History Main / PersecutedIntellectuals

** In America, during the RedScare, there were the Palmer Raids which deported many suspected intellectuals, local and international, out of America. During TheThirties there was the Dies Committee which investigated the Federal Theatre Works committee and accused Creator/ChristopherMarlowe and Creator/{{Euripides}} [[InsaneTrollLogic of being communists]] and even argued [[AntiIntellectualism that art was inherently subversive of American values]]. During the era of [=McCarthyism=], you had [[UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist the Blacklist]] where many Hollywood film-makers, screenwriters and actors were forced out of work and into exile because of suspected and actual communist sympathies and affiliations. Similar persecution existed during the Civil Rights Movement and [=FBI=] chief J. Edgar Hoover was notorious for wire-tapping and building files on many artists and other intellectuals who had been accused of being subversive.

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Armenian_intellectuals_on_24_April_1915 Red Sunday]] was the deportation and eventual execution of several Armenian intellectuals like artists, journalists, lawyers, clergymen and doctors by the Ottoman Empire under the Committee of Union and Progress just prior to the Armenian Genocide in order to decapitate any resistance before it could happen.
* During the Bangladesh Liberation War, over 1,111 Eastern Pakistani intellectuals were murdered by the army, terrorists and Islamist militias from March to December 1971 because they protested discrimination from their Western counterparts and encouraged nationalism and sedition. Today, their tragic deaths are honored on December 14 as the Martyred Intellectuals Day.

* ''Film/ThePromise2016'': The main protagonist is an doctor who gets rounded up by the Ottoman authorities alongside several Armenian notables during the Red Sunday, the event usually regarded as signaling the Armenian Genocide.

* In ''Literature/{{Anathem}}'', mathematicians (called "Avout") are confined to monasteries (called "Maths"), and only allowed contact with the outside world once per year, decade, century or millennium. On three occasions the Maths were invaded because the Avout invented technologies considered too dangerous ("new matter", genetic engineering, and [[spoiler: magic]]).
** There are lesser schools within the Maths, where outsiders can go for a limited amount of time (not more than a month) to learn needed skills, but the more advanced orders are shut off from the rest of society for the most part.

* Solzhenitsyn's novel ''The First Circle'' dramatises Stalin's imprisonment of scientific intellectuals. The paradox, as noted in may of Solzhenitsyn's novels, is that intellectuals are actually freer in the Gulag, where the worst has largely already happened to them, than they would be in the Soviet Union outside. Their bodies might be imprisoned, they might be on a poor diet, but their minds are free to interact and think and speak heresy.
* In ''Literature/HardToBeAGod'', intellectuals of all kinds (derisively dubbed "book-readers") are persecuted by the EvilChancellor Don Reba and his stormtroopers, to better prepare the country for annexation by an Enlightenment-hating theocracy.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': The Peacekeepers are implied to be somewhat anti-intellectual, with rank-and-file soldiers looking down on and oppressing the "techs" and also showing suspicion of Gammak Bases and the "Science-Military" based there. On the other hand, the officers in command of Gammak Bases, like Scorpius, are full-fledged scientists whose rank still commands respect.

* UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte fancied himself as an intellectual and usually made a show of giving rewards and sinecures to important scientists and artists. But in practice, the likes of Madame de Stael were driven into exile, the media was policed and subject to strict control. He also had Creator/MarquisDeSade imprisoned in Charenton for the rest of his life, solely because he read his works and found them disgusting, which to be fair they were and De Sade comes across as a depraved monster for anyone who has read about his personal life. Far less well known, but not in Germany, is the time he ordered the execution of Johann Philipp Palm of Nuremberg, a publisher of a pamphlet criticizing the French occupation.

* Several episodes of ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' deal with this:

** In the '80s revival episode "Examination Day", the government exterminates anyone who scores too high on a mandatory examination at a young age.

Some communities regard all intellectuals as suspicious at best, and a danger to society at worst. This kind of prejudice sometimes crops up in isolated rural areas where most people lack a formal education and intellectuals are outsiders by default. Other times, such an attitude is the hallmark of a totalitarian dictatorship. If knowledge is power, then all that book-learning could pose a threat to the regime -- better to keep the people ignorant and complacent. In a speculative fiction setting, the government might fear that scientists or other scholars are dangerously close to uncovering the truth behind TheMasquerade, and must be suppressed at all costs.

