I think it’s the wrong label, anti-intellectualusm. Sense of reality might do it more justice. I think there are two factors at play. 1) how much does higher education cost you? Does it put you in debt you’ll be lucky to have paid off before you retire? Have other people gotten degrees and still ended up unemployed? Why get majorly in debt to get no job in the end? That’s more a North American specific problem. I’m in Asia and I haven’t heard anybody shit talking college degrees in favor of the trades. 2) We need plumbers and carpenters and welders and whatnot. And due to declining birth rates in many places and the fact that the numerous birth years of the boomers are retiring and will continue to retire in the short term, we are running out of sparkies, masons, and HVACs. So if you had to career advise people today, you’d be silly not to bring up a profession with near certainty of getting a job once you’re trained up.

Shitty work environments exist in more high brow professions as well.