A Classic with a Renewed Relevance: Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1964)

A Classic with a Renewed Relevance: Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1964):

Figure 1: My copy of Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1964) by Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970).

New reading material. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) by Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970). Although written more than 60 years ago, this book has a renewed relevance, today, given the distinctly anti-intellectual movements of MAGA, Christian Nationalism, Climate-change denial, etc. One cannot understand American anti-intellectualism without understanding its brand of Christianity, which is why Hofstadter devotes three whole chapters to critiquing American Evangelical Christianity.

America still, overwhelmingly, practises a religion that extols the virtues of sheep and unthinking little children; that tells its adherents not to be taken captive by philosophy; and that tells them to not lean upon their own understanding. The “carnal mind”—i.e. the mind as explained by neuroscience—is something to be distrusted, in Evangelical circles. As Dennis McKinsey (1940–2009), points out: it is impossible for America to remain a secular enlightened democracy, when millions of Americans think—or rather refuse to think—this way.

Figure 2: The late great Dennis McKinsey (1939–2009), the author of The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy (1995). McKinsey believed that the time and money spent trying to shore up secularism in the courts could be better spent on trying to deconvert more Christians. In the letters section of his periodical, Biblical Errancy, he and Dan Barker discussed a difference of tactics in this regard.

To attempt to understand American anti-intellectualism without understanding its anti-intellectual religion would be dishonest, and Hofstadter, to his credit, does not shy away from critiquing Christianity in his exploration of American anti-intellectualism.

Anti-intellectualism is a puzzling phenomenon. Americans would rather vote for people who loudly and proudly vaunt their ignorance—as though that were a virtue!—rather than for people quietly confident in asserting what they know from years upon years of reading and study. Hofstadter uses the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) as a case in point. The brilliant intellectual, Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965), Eisenhower’s opponent, is whom the American electorate would have voted for, if they valued brains. However, the American public turned down Adlai Stevenson in favour of Dwight D. Eisenhower… twice!

Figure 3: Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965). According to Hofstadter, he was the choice of the intellectual classes… but the American electorate had other ideas.

Hofstadter points out that the American populace has been at war with the life of the mind for a very long time.

Hofstadter points out that anti-intellectualism causes the ‘vulgarization’ of politics. Is anyone more vulgar than Trump?

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Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.

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Video: The 3rd Creation Account in the Bible:

The 3^rd Creation Account in the Old Testament:

Introduction:

Jennifer Bird PhD asked, in a thumbnail, the question: How many creation accounts are there in the Bible?

Video 1: In the above video, Jennifer Bird PhD asks how many creation stories there be in the Christian Bible. I think that the correct answer is “3”, although, unfortunately, I have not yet viewed this video.

I know of three. I discuss all of them in the below video, but, in particular, the lesser known 3^rd creation account, where the Jewish god slays a female sea-monster called Rahab, and fashions the created world with her body. I call attention to the Egyptian sky goddess Nut or Nuit who, seems to me to resemble Rahab, in some respects.

Figure 1: The Egyptian Sky Goddess, Nut. According to wikipedia, Nut features in the creation myth of Heliopolis. credit: Eternal Space. Creative Commons.

Video 2: My video on the 3^rd creation account in the Old Testament. In the thumbnail, pictured, the scroll, in the top left reads:

Figure 2: An Isaiah Scroll that I drew. Written on it in Hebrew is: ‘סֵ֫פֶר־יְשַׁעְיָ֫הוּ‚, or, transliterated: ‘sḗp̲er-yəšaʿyā́hû’, which means: ‘the Book of Isaiah’.

The scroll in this thumbnail reads, in Hebrew: ‘The Book of Isaiah’ wherefrom I read in this video, and, in particular, from ch. 27 v.1. I employ the Legacy Standard Bible, in this video, because, as Kipp Davis points out: we really ought to translate the tetragrammaton as ‘Yahweh’ and not as ‘LORD’. The LSB is to be commended for doing this.

My Video Transcript:

(My video transcript for this video may be viewed as a word document.)

