What about the Nazi party? The Japanese occupiers of Korea and China during WWII?
The British burning the Burmese royal library in the late 19th century? Or the current massacres of Muslims in Myanmar by Buddhists?
The US Army in its genocide of indigenous North American tribes?
My impression is that there are at least some anti-intellectual authoritarians in every country, religion, and political movement.
Yes, actually. The religion was Marxism (i.e., the most murderous religion in history), with Mao Zedong as its Prophet.
Hoffer's treatment of the phenomenon is just as fresh and relevant today as it was when he wrote the book in the 1950s.
I got downvoted for suggesting that Maoism was a religion, but it quite clearly had more commonalities than differences with the more extremist religious cults (as did Stalinism, Nazism, etc.)
Look at the (pagan/polytheist) Romans' actions in the seige and destruction of (monotheist) Jerusalem, for one example. Or (pagan) Viking raids on English/Welsh/Irish Christian monasteries for another.
> We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction. – Bishop De Landa