In principle I agree with this point, in practice it is moot. Any member of the public can visit a local university or large public library and get access to any book or journal article they desire. No, they can't read the articles without leaving their office, but, yes, they can get all of the research articles and other scholarly publications for free. Libraries exist for a reason, they still provide the service they advertise. This is a false criticism of the flawed and broken publishing system.
> I think this essay's definition of anti-intellectualism is incoherent -- must I disrespect knowledge itself, disrespect all education beyond grade school, disrespect War and Peace, or merely disrespect Nicholas Carr, in order to be labeled an anti-intellectual? -- so it's hard to make a definitive response.
As in a discussion on religion it depends entirely on how you scope the word "intellectual." It could and does mean a variety of things. I believe the author of the original article was leaving it open to many meanings. This is not good writing. He should have said what he meant, instead of the feeling of what he meant.
> in a world where it didn't involve an enormous pay cut, enormous career risk, incredible devotion, high stress, difficult politics, and potentially the sacrifice of one's family life.
Those are all fair statements on the cost of pursuing a life in academic research. However, only the pay cut really differentiates academia from any other competitive field. People engage in academia because they love it not because they get rich.
> As economies grow around the world and the web gets built out, we add more and more people to our public discourse
Interesting factoid, the amount of academic publishing has pretty much only gone up in last century. So even discounting the Internet public discourse (and I do believe academic publications are public) has been growing.