Anti-Intellectualism, Elitism and Long-Form Writing
“I would never read a book. I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”
In an age of stark anti-intellectualism and rabid hustle culture, it can be difficult to accurately guess who stated the above quote. It could be a tech bro on Tiktok that insists that years of research and insight can (and should) be communicated as small nuggets of information consumable during a workout, and that the consumption of such nuggets equates to the insight gained by the researchers themselves. It could also be a political commentator fervently asserting behind a “news” desk that intellectualism is a form of leftist elitism that is contributing to cultural and ethical decay.
The real culprit, however, is a billionaire conman who has drained millions from unsuspecting supporters-turned-victims.
I guess that still doesn’t narrow it down. Could it be Donald Trump? Elon Musk?
It was actually Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire CEO of the crypto trading platform FTX. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) recently resigned as CEO following the platform’s bankruptcy, which saw billions and billions of dollars evaporate overnight. A comprehensive summary can be found from the Wall Street Journal, but a wildly oversimplified explanation is as follows: Through alleged mismanagement and fraud, SBF knowingly misled investors and contributed to the downfall of FTX and its trading firm Alameda Research. Its victims include everybody from the 9-to-5 working man to celebrities and billionaires.
Side note: It’s worth mentioning that this is a primary reason why SBF will face criminal prosecution. Fraud is commonplace on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. However, when it’s primarily rich people that lose money, the culprits are significantly more likely to face consequences; think Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff. The scofflaws and swindlers preying on middle-class investors can rest easy.
The quote above is part of a conversation between SBF and Adam Fisher, which was originally published on Sequoia Capital’s website. It has since been scrubbed, but you can find the archive here.
SBF is the epitome of the privileged, insulated luminary-turned-fraud who enjoyed his proximity to power via his Stanford professor parents. Educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SBF found himself working at a trading firm following his graduation with a degree in physics. As a member of a family that includes Stanford professors, Wall Street traders, and a Columbia University dean, he was no stranger to elite circles.
Beyond his degree from MIT, SBF had no additional education or experience to justify his position at FTX. There was nothing about him to suggest he would be successful, not an obvious work ethic, vision, or wealth of knowledge and insight.
There is this unfortunate (and positively grotesque) notion that rich people, especially billionaires, are the smartest and most hard working in society. Additionally, this American myth includes the platitude that anybody in this country can become rich. This completely ignores the systemic effects of intergenerational wealth, societal elitism, and geographical exclusion. Billionaires argue that they’ve worked hard and that they deserve the fortunes that they’ve accumulated.
That idea can be litigated elsewhere, as that is not the topic of this specific discussion (though it’s probably clear where I land on that). The topic to discuss here is whether or not a stupid person or a lazy person can become a billionaire.
Given SBF’s success and acclaim, the obvious answer to this question is a resounding yes.
So should his supposed success and net worth amplify his ideas and perspectives disproportionate attention?
Of course not. I mean, in what world does SBF’s opinion on reading even matter? I would have said that before the fall of FTX. But his billionaire status afforded him a greater audience. Now, his lack of intelligence and skill is evidenced by his abject failure in the crypto market. It’s made further obvious by his likening of long-form writers as “failures”.
Which brings us to an important point, one that was raised by Van Lathan, Jr. earlier this month. (Note: the video below includes some NSFW language.)
Please read Books. pic.twitter.com/B1OJ1LJxJD
— Van Lathan Jr (@VanLathan) December 3, 2022
Here’s the TLDR; books provide a compiled, authoritative, and accessible medium to communicate broad and intensely influential ideas that affect millions of people every day. If someone wants to learn about something, there is almost certainly a book to help teach you. And we should all be reading more.
As you can see from the tweet, this point attracted some discourse and backlash. Some of it is fair, as many books are expensive and therefore remain out of reach from a number of people. Additionally, there is something to be said of the control of production and information. However, the notion that books exist to “brainwash” individuals is nonsense. If this were true, I don’t think many for-profit publishers would elect to publish Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs, or Richard Wolff’s Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism (nor would distributers, such as Amazon, sell them). At the end of the day, these books can be sold for profit, so publishers and distributors will continue to do that. There are also countless free books available online, legally and illegally.
UNC’s Dr. Tressie McMillann Cottom tweeted her own ideas, arguing that this move toward anti-intellectualism within the crypto space may have strong overlap with those individuals that seek external validation. Reading inherently involves an internal dialogue, whereas those with poor reading skills (i.e., a poor inner dialogue) seek out high-risk, speculative, status-driven distractions. Reading, therefore, is inherently at odds with crypto culture; indeed, it may be at odds with capitalism entirely, as it intentionally and inherently prioritizes nuance and pacing while deprioritizing cost analysis and return (though there is no doubt that reading has its personal and social returns).
Of course, anti-intellectualism in contemporary culture extends well beyond the crypto space. There is a fair amount of hatred and disdain aimed toward pretention and intellectualized behavior, such as reading. Admittedly, it’s not entirely unearned. Coming face-to-face with a snub-faced know-it-all can be obnoxious. However, that is a matter of social skill.
This notion is also finding commonplace in some leftist circles, mostly related to anti-elitism. There is an assumed overlap between the intellectuals and the societal elite. This is natural, given the aforementioned Puritanical myth regarding hard work and wealth. The rich are seen as the intellectuals, so the intellectuals must be comprised of the rich. But this is largely untrue. Yes, legacy educational institutions play a major role in maintaining the social order. However, the Venn diagram that comprises society’s rich and society’s intellectuals is not a circle. SBF is proof that. He is not an intellectual; in fact, he’s rather unintelligent and uninspiring. The same can be said of other billionaires.
There is a much larger conversation to have about the way the wealthy hijack higher education to maintain their place in society. Their plutocratic endeavors extend to include thinktanks, sponsored educational outlets, bought-and-paid-for public intellectuals and, of course, a fair share of Congress people. But that is a conversation about wealth and corruption, not one about intellectualism.
The ideas of self-enrichment and education merit our attention and prioritization. It is a precise component of an antidote that our society desperately needs as it drifts uncomfortably close to authoritarian plutocracy.
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Cover photo courtesy of K. Mitch Hodge.