Most “inbred redneck yokel” farmers can casually fix and build things that your educated collegian couldn’t dream of fixing on their best days.

My theory is that the university phds insult them either because they think they need to gaslight the people who grow their food into thinking they’re lower and need to keep serving them, because the farmers are surely as self-centered as the people making the accusations, or because they know they’re not actually as useful but can’t humble themselves and admit that they aren’t actually worth what they’re paid in the grand scheme of things, and need to convince themselves of it.