I believe I have made a big breakthrough in why the right is so anti-intellectual

[DuaneBidoux]

Although it is just anecdotal, and I think it would deserve much more research, it seems there is something here:

Let’s just look at the education of some of the leading liberal and conservative commentators :

Keith Olberman: Graduated with a BS in communication at Cornell at the age of 16
Chris Matthews: Masters in Economics from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Rachel Maddow: Doctor of philosophy in political science at Oxford
Rush Limbaugh: college dropout (two semesters)
Sean Hannity: college dropout
Glenn Beck: college dropout (one semester)

So here’s the deal: conservatives look around and see that liberals, on average, are much more educated than conservatives. This leaves them with two choices: Either they denigrate education as being unimportant or admit that it is important and that conservatives are conservatives simply because they are uneducated. Given those two options it is obviously much safer on the ego to, as conservatives usually do, blame “The Other,” which in this case is the “liberal” educational system.

I also have another anecdotal thought about Fox’s ratings success. There are many more high school graduates than college graduates. College graduates are rarely going to seek out high school graduates for information and since there are many fewer college graduates (I think it is 3 to 1) then because of this factor alone Fox stands a better chance of better ratings than the others news networks.

The other anecdotal evidence I think about comes from my own family: both of my older parents watch Fox and can’t even get email let alone surf the net for information. I would bet anything that the average liberal gets much more information on the Internet than on tv. Thus people like Rachel Maddow get a very small part of the pie of liberals looking for information.

For those of you who have little or no college please don’t get offended at this assessment. I once heard a great quote: “Not all conservatives are uneducated, but most uneducated people are conservatives.” I guess that would be where I put this. You can still be an informed person who understands the world without education. I’m sure it happens. It’s just one hell of a lot harder to do, and few conservatives seem to manage.