!!Examples

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* ''Literature/MartinFierro'' When Fierro reflects that the Judge punished him because Fierro didn't vote the last election, Fierro invokes this trope arguing that The Judge took him for one of them, when the truth was that Fierro didn't vote because he is DumbIsGood and [[{{ApatheticCitizens}} he is simply not interested in that]]

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* In the miniseries ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', [[ANaziByAnyOtherName the Visitors]] begin [[InferredHolocaust persecuting and rounding up scientists]] and getting humanity to go along with it, because scientists had readily identified that the Visitors were actually reptilian aliens with [[ToServeMan a nefarious agenda]].

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* Used several times as throwaway gags on TheSimpsons to illustrate how much of a CrapsackWorld the town is (at least once to the point that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even the corrupt mayor gets sick]]). TorchesAndPitchforks are a common sight.

''[A reporter takes a picture of him]''\\

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* The Algerian Civil War really came to a head with series of assassinations of university academics, intellectuals, writers, artists, journalists and medical doctors by the GIA (Armed Islamic Group in English), a renegade faction even more radical and fundamentalist than the other Islamists, who targeted intellectuals more than government officials because they were seen as "corrupting, foreign influence" due to speaking French. One infamous quote by GIA leaders are "those that fight us by the pen will die by the sword". The most well-known victims were Rai singer Cheb Hasni and secularist/poet Lounès Matoub.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Nigeria}}n terrorist group Boko Haram (whose name translates to "Western education is forbidden") has made its goal to wage an deliberate war of destruction against civilization by targeting educations centers and placing teachers on assassination hits alongside security officers and politicians. Insurgents have shown particular distaste for certain subjects like geography and science and reject the theory of evolution, rain being caused by evaporation and condensation, and that the Earth is round.

** Recep Ergodan's UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} has been arresting and firing a number of journalists and university professors in the wake of a failed coup attempt in 2016 (some believe no plot even occurred, that it was a [[FalseFlagOperation ploy to allow this]].

* ''Literature/GuardianCatsAndTheLostBooksOfAlexandria'': In the 4th century, anti-intellectuals did mass BookBurnings of libraries under the guise of "protecting" the [[ThinkOfTheChildren youth]] from harmful ideas and bloated egos. They'd murder and imprison the librarians, with the imprisoned ones also being executed eventually.

*** We may find solace in the fact that the Nazis [[VillainBall delayed their own efforts]] to build the Bomb because they had labeled nuclear physics "Jewish science", as many of its top controbutors (e.g. UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein were German Jews).
*** The Francoists had a worse precedent in the "[[MeaningfulName Ominous Decade]]" (1823-1833) during the reign of Ferdinand VII, under which all universities were closed (only time this happened in the history of Spain) and the long-past-its-date [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition Inquisition]] was brought back for a swan song as basically the king's secret police.
** Intellectuals were targeted in [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR]] as part of UsefulNotes/JosefStalin's "Great Purge". The primary example was persecution of biologists who disagreed with "Lysenkoism", a doctrine promulgated by an obscure agronomist named Trofim Lysenko that believed {{Lamarck was right}}. For ideological reasons the regime favored Lamarck/Lysenko over the then-new synthesis of Darwin/Mendel. [[note]] Lamarkism was associated with a revolutionary hero and agricultural scientist named Ivan Michurin, whose work on plant selection was misinterpreted as a rejection of genetics, and Darwin's theory of natural selection was rejected due to a false association with Social Darwinism. [[/note]] Persecution of dissidents from Lysenkoism went on into the 1950s, helping to cause the Soviet famines as its methods were painfully disproven and setting back genetic science in the country by decades. To a lesser extent, astronomers began to disappear when sunspot research was deemed "un-Marxist", linguists who disagreed with Stalin's preferred pseudoscientific "Japhetic theory" were killed or imprisoned, and the Meteorological Office was purged for failing to predict weather harmful to crops.

* UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte fancied himself as an intellectual and usually made a show of giving rewards and sinecures to important scientists and artists. But in practice, the likes of Madame de Stael were driven into exile, the media was policed and subject to strict control. He also had Creator/MarquisDeSade imprisoned in Charenton for the rest of his life, solely because he read his works and found them disgusting, which to be fair they were and De Sade comes across as a depraved monster for anyone who has read about his personal life. Far less well known, but not in Germany, is the time he ordered the execution of Johann Philipp Palm of Nuremberg, a publisher of a pamphlet criticizing the French Occupation.

