Josh31
Conqueror of Jericho (and 30 other cities)
In general, widespread hostility towards useful knowledge and work is a recent phenomenon.
No it is not, not by any stretch. The suppression of education is a method of controlling the masses and is as old as education itself. The Dark Ages were exactly that – forbidding all forms of secular knowledge in order to make the populace entirely dependent on (and superstitious of) the Church. Other religions have also grown as a result of forbidding education (Islam is an obvious example).