Miguel Moreno · University of Granada · Published: May 8, 2026
This monograph examines the period 2016–2026 through two phenomena that are more complementary than opposed: the resurgence of explicit anti-intellectualism in illiberal political movements, and the simultaneous aestheticisation of intellect in elite consumer culture. Drawing on critical political economy, cultural sociology and democratic theory, the book argues that both tendencies are correlative expressions of the marketisation of public reason under platform capitalism—and of the attendant erosion of the institutional infrastructures on which deliberative liberal democracy depends: universities, the press, public schooling.
Performative intellectualism, far from constituting a counter-current to political unreason, functions as its private aesthetic consolation: a mausoleum culture in which the display of knowledge has become a positional signal precisely as its exercise as a public habit has atrophied.
Keywords: anti-intellectualism · performative intellectualism · platform capitalism · mausoleum culture · deliberative democracy
Social Epistemology Studies
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Author | Miguel Moreno |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0746-9587 |
| Affiliation | University of Granada |
| Period covered | 2016–2026 |
| Published | May 2026 |
| Licence | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International |
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https://github.com/utilizas/antiint.git
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© 2026 Miguel Moreno · University of Granada