>>24722359
Who is 90 years old... which proves the point.

I would like skeptics of the OP to consider philosophy. Surely this has happened there, no? When was the last time you heard of any non-credentialed person writing a widely read work in philosophy proper? Even academics in adjacent fields have significant difficulty getting any traction due to such an extreme focus on "the literature" for each precise issue and use of the appropriate terminology. Nor will you see much by way of priests and monks, mainstays of philosophy in the past, unless they are practicing academic philosophers or have been pigeon holed into the "Catholic philosophy" space (which is also where Anglophone Orthodox books end up being published).

But think about what this has meant for philosophy. It is increasingly irrelevant, and in becoming wholly irrelevant to popular discussions it has been allowed to grow in bizarre, incestuous, parochial directions. At least Continental thought still has some connection to the arts (although it tends to be the same sort of elitist, parochial art coastal art world that is ruining literature and contemporary art). The political echo chamber effect is also very real here, and you see that strongly in contemporary art when you go to a museum and 90% of pieces have a description about how the art is some sort of commentary in favor of far-left politics (I like contemporary art, but I don't think I have EVER seen one description harkening to anything right wing or any sort of traditional philosophy of spirituality, POMO, broadly speaking, is hegemonic).

Analytic philosophy is even more irrelevant, except where it attaches itself to the sciences and is subsumed in them. Liberalism is hegemonic, of course, but economics and political science have taken over so that liberal assumptions never have to be challenged as they might in philosophy.

The result is that the general public reads none of this shit and supports gutting liberal arts education funding and funding for the arts. Instead, New Age, deflated (often consumerist) Buddhism, self-help, and religious fundamentalism because the remaining popular philosophies. None of these are good philosophies for supporting a civilization. Self-help as philosophy in particular basically only focuses on "how do you get what you currently just so happen to desire," and not "what is truly excellent for a human being" and tends towards shallow consumerism and narcissism.