Anti Intellectualism And Anti-Intellectualism By Mark Twain

Anti-intellectualism was first proposed in an American historian Hofstadter Richard's book "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life". As Anti-intellectualism has different forms in different countries, he did not give a precise definition for "anti-intellectualism". However, he mentioned a rough definition for it: Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy, and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical and even contemptible human pursuits. Anti-intellectuals present themselves and are perceived as champions of common folk-populists against political and academic elitism-and tend to see educated people as a status …show more content…
Mark Twain was a famous writer and speaker of American, and we can see a lot of thoughts about anti-intellectualism in his works. Mark Twain himself would be not acutely aware of this at the time of writing these novels, and he was never publicly declared his against for the intellectuals. However, he did in his novels. He disdains any non-pragmatism education, and the doctors who needed professional training, and the ancient art of Europe, which all without excepted show that he was not aware of the tendency of his …show more content…
These can be roughly divided into three large parts. First, he scorned education. On the one hand, he shows that the growth of human beings is not related to education, but is realized in the process of escaping civilization. On the other hand, he affirmed the role of education in the cultivation of civilized society. And there was no contradiction between the two views. Because of he refers to a kind of social contact and understands the pragmatism of the society, to adapt to the social education, it can be spontaneous, unconsciously, like the growth education of huckleberry; it can also be organized and conscious, like Hank Morgan the character in his novel of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", who promoted by professional education. Both have anti-intellectualism, but the latter tend to have dictatorial tendencies in addition to anti-intellectualism. Let's talk about Hack's anti-intellectualism in the novel of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Huck has been adopted by the widow Douglas, a widow does her best to want to hack into a cultured Christian, but he can't accept this kind of boring and regular life: "living in the house is a difficult thing, you know the widow has always been a tedious, step-by-step, pay attention to decent people. I can't stand her, and I'll get out. When I wore tattered clothes, and I was free and content with a