One of the most aggravating things to me in this world has to be the absolutely rampant anti-intellectualism that dominates so many conversations and debates, and its influence just seems to be expanding. Do you think there will ever actually be a time when this ends? I'd hope so once people become more educated and cultural changes eventually happen, but as of now it honestly infuriates me like few things ever have.
Having tried this, no, it does not. People are anti-intellectual because they willfully choose to be ignorant. They're like that for several different reasons, but their choices are the same.
What actually matters is not allowing people like you to shame the rest of us who do value knowledge into submitting to the will of people like that out of a misguided notion that judging them for their stupidity is wrong or bad. It's not. It's called holding people accountable for their actions and choices, and it's a thing we have been doing far too little of in society.
Hold people accountable for not knowing basic shit and refusing to learn it. Grown adults have no excuse, barring some learning disability, for not having decent reading comprehension, or not being able to do basic math, or not having critical thinking skills. We're trying to run a democracy here and that requires having an educated public. And that means the public has to be willing to educate themselves.
For fuck's sake. I don't know everything either but if there's something I don't know, I learn it. I at least try.
You're part of the problem defending them by shaming us. You're part of the reason why anti-intellectualism is such a problem: you enable irresponsibility, indolence, and selfishness by protecting people who refuse to learn from consequences.