Comment by radiofreeeuropa

I came to this book too late for the core message to resonate as far as mindset and methods (yeah, yeah, I found this path and walked at least this far on it already, you're preaching to the choir, should have read this when I was like 10 or 12 I guess...) but did make the mistake of dismissing an absolute chorus of warnings about anti-intellectualism from Sagan and a dozen other authors I read as a kid and in my 20s (which warnings, yes, were a significant component of this book)

They were all from roughly the same time period, and I thought their focus on that particular issue was overblown. A relic of the time they'd lived through and their efforts, which efforts had gotten us here, where anti-intellectualism is a curiosity, periodically an annoyance, but not a threat. Sure, we could swing back toward that being a real concern, but it'd take a while. We'd see it.

What's weird is I could also list a bunch of ways that we were swinging back toward it. I think on some level I just didn't believe that these kinds of big shifts backwards could happen, actually and not just in shootin'-the-shit discussions with friends, in my lifetime. Bumps on the road of progress, sure, but going backwards entirely? I even shied away from labeling authoritarian-enabling changes, policies, or actions "fascist", even as I literally protested some of them in the street—well, that's alarmist, surely. It's silly and childish that I was embarrassed of the term.

It's so damn foolish when I look back on it. I had so many of the particulars right, but just couldn't believe in something so big actually happening, I guess. I'd have told you that sure, it could, if you'd asked, even outlined a plausible path from here to there based on recent and current goings-on... but I didn't believe it might happen. Not really.