CIARÁN AODH MAC ARDGHAIL: “The third creation account in the Bible: and the version of the Bible that we are reading is John MacArthur’s Legacy Standard Bible and the reason why I use this is because Kipp Davis says that ‘LORD’ is really a mistranslation whenever we see yod hey vav hey [יהוה], in Hebrew, we should really translate that as ‘Yahweh’ and not as ‘LORD’. Most Bibles translate the tetragrammaton— tetragrammaton [τετραγράμματον] is really a Greek word that means: ‘four-lettered-thing’ ‘tetra-’ [‹τετρα-›], in Greek, means: ‘four’; ‘grắmma’ [‹γρᾰ́μμᾰ›], in Greek, means ‘letter’, and: ‘-on’ [‹-ον›], in Greek, means ‘thing’, so the ‘tetragrammaton’ is: ‘the four-lettered thing’, and the four letters are the Hebrew letters yod hey vav hey, and whenever we see yod hey vav hey, I agree with Kipp Davis we should translate it as ‘Yahweh’ and not as ‘LORD’, and the Legacy Standard Bible does this admirably and there are at least three creation accounts in the Bible. Jennifer Bird recently did a show: How Many Creation Accounts Are There in the Bible? and if you are a Fundamentalist or an Evangelical who adheres to biblical inerrancy, then you most likely would say ‘one’, however if you do not adhere to biblical inerrancy then it’s quite obvious that in the Book of Genesis there are two conflicting creation accounts: the Elohim creation account and the Jehovitic or Yahwistic creation account and these two accounts are completely contrary to one another. One creation account takes seven days whereas the other one takes only one day. I think the second creation account, which I think is the Jehovitic creation account: it begins with ‘in the day when God created the heavens and the Earth...’, whereas the previous creation account; the Elohim creation account; it takes 6 days and then God rests on the seventh day, which is ‘shabbath’ [‘שַׁבָּ֫ת‚] or ‘sabbath’ or ‘Saturday’ and that’s why the Ten Commandments tell us to keep Saturday . ‘Sabbath’ is a mistranslation. ‘shabbath’ [‘שַׁבָּ֫ת‚] means ‘Saturday’, so it’s not keep... the Commandment is not: ‘keep the Sabbath!’ it’s ‘Keep Saturday!’ or ‘keep the...’ ‘keep the seventh day!’ so I mean these people want to hang the Ten Commandments everywhere: they breach at least one of them because they don’t keep Saturday and I think even in the wording of the Ten Commandments it says ‘You must keep Saturday because on Saturday God rested!’ God didn’t rest on Sunday, indeed Sunday was the day he began the creative work... however that is its own tangent... so there are at least two creation accounts in the Bible and these are found in the Book of Genesis, [in] the opening two chapters, however there is also a third creation account in the Bible, and this is an account where the Jewish god slays a Great Serpent and then I think creates the ‘firmament’ the ‘raqî́yan͡g’ [‘רַקִ֫יעַ‚] or the ‘sky’ with the body of this great sea serpent and this great sea serpent is called ‘רַהַב‚ or ‘Rahab’, so this is another creation account and it’s very similar to the Egyptian creation account where I think it’s the goddess Nuit, one of the Gods takes goddess Nuit and puts her up in the sky and she becomes the sky... so there is another creation account in the Bible and we see glimpses of it... I think the redactors tried to get rid of it but they didn’t get rid of it completely, and here we see in Isaiah chapter 27:

‘In that day Yahweh will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.’

so there is this myth referred to periodically in the Old Testament of Yahweh killing a great sea dragon and I think the biblical Scholars say that this is in reference to the earlier creation myth where the Jewish god killed Rahab and then created the sky with her body and that was the means in the Book of Genesis: it talks about God stretching out the heavens and dividing the waters that are beneath the [‘רַקִ֫יעַ‚] ‘raqî́yan͡g’ or ‘firmament’ and the waters above the [‘רַקִ֫יעַ‚] ‘raqî́yan͡g’ or ‘firmament’ and perhaps this is how he did it: he killed Rahab and he used Rahab’s body to divide the waters from beneath the firmament from the waters above the firmament and so I just thought that I would discuss this because Jennifer Bird has already discussed it and I find it extremely interesting.”

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Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.