Now more than ever, people are less willing to think about a subject for more than one second. From the rise of short form media to using ChatGPT for homework answers, it’s clear that people’s attention has not been heavily focused on thinking hard about anything. The word anti-intellectualism has been a word that’s been circulating online and even in person, but has our society really devolved into one that has no care for analysis and critical thinking? 

Anti-intellectualism doesn’t have a direct definition, but a quick google search will tell you that Anti-Intellectualism is the general distrust of experts and intellectuals and their intellectual pursuits. 

So are people actually against intellectualism in our society? It depends on what you’re looking for. When thinking about youth, students are generally exhausted from different activities and don’t necessarily want to really dig into topics if they don’t have too. If an average high school student wants to go scroll on tiktok, they aren’t typically going to want to watch an analysis video on a book or watch a video essay on some obscure topic.

It also could just mean some people are just being plain lazy. In school many people use AI for all their answers or just flat out cheat on tests. Whether it’s English, math or any other subject, honors or not, most kids just don’t want to think about something because they don’t care. If there is an assignment that’s not worth much or quick, people will just cheat. They want to be able to get things done fast or won’t even complete it at all. 

There’s a lot of answers as to why so many students cheat or don’t really engage with assignments. A lot of the reason is the lack of interest in these assignments from the overall pressure to get things done. Most people only get this lazy and tired of doing assignments because they are forced to do so much. Society has a lot of standards they push onto highschoolers, like being in all AP and honors classes, while also playing varsity sports, participating in clubs, volunteering and other activities. 

Besides the pressure of doing so much in school, there’s also pressure to be “grinding” or maximizing your productivity all the time. Society pushes this notion of always grinding by always improving yourself in everything you do and being productive all the time in your workspace. These ideas push beyond the fold of just average American workspaces or gym culture and into our students’ lives. These pressures make people overall more anxious about their life and less likely to care about the assignment that doesn’t mean anything to them, so they can work on the next thing on their to-do list. 

So how does this relate to anti-intellectualism? The more that people are too tired to care or are too focused on being “productive,” the more critical thinking on the issues of the world go by the wayside. Our society places so much pressure that thinking about issues and work as a whole takes second and doing more comes first. 

But not all hope is lost. There are still so many people whether in school or in the workplace that don’t cheat on their assignments or like to have meaningful discussions on different issues or topics. There are always going to be people that make video essays on Youtube that make people truly think, or people that open up the conversation about different issues going on. Even though many people just don’t care, there is still always room to care more about the things you do and consume. Don’t worry that much about our society becoming “dumber” because there are always things to do to make you become more educated and fulfilled in life.