Emily McFarland, Contributing Writer
VCU labels its students as “UNcommon” — different and better than our peers. Our college education grants us a degree, but more importantly, assurance that our superiority complex is grounded in reality.
Within the masters in social work program, I have heard that same elitist perspective being used to dehumanize those swayed by conservative rhetoric.
These future social workers decry “I could never work with a Trump supporter!” They giggle when a conservative is harmed by the policies their president instated. They point at research and ask how anyone could be so ignorant to disregard it.
Yes, the conservative coal miner with a bootstrap mentality and half a working lung is the pinnacle of societal evil. And yes, it is totally moral for future social workers to hypothetically deny service to ne’er-do-wells like him.
There seems to be a tendency to villainize those who do not trust science’s holy truth, framing them as simply stupid. We find it difficult to grant people the benefit of the doubt, to consider that they might just be less privileged people and equally capable of change as you and I.
In actuality, academic elitism is just a consequence of improper distribution of education and information.
But this notion is not new — it’s at least 500 years old.
In 1517, famous agitator Martin Luther utilized the recently-invented printing press to publish cheap, inflammatory pamphlets criticizing the Catholic church, a reaction to the institution’s exclusive and elitist practices.
Luther’s words quickly became gospel, not because the man himself was particularly enlightened — or moral — but because his advocacy prioritized accessibility. His story stands as evidence that elitism only survives when we refuse to decentralize knowledge.
The printing press allowed for a media revolution — information became readily accessible to anyone who could read it. The only comparable revolution is that which we are currently living in, sparked by the internet and social media.
Like Luther, anyone these days can disseminate their ideas upon the masses; all they need is a computer. Mirroring how the first publishing companies preferred printing inflammatory works, social media algorithms promote sensationalist content, regardless of its truth value.
Conservative populism is inescapable. Social media has blurred the line between “influencer” and “politician.” It’s hard to distinguish between them when we see our congressmen and cabinet members — as well as the president and vice president themselves — appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Conservative pundits have mastered the act of using social media to appeal to the common man. This has made it easy to peddle their ideals about vaccines, immigration, equality and economics.
These ideals do not have to be rooted in truth, but in accessibility.
Countless researchers have proven many conservative talking points as blatantly false: vaccines do not cause autism, climate change is real, America is not an equitable society and so on. How is it then that conservatives are successfully seeding mistrust in science and academia?
As much as academia would like to distinguish itself from 16th century Catholicism, universities are intrinsically elitist and exclusionary. Just as the Catholic church only printed expensive literature, modern research is often paywalled. Just as the Catholic church only wrote in Latin, research is only written in jargon meant to be understood by other over-educated academics. Just as the Catholic cardinals only socialized among elites, academics often seclude themselves within exclusive circles instead of widely distributing information.
While conservative populists unite the masses under the guise of truth, our academics are content to sit idly, guarding their precious information as their public credibility crumbles.
It took nearly 200 years of gruesome wars between Catholics and Protestants before concrete knowledge became accessible to the common people. I hope my generation of researchers can learn from this bloody history — it shouldn’t take centuries of conflict to realize that we should be working with the masses, not alienating them from knowledge.