Interesting, but very, very saddening, to see and to sense the nature of emotional reactions among indoctrinated people toward, for instance, Assange and Manning.  Bound not to react to challenges by welcoming something beyond the limits of previous indoctrination, they feel first of all fear and self-righteous suspicions of “disloyalty” rather than respect for the possibility of being given much-needed information kept secret from them by a government which does not want its citizens (or others) to know exactly what it is doing.
  Without forethought, such indoctrinated people allow, even demand, that “whistle-blowers” working in the public interest, be pilloried. Only in after-thought, when the horrible anti-human information penetrates their awareness fully, do they become more understanding—and as a result of that understanding, more merciful.
  It is also significant that, for the most part, government officials also automatically react within the prejudices of their indoctrination. 
  When judgments in serious affairs are dominated by automatic reactions based on indoctrination, justice has a hard time surviving unless it is strongly supported by many people raising questions much more significant and humane than the reactions based on indoctrination.(I mean here specifically an understanding of the importance of the Internet for the future of democracy.)
  The Grand Irony is that Manning and Assange (who both in their way look like Michaelangelo’s angels on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel) probably both know better about the harm that dirty secrets about war do in a democracy than the people who are judging them, people who are even calling them “pigs” etc., and anticipating their punishment as “prison-brides” (Stratfor VP’s unbelievable crudity!)or their deaths.
  At present they may be the most heroic people in the world. The world’s people are being called to greatness in their defense.

gerard is quite right (or left?). And this rabid anti-intellectualism is displayed best by those who are glib, snippy, dismissive, arrogant, haughty and casually snooty…while decrying all of those characteristics in others. These are, of course, all traits we would want in our leaders. Romney THINKS he is better than everyone else in the room, Gingrich KNOWS he is, Santorum doesn’t want anyone in the room to be smarter than he is, and Ron Paul is…well, you figure it out. But the worst part may be that the media keeps advertising their claims without challenge.

Emile Z:  Interesting point, your “having an animus against systems of indoctrination” plus college/ university study as a system of indoctrination.
  My long experience has led me to see college/ university study as a means to free oneself from “systems of indotrination.”  Maybe it is because my “higher” education was one of the much-despised “liberal arts” variety because that particular type of education is probably broader than the more specialized categories such as the sciences, divinity studies and business administra- tion.
  I have always considered that breadth to be the reason why “liberal arts” (sometimes known as “the humanities”) are so despised by the right wing who seem not to want people to question “systems of indoctrination” with which they agree, such as religion and certain popular (though dysfunctional) political ideologies. “Cultural relativism”—indeed relativism itself—seems to rank as a great sin among right-wingers, even though the idea has pretty much proven itself to be a fairly functional notion over time.

@ gerard

I have an animus toward higher education to the extent that it functions as system of indoctrination, and for good reason, I believe.

Also, I quite frequently run into college students or those recently graduated who express the sentiment they are somehow entitled to a special place in society above those who have not graduated from college regardless of what they studied and whether or not it is beneficial to anyone other than themselves.

Yes, there are such creatures for whom snob is an appropriate description.

To be fair though, they have usually been encouraged to think this way, and it often wears off over time.

I just wanted to offer a sort of counterpoint to the discussion, in my own humble fashion, totally devoid of snobbery, snobbishness, or any hint of even the tiniest subconcious impulse to engage in such truly abbhorent conduct as would the lowly snob, which is quite beneath me.

Umm ... lying to the base with focus-group tested ideas?  A politician exposing himself as a hypocrite?  Nothing new here.  Sounds like politics as usual ... move on.

What Sirota calls “snobbery” here had better be recobnized for what it is:  Anti-intellectualism. It is a favorite attitude in America, caused, possiblly, by a history of raw territorial conquest which encouraged and required more brawn than brains.
  Roughly 3/4 (my guess) of the American people got stuck with this attitude, in spite of the efforts of the Founding Fathers (or some of them, at least) to guarantee rights that would work to prevent ignorance as the boundaries of the nation-state gradually expanded.  They hoped to “provide for the common welfare” (which, presumably, would include some efforts at democratic distribution of “book-learning”—a pioneer expression which clearly indicates that the inventors of the word also had in mind the (for them) more “practical” knowledge required in their daily lives of blood, sweat and tears. Few had college educations themselves, and few anticipated it for their children.
  Came time when the geographical limits of expansion came into view and the development of science and mechanics produced a need for workers provided with at least a high school education. Schools expanded and improved—until certain discoveries and theories began to push on reigious limits.  The fight was on.  The East Coast developed and maintained a certain respect for innovation, but the vast plains, mountains, canyons and rivers of Twain’s day still preserved a healthy disrespect for “book-learning.”
  Sadly, the animus against “higher” education still persists, below the level of consciousness, embedded by fears of “class warfare” and “elitism.” The fault is on both sides of this brain-war; each “side” sees the other as “inferior” and little is done to reduce the gap because one side can be “played” against the other for political gains.

Once you consider the dismal employment prospects and lower paying jobs in the economy, with the usury, peonage of the private college loan system, the value becomes even more suspect.  Couple that with the purposeful destruction of public education, and you get the dumbed down, unthinking population the elite desire.  Of course there is nothing out of the ordinary in a sleazebag rich white
man kicking away the ladder once he gets to the top.  How better to perpetuate the myth of meritocracy, and in Wingnut Rick’s case, Divine Intervention.