaging with it becomes a derogatory term. Every film, book, song is stripped down to its monetary value. Time is a very important quality for art. Art is often reflective of an important time in an artist's life. It takes time to create, time to digest with an audience. A long time with art is never a waste. Devaluing the engagement of art leads to devaluing art which means that greedy executives get away with limiting who can create art. And often, it is art from people within marginalised communities that are deemed a risk. This circle of anti-intellectualism is managed by executives that don’t know anything about art, business or anything really. After all, profits cannot be increased when the possibilities of art are limited.

The pushback against physical media

Among their avarice, the reason why streaming services refuse to pay residuals is because that money is spent sponsoring this circle. Streaming as an alternative to home viewing blew up in a way that was completely unexpected but over a decade has passed; its novelty has worn off. You can be subscribed to 4 different services but the one film you want to watch on a Friday night is on the one streaming service you don’t use. TV shows are cancelled after 1 season. Films and TV shows are even removed from existence entirely. Streaming services are desperate to hold onto audiences’ attention, especially Netflix who has been most affected by streaming’s loss of novelty. Netflix has lost its monopoly, so in a mad bid to maintain it, wishes to eliminate physical media. Streaming is so convenient that audiences can no longer engage with art at home. CEOs stress that this is about money but why cut a potential for profit that has been beloved by audiences for decades? It’s not only the loss of DVDs, it’s also the loss of the behind the scenes, bonus features, bloopers and all the magic of filmmaking that audiences could access. We cannot boast at how technologically advanced as a society we are if we’re using it against art conservation. Audiences’ tastes aren’t changing, art executives no longer care to cater to them. 

Art criticism conflated with ‘hater culture’

With the devaluing of art as ‘content’, comes the devaluing of art criticism. There is barely time to look at it all, let alone to sit down and form an opinion on it. That is deliberate. If you dare to critique art, you are bombarded with choruses of “Let people have fun!”, “You hate fun!”, “You have to turn your brain off!” The last one is baffling as a form of defence against criticism because how can you say art is good if you literally cannot engage with it at all, let alone critically? Like a lot of anti-intellectual behaviours, the attacks against art criticism are being encouraged by executives wanting to ensure profit. We’re seeing journalists replaced from red carpets and press junkets with influencers, who needless to say, do not know what they are doing. The push for content instead of art is clogging up our ability to express ourselves as audiences, critics and as human beings.

Art only being in the hands of wealthy people

With all the efforts in the previous circles to limit who creates art, it is no wonder there’s one where only wealthy people are artists. This circle is mostly populated by nepo babies who act like acknowledging their privilege is a great burden. The performance of this victimhood possesses more talent than they’re able to express on the job. Wealthy people are infamous for their myopic view of the world and that is reflected in their art. This can be seen in the recent spike of films boasting class commentary. When ‘eat the rich’ becomes a genre of art, created by trust fund kids, the commentary’s edge is immediately dulled. Not everyone is capable of making a Parasite. They love to insert a pretence of understanding in their mediocre art but fail to express this sentiment in real life. Of course people can create art about experiences out of their own but often wealthy people lack the care, effort and empathy to do this well. While we resent those wealthy hobbyists, we certainly understand them. “Everyone is an artist until rent is due.” The arts industry is able to welcome perspectives from all backgrounds, those in charge have chosen to neglect them. Humanity is beautiful in its variety, that should be reflected in art. 

A.I

At the core of anti-intellectualism is resentment. Knowledge is freely available but people don’t care to seek it out. Yet they’re spiteful of those who do. All of the circles highlight how artistic expression, the very essence of our humanity, is a risk at every turn. Yet there are still people who choose the arts as a career choice. Those who took that leap are subjected to the envy of those who didn’t. That’s why people who aren’t artists are so excited about artificial intelligence. The exclusion of human beings from the arts is part of the appeal. What anti-art fans don’t understand is that the key element in art is its humanity. Without it, A.I is simply a mediocre imitation, scraps from the good art it stole from. A.I being forced onto us as this revolutionary technology but it is inferior in everything it does. It doesn’t make art, it makes up things that were never said in transcriptions, it is destroying our planet. But as long as A.I provides executives the opportunity to fill their pockets of the wages that rightfully belong to artists, mediocrity led by A.I will be the way. 

The depths of anti-intellectualism go beyond the misuse of the word online. We’re in an age where vast amounts of knowledge are at our fingertips yet the environment we’re in doesn’t encourage us to engage with it. Handing over art to robots is not innovation, it is inhibition. Those in power can lounge with their stolen wages and mediocre art while they narrow our lives to work even more but they will share our fate. Cursed are the greedy few, for they shall rid humanity of its singularity.