by Elizabeth J. Carter

In a recent poll taken on the AdjunctNation.com website, we asked our visitors to tell us whether they think anti-intellectualism is on the rise. A startling 86 percent said yes. Our poll format does not allow voters to append their yeas, nays, and maybes with written explanations, but, in this case, I would have attempted fifty clap push-ups to know what those poll takers were thinking—or, as I briefly suspected, smoking. Because I must confess that a part of me said to myself: They can’t be right!

Our website visitors are smart and thoughtful people, though. Many of them, moreover, stand squarely each day in the trenches of American higher education, teaching the products of our often strange and idiotic culture—the kids who buy their papers off the Web, sincerely believe that the word “through” is spelled “thru,” and think it’s fine, dude, to clip their toenails in class. (They’re paying tuition, after all!) I must therefore take their conclusions seriously. And if they are right that anti-intellectualism is on the rise, what does it mean for the future?

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