** France during the Terror was not shy of using the guillotine against anyone they felt were threats to the state or who had shady political pasts.Of course as a rule, they did not persecute people solely because they were intellectuals but in practice they did claim populist ideas and subscribed to GuiltByAssociation and [[KangarooCourt show trials]]. Prominent victims include chemist Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier was guillotined because of his past as a tax collector, Creator/ThomasPaine and Marquis de Condorcet, both of them imprisoned for their connections to the Girondins, with Condorcet committing suicide in captivity. Likewise, Creator/MarquisDeSade was confined because his son defected to the enemy and he was an ex-aristocrat, who as judge of the local Revolutionary tribunal let many people escape the guillotine.
** In America, during the RedScare, there were the Palmer Raids which deported many suspected intellectuals, local and international, out of America. During TheThirties there was the Dies Committee which investigated the Federal Theatre Works committee and accused Creator/ChristopherMarlowe and Creator/{{Euripides}} [[InsaneTrollLogic of being communists]] and even argued [[AntiIntellectualism that art was inherently subversive of American values]]. During the era of [=McCarthyism=], you had [[UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist the Blacklist]] where many Hollywood film-makers, screenwriters and actors were forced out of work and into exile because of suspected and actual communist sympathies and affiliations. Similar persecution existed during the Civil Rights Movement and [=FBI=] chief J. Edgar Hoover was notorious for wire-tapping and building files on many artists who they suspected of being subversive.
** UsefulNotes/{{India}} despite being UsefulNotes/TheLargestDemocracy has draconian censorship policies and tends to have a poor record in upholding freedom of speech under threats. Famously and ironically, India was the first nation that banned Literature/TheSatanicVerses despite being a secular democracy with a Hindu majority, and that its author Creator/SalmanRushdie was British-Indian. Likewise, books critical of certain public and historical figures will lead to riots. [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement We shall leave it at that.]]
** Recep Ergodan's UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} has been arresting and firing a number of journalists and university professors in the wake of a failed coup attempt in 2016.
* More generally, this trope has been both inverted and played straight. Communist revolutionaries like UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin and UsefulNotes/MaoZedong were ''themselves'' intellectuals, who in some cases wrote {{Door Stopper}}s on Marxist theory and persecuted other intellectuals when they came to power. These purges were used by democracies as justification to persecute ''their'' intellectuals-some of whom were and are Marxists themselves.

* During the Bangladesh Liberation War, over 1,111 Eastern Pakistani intellectuals were murdered by the army, terrorists and Islamist militias from March to December 1971 because they protested discrimination from their Western counterparts and encouraged nationalism and sedition. Today, their tragic deaths are honored in December 14 as the Martyred Intellectuals Day.

* The Algerian Civil War really came to a head with series of assassinations of university academics, intellectuals, writers, artists, journalists and medical doctors by the GIA (Armed Islamic Group in English), a renegade faction even more radical and fundamentalist than the other Islamiss, who targeted intellectuals more than government officials because they were seen as "corrupting, foreign influence" due to speaking French. One infamous quote by GIA leaders are "those that fight us by the pen will die by the sword". The most well-known victims were Rai singer Cheb Hasni and secularist/poet Lounès Matoub.

* The Algerian Civil War really came to a head with series of assassinations of university academics, intellectuals, writers, artists, journalists and medical doctors by Islamisc fundamentalists, who were targeted more than government officials because they were seen as "corrupting, foreign influence" due to speaking French. The most well-known murders were of Rai singer Cheb Hasni and secularist/poet Lounès Matoub.

** UsefulNotes/{{India}} despite being UsefulNotes/TheLargestDemocracy has draconian censorship policies and tends to have a poor record in upholding freedom of speech under threats. Famously and ironically, India was the first nation that banned Literature/TheSatanicVerses despite being a secular democracy with a Hindu majority, and that its author Creator/SalmanRushdie was British-Indian. Likewise, books critical of certain public and historical figures will lead to riots. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement We shall leave it at that.]]

** In "Bart's Comet", when the titular comet almost destroys Springfield, the first reaction of the Springfeldians is to set the local observatory on fire "[[InsaneTrollLogic to prevent it from happening again]]."

** Intellectuals were targeted as part of Stalin's "Great Purge". The primary example was persecution of biologists who disagreed with "Lysenkoism", a doctrine promulgated by an obscure agronomist named Trofim Lysenko that believed {{Lamarck was right}}. For ideological reasons the regime favored Lamarck/Lysenko over the then-new synthesis of Darwin/Mendel. [[note]] Lamarkism was associated with a revolutionary hero and agricultural scientist named Ivan Michurin, whose work on plant selection was misinterpreted as a rejection of genetics, and Darwin's theory of natural selection was rejected due to a false association with Social Darwinism. [[/note]] Persecution of dissidents from Lysenkoism went on into the 1950s, helping to cause the Soviet famines as its methods were painfully disproven and setting back genetic science in the country by decades. To a lesser extent, astronomers began to disappear when sunspot research was deemed "un-Marxist", linguists who disagreed with Stalin's preferred pseudoscientific "Japhetic theory" were killed or imprisoned, and the Meteorological Office was purged for failing to predict weather harmful to crops.
** One extreme example is the massacre of academics under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge In UsefulNotes/{{Cambodia}}, who would kill people for merely wearing eyeglasses (as it suggested literacy).

* ''Series/TheHandmaidsTale'': Offred notes that all college professors were sent to the Colonies (a slow death from radiation poisoning) or... we don't get to hear the rest, but presumably killed. They spared Ofglen because she was fertile. We later learn that a prostitute was once a professor and (judging by Moira's story) was given the choice of working as this or going to the Colonies.

* In ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz'', this is part of the aftermath of global nuclear war. After the enraged survivors slaughter the scientists who developed the bombs, they begin to target other scientists ... and then other scholars ... and then anyone with a formal education. The ultimate result is a society where it's dangerous to admit that you know how to read.

* In Emprise, the first novel in the Trigon Disunity trilogy by Michael P. Kube-McDowell society has mostly collapsed and backslid technologically after an ambitious effort to improve the world horribly backfired resulting in laws against intellectuals and Kangaroo jury executions. The astronomer who sets off the efforts by the leader of India to change things after revealing an alien spaceship is coming is executed by the American Redneck court for the trumped up charge that he had wasted resources on such nonsense as studying the stars instead of turning over his solar panels for 'proper' use by the community.

* UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte fancied himself as an intellectual and usually made a show of giving rewards and sinecures to important scientists and artists. But in practise, the likes of Madame de Stael were driven in exile, the media was policed and subject to strict control. He also had Creator/MarquisDeSade imprisoned in Charenton for the rest of his life, solely because he read his works and found them disgusting, which to be fair they were and De Sade comes across as a depraved monster for anyone who has read about his personal life. Far less well known, but not in Germany, is the time he ordered the execution of Johann Philipp Palm of Nuremberg, a publisher of a pamphlet criticizing the French Occupation.
* This even happens in major democracies on occassion:

** France during the Terror was not shy of using the guillotine against anyone they felt were threats to the state or who had shady political pasts.Of course as a rule, they did not persecute people solely because they were intellectuals but in practise they did claim populist ideas and subscribed to GuiltByAssociation and [[KangarooCourt show trials]]. Prominent victims include chemist Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier was guillotined because of his past as a tax collector, Creator/ThomasPaine and Marquis de Condorcet, both of them imprisoned for their connections to the Girondins, with Condorcet committing suicide in captivity. Likewise, Creator/MarquisDeSade was confined because his son defected to the enemy and he was an ex-aristocrat, who as judge of the local Revolutionary tribunal let many people escape the guillotine.

* UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte fancied himself as an intellectual and usually made a show of giving rewards and sinecures to important scientists and artists. But in practise, the likes of Madame de Stael were driven in exile, the media was policed and subject to strict control. He also had Creator/MarquisDeSade imprisoned in Charenton for the rest of his life, solely because he read his works and found them disgusting. Far less well known, but not in Germany, is the time he ordered the execution of Johann Philipp Palm of Nuremberg, a publisher of a pamphlet criticizing the French Occupation.

See also BookBurning, which often accompanies the persecution of academics, and TallPoppySyndrome, where any sort of specialness is equally dangerous. Compare and contrast EvilLuddite and IntelligenceEqualsIsolation. For ''works'' that portray intelligent or learned people in a negative light, see DumbIsGood and ScienceIsBad. See also IntellectuallySupportedTyranny, where smart people decide to start persecuting others, but these aren't mutually exclusive if certain categories of intellectual are elevated while "antisocial" intellectuals are persecuted, or the government is simply hypocritical.