Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

To realize the Year Zero of Cambodian history, Khmer Rouge social engineering restructured the economy by de-industrialization and assassinated non-communist Cambodians suspected of 'involvement in free-market activities' such as the urban professionals of society (physicians, attorneys, engineers, et al.) and people with political connections to foreign governments. Ideologically-extreme dictatorships who mean to recreate a society such as the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia (1975–1979) pre-emptively killed potential political opponents, especially the educated middle-class and the intelligentsia.

During the Cold War (1945–1991), the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1948–1990) ostracized the philosopher Václav Havel as a politically unreliable man unworthy of ordinary Czechs' trust the post-communist Velvet Revolution (17 November – 29 December 1989) elected Havel president for ten years.

In the 20th century, societies systematically removed intellectuals from power, to expediently end public political dissent. John Pilger, Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979)

The new rulers of Cambodia call 1975 'Year Zero', the dawn of an age in which there will be no families, no sentiment, no expressions of love or grief, no medicines, no hospitals, no schools, no books, no learning, no holidays, no music, no song, no post, no money – only work and death. During the Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979), the communist regime of Cambodia nearly destroyed its entire educated population. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the following dictatorship (1939–1975) of General Francisco Franco, the reactionary repression of the White Terror (1936–1945) was notably anti-intellectual, with most of the 200,000 civilians killed being the Spanish intelligentsia, the politically active teachers and academics, artists and writers of the deposed Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). Totalitarian governments have, in the past, manipulated and applied anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. Anti-intellectuals present themselves and are perceived as champions of common folk- populists against political and academic elitism-and tend to see educated people as a status class that dominates political discourse and higher education while being detached from the concerns of ordinary people. Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical, politically motivated, and even contemptible human pursuits.

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter