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This is exactly my point, you cannot be racist towards racists. It was seen many times, like when activists called black ICE agent as nigger with hard r, or when they force a closeted conservative homosexual out of the closet with a glee, or when they are openly misogynistic etc.
I'd say that intelectuals in general were considered high status historically. I live in post Austrian Empire sphere, where not having masters degree as part of your official ID is seen as shocking and strange - you immediately gain status just by having that. Getting education, parroting correct opinions and then getting cushy government job - or at least something government adjacent is age old tradition for all systems.
High status isn’t necessarily a hallmark of importance. In industries like finance, I remember having a talk with someone who point blank told me “… we know people’s grades and degrees are bullshit. Grade inflation was a thing even at the time I was going to school…” This is a guy who manages a $1.4bn credit portfolio for a living. He didn’t mean degrees are worthless inherently but they’re effectively worthless if you haven’t been on the proving ground. They want to see your expertise in ‘applied’ knowledge, not complex mathematical formulas you can recite from some obscure paper or textbook. The best people (and indeed the most intelligent as well) are far from being those who have the most educational badges next to their name. A lot of people who stay on that side of the fence are those who can’t make their ideas work out in practice, because if you truly had some unique and differentiated idea from everyone else, why wouldn’t you go out and make something of it? And so the conversation always end up being chaired by the D team who goes around bloviating about the importance of this and that, but all they’re really doing is creating this mental landscape of “toy” environments where they hypothesize about the interactions between these toys as if they’re representative of reality and they’re not.
In truth, the proof is in the pudding. “Talk is cheap, show me the code.” - Linus Torvalds. In the end, put up or shut up.
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How far back are we going here?
If we're going very broad, I'd say the advantage intellectuals have is that their achievements are still legible today, preserved as they are by other intellectuals. The conquering noble (who may legitimately be illiterate) may have been higher status in the past but we only see him through the eyes of historians.
Modern era? Sure.
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