anti-elitism
Rejecting intellectual superiority
Anti-elitism is opposition to the influence of privileged or powerful groups—whether intellectual, political, economic, or cultural.
It can manifest as skepticism toward experts and institutions anti-elitism in politics, populist rhetoric against "the establishment," or rejection of highbrow tastes.
The stance ranges from principled democratic concern about concentrated power to dismissal of expertise itself: His anti-elitism made him distrust anyone with a graduate degree.
Politics favoring ordinary citizens
- grassrootsCommon people as political base
- working-classManual laborers as group
- everymanOrdinary representative person
- democracyRule by the people
egalitarianism · blue-collar · heartland · rank-and-file · townhall · referendum · recall · term-limits
Unwarranted claim to merit
- authenticityQuality of being genuine
- vernacularEveryday regional speech
- lowbrowLacking intellectual depth
- middlebrowAverage cultural taste
accessible · unpretentious · down-to-earth · salt-of-the-earth · plain-spoken · no-frills · mainstream
Hostility toward educated thought
- ivory-towerSheltered intellectual enclave
- common-senseBasic good judgment
- overeducatedSchooled beyond practical need
- book-learningKnowledge from study, not experience
populism
Politics favoring ordinary citizens
- grassrootsCommon people as political base
- working-classManual laborers as group
- everymanOrdinary representative person
democracy · egalitarianism · blue-collar · heartland · rank-and-file · townhall · referendum · recall · term-limits
pretension
Unwarranted claim to merit
- authenticityQuality of being genuine
- vernacularEveryday regional speech
- lowbrowLacking intellectual depth
middlebrow · accessible · unpretentious · down-to-earth · salt-of-the-earth · plain-spoken · no-frills · mainstream
anti-intellectualism
Hostility toward educated thought
- ivory-towerSheltered intellectual enclave
- common-senseBasic good judgment
- overeducatedSchooled beyond practical need
- populismpopulism, demagogue, demagoguery, anti-establishment, grassroots
- demagogueryrabble-rousing, fearmongering, fear mongering, scapegoating, pandering
- equalityequal, equal rights, equal opportunity, equal access, equal pay
- ideologiescapitalism, communism, conservatism, liberalism, socialism
- Jacksonian EraAndrew Jackson, Democratic Party, spoils system, Indian Removal Act, Trail of Tears
- nationalismpatriotism, national pride, national sovereignty, national identity, national symbols
anti-elitismelitism
Preference for privileged rule
technocracy · credentialism · noblesse oblige · meritocracy · guardianship
anti-elitismintellectualism
Emphasis on reasoning pursuits
snobbery · snobbishness · connoisseurship · cosmopolitanism · academicism
anti-elitismestablishmentarianism
Support for existing institutions