Highbrow vs Lowbrow

According to the BBC, the terms came from a late 19th century belief that those with physically larger brains had elongated heads and high brows, vs the small brains which did not. If we go back to that time though another belief was that the high brows (meaning people who are intelligent) should lead the rest and guide them. For example a lowbrow could read Ovid say and be pulled upwards to the benefit of all concerned.

Only this was not too equal and something changed. As Britain saw the new century in there was a revolution to follow in 1917 called the October Revolution. This did not immediately affect our country, but by the 1930s those commies were going international (known as Comintern). Now according to the BBC this idea of highbrow reversed in 1932 with the help of JB Priestley. He would do a regular radio broadcast with the BBC making fun of the highbrows in a working class "who do you think you are, mate" kind of way. This is the classic northern inverted snobbery and anyone intelligent is guilty as charged. The highbrows were literality laughed off the pinnacle they once commanded. In the old days you had to earn your intellectual status with years of hard work and study, but this could be blown away in an instant with an inverted snob put-down. This was so easy to do that anyone could have a go at the highbrows and succeed. The idea of lowbrow henceforth took over broadcast, yet we don't really see it go completely mainstream until the 1960s. The 1960s were not the start of this revolution, it was the 1930s. We see the same thing in America with the attacks on the church by communists also circa 1930s. Mind you the way one can look at it is, me personalty, I saw the green movement in the 1980s and even 70s. It was a very fringe thing then, but in 2022 it is huge and worldwide. It's like the same for the lowbrow. It only came big in the 60s but it is wrong to attribute the start of it them. The term racism was coined in the 30s as well if that has anything to do with it.

Anyway I was a school kid in the 80s and we were made to read this JB Priestley and it wasn't half boring and tedious. They tried to pass it off to us kids as literature and they suggested as they once believed in the 19th century that reading literature would pull you up for the benefit of all concerned. Spot the obvious irony. I did, but only got to hear it was the BBC's doing in the first place the other day with a programme on this matter. Here we are in 2022 wondering why we are the world's second worst performing economy and have fucked up nearly everything!