Blade_Runner wrote:
Paul Johnson is considered one of the greatest historians of the 20th century. He is one of the most prolific British writers of the last half-century and a superb chronicler of the past.
His book, Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky is a remarkable indictment of despots and tyrants.
Here is the final paragraph of the book:
What conclusions should be drawn? Readers will judge for themselves. But I think I detect today a certain public scepticism when intellectuals stand up to preach to us, a growing tendency among ordinary people to dispute the right of academics, writers and philosophers, eminent though they may be, to tell us how to behave and conduct our affairs. The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that scepticism. A dozen people picked at random on the street are at least as likely to offer sensible views on moral and political matters as a cross-section of the intelligentsia. But I would go further. One of the principal lessons of our tragic century, which has seen so many millions of innocent lives sacrificed in schemes to improve the lot of humanity, is beware intellectuals. Not merely should they be kept well away from the levers of power, they should also be objects of particular suspicion when they seek to offer collective advice. Beware committees, conferences and leagues of intellectuals. Distrust public statements issued from their serried ranks. Discount their verdicts on political leaders and important events. For intellectuals, far from being highly individualistic and non-conformist people, follow certain regular patterns of behaviour. Taken as a group, they are often ultra-conformist within the circles formed by those whose approval they seek and value. That is what makes them, en masse, so dangerous, for it enables them to create climates of opinion and prevailing orthodoxies, which themselves often generate irrational and destructive courses of action. Above all, we must at all times remember what intellectuals habitually forget: that people matter more than concepts and must come first. The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.
Paul Johnson is considered one of the greatest his... (
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This is a description of a stereotype. Do all intellectuals fall into this stereotype? No. In fact the strongest challenges to intellectuals are from other intellectuals. This is because intellectuals have the capacity to argue, but its frustrating for non-intellectuals who don't. For these people, it becomes a matter of who they trust which is something that is easily exploited, something that religious and political authorities have been doing throughout human history.
So a population of non-intellectuals who can't think for themselves and therefore depend on trusting the thoughts of others winds up being an opportunity for those others to misguide them. Paul Johnson is one of those opportunists and if he can discredit intellectuals in the minds of the unthinking, then he essentially perpetuating their intellectual disability leaving them powerless to do anything but trust and follow.
I advocate the opposite. I think everyone is capable of intelligence, they just need to stop listening to people who try to classify intellectuals as the enemy and start learning how to think like an intellectual.
Of course the challenge is daunting because learning how to think isn't as easy nor does it appeal to the emotions that drive us as much as jumping on a bandwagon does.