The Death of Intelligence: Why Modern Society Celebrates Stupidity. Part Two - "Mass Brain Damage"

I wasn't going to make a part two i was going to go on with my life maybe get into bird watching or soap making but here we are... because apparently when you post a video gently suggesting that the US might be collapsing under the weight of its own stupidity people have opinions a lot of them and some of those opinions are what's the word terrifying so if you haven't seen the original video I made titled The Death of Intelligence you can find it easily on this channel.

0:54

okay let's buckle up. now look I I'm truly grateful for all the feedback i mean really it's been amazing even the guy who called me a soybased nihilist doom clown or whatever it was I'm paraphrasing. I mean hilarious i definitely laughed out loud but also inaccurate and kind of harsh i digress so this time we're going to go a little deeper this isn't just about the vibe of dumbness anymore we're going to dig deeper into where this anti-intellectual come anti-intellectualism comes from historically psychologically and systemically we're going to talk about the false equivalency thing the one where people said "How dare you imply that both political parties are contributing to this?"

Well you're right i mean they're not contributing equally but also that's not the point we'll get there and yes we'll address the people upset about the Reddit versus epidemiology thing i still believe science wins but I get it, greed ruins everything even truth. But more on that in a bit and finally we need to talk about the hundreds of people who dropped Dunning Krueger effect in the comments like they just discovered the holy grail of human psychology which to be fair they kind of did because it explains a lot but when everyone thinks everyone else is the Dunning Krueger person yeah we're still in a pile of trouble so let's rewind let's take this back not to the birth of civilization that's a different video but to the actual historical roots of anti-intellectualism because this isn't new. In fact, Richard Hoffadder Puliter Prizewinning historian wrote a book called Anti-intellectualism in American Life. He wrote this way back in 1963 which by the way I highly recommend reading so that was over 60 years ago this isn't some new Tik Tok trend where people think facts are elitist and everything smells like lavender vape and despair this has roots ugly tangled generational roots so Hoffadder traced anti-intellectualism through American culture like a coroner detailing the cause of death he pointed out how early American Protestantism already distrusted intellectual elites and the thinking was something like "We don't need your fancy Harvard degrees just give us the Bible and a pitchfork and we'll figure it out."

4:38

Now in some ways that attitude of instinct over intellect it never really left and don't get me wrong instinct it's a very useful mechanism in short-term context but it doesn't really function as a long-term strategic intellectual system which is what you need for a functioning society so in the 19th and early 20th century the US industrialized but the working class wasn't exactly encouraged to think critically they were trained to obey repeat and of course consume and intelligence became a liability in factories and eventually in politics and when the Cold War era arrived intellectuals were even seen as dangerous subversive communist adjacent eggheheads people who thought too much were accused of being unamerican and God forbid you don't want to be unamerican that's worse than being French. Just kidding no disrespect to the French

6:15

but here's the kicker this wasn't just a spontaneous cultural shift it was engineered propaganda media consolidation corporate influence you know these things didn't just accidentally make people stupider it was more efficient to keep people emotionally reactive and intellectually passive and critical thinking doesn't sell Bud Light or get you to buy five Snuggies at 3:00 a.m

so now we're swimming in that soup drowning in it really we have a society built on algorithms that reward anger echo chambers that reinforce our own ignorance and we have leaders who literally brag about not reading books it's not that people can't think it's that they're constantly punished for trying and that's where we are a culture that simultaneously demands expertise and then mocks it that screams "Do your own research" but never reads past the headline that hates elites but only the ones who read things.

7:50

Okay so let's talk about the two-party system because apparently I touched a nerve last time by saying that both political parties are contributing to the dumbification of society some people said "Whoa whoa whoa false equivalency one side is clearly worse."

@egx161

8 hours ago

We may need a part 3.

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(It is now 9:39 PM EDY, 11 June 2025)