Position Statement

Dmitry Zimin’s Enlightener Prize supports authors, publishers, and readers. But the project’s primary mission is broader: to preserve rationality and a scientific worldview, and to combat obscurantism wherever it manifests itself—whether in art, pseudoscience, or politics.

In recent years, there has been a massive surge in anti-intellectualism; contempt for reason, for the judgments of “smart alecks,” and open hatred for scientists are hallmarks of our time. Widespread pressure on universities and research centres, the replacement of expertise with “common sense,” conspiracy theories, and autocracy—all of this has become a new manifestation of totalitarianism. Hatred of “smart people” is becoming the basis for terror and aggression.

Anti-intellectualism is totalitarian: it reduces society to a primitive state to make it easier to subjugate people, and it rules the world not only through prohibitions but also by destroying the very ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. This cannot be allowed—which is why the significance of our work is becoming particularly evident today.