Authoritarian populism contra "Bildung": anti-intellectualism and the neoliberal assault on the Liberal Arts

• Main Author: Jeremiah Morelock
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro 2017-12-01
• Series: Cadernos CIMEAC
• Subjects: Liberal arts; Neoliberalism; Intellectuals; Populism; Authoritarianism
• Online Access: http://seer.uftm.edu.br/revistaeletronica/index.php/cimeac/article/view/2429/2384

A synergistic movement is taking place in American society combining authoritarian populism, the neoliberal transformation of the university, and anti-intellectualism. In the first part of this paper, I pin my notion of intellectualism (and hence anti-intellectualism) to a specific frame of reference, namely the German notion of "Bildung" as it is discussed in writings of Nietzsche and Adorno, which I associate loosely with the traditional American liberal arts model of higher education. In the second part of the paper, I outline the neoliberal assault on the liberal arts, rooting my analysis in Wendy Brown’s work, which is influenced by Foucault. In the third part of the paper, I describe the relationship of this anti-intellectualism to the rise of populism and the threat of authoritarianism in the United States. In the final section I tie the discussion into the general analysis of Horkheimer and Adorno’s analysis of fascist tendencies in liberal-democracies, emphasizing the continued relevance of their ideas to contemporary developments in education and beyond. Keywords: Liberal arts; Neoliberalism; Intellectuals; Populism; Authoritarianism.