Dostoevsky, Intellectual Vanity

I was reading an article written by Dostoevsky, broadly about literacy, and while wholly promoting its desirability and spreading in 1860s Russia, he addressed one apparent point of the time which was a considerably higher proportion of literary peasants ending up in jail than the much more numerous illiterate. Just the line I’ll show seems very appropriate as to why it is from academic circles so much toxic and inane ‘progressive’ ideas emanate. Remember just because one is dealing with fields such as social philosophy doesn’t mean human nature has obediently left the scene! There can be all too human kinds of vanities and egotistical desires lurking within such sphere, and in truth the whole essence of of various movements, isms - socialism, fascism, etc - is to be vehicles for those desires. Anyway Dostoevsky’s line:

All we wished to show was how literacy as a kind of privilege can give rise to arrogance and presumptuousness and lack of respect for one’s own environment and social position.

And so with their various progressive theories, critical race theory, etc bred within the academic environments, that for their protagonists are felt internally as marks of their superiority over the ignorant hordes, and vehicles of power over them, well Dostoevsky’s line above gives us the underlying psychological essence of all this inane intellectual perversion. Also regarding “lack of respect for one’s own environment”: disrespecting one’s own nation’s flag or anthem is one of the most obvious visible manifestations of modern progressivism, even perhaps when paid in sport to represent that nation!