Anti-Intellectualism on the Rise

The last employees departed from the science division of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last week, leaving the division completely unstaffed, according to a Friday report by CBS News.

CBS News reported, citing unnamed sources, that the division was unstaffed as of Friday, but noted the White House may assign the policy subjects previously handled by the division to other staff within the office.

Eleanor Celeste, formerly the office’s assistant director for biomedical and forensic sciences, tweeted a farewell on Friday.

Some history:

"The head of the NRA said: "academic elites, political elites, and media elites. These are America’s greatest domestic threats".

This should trouble you - especially the academic elites part - as most horrible authoritarian governments begin by targeting intellectuals.

Mao bragged, "Emperor Shih Huang of the China Dynasty.. had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars." The Khmer Rouge murdered anyone who wore eyeglasses on the assumption that they could read and were an intellectual. Franco was violently anti-intellectual, which is why your favorite writers were all off fighting the Spanish civil war. The Night of the Long Batons where libraries were burnt, and academics ousted from housing ushered in Onganía's dictatorship in Argentina. And I forgot the best one of all - "When I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver." (By Nazi playwright Hanns Johst.) ... Lenin's regime began by exiling 220 prominent intellectuals on "philosopher's ships."