July 16, 2007
The role of the intellectual in society
This is an interesting take on the role of the Left -- and the ever-so-much-smarter-than-the-rest-of-us literati and educational elites.
Since about [1960] everyone describable as an “intellectual” has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order. Necessarily so, because society as it was constituted had no room for him . . . The intellectuals could find a function for themselves only in the literary reviews and the left-wing political parties.
The mentality of the American left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power. Another marked characteristic is the emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality . . . And underlying this is the really important fact about so many of the American intelligentsia—their severance from the common culture of the country.
In intention, at any rate, the intelligentsia are Europeanised . . . In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.
America is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an American and that it is a duty to snigger at every American institution . . . It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true, that almost any American intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “The Star Spangled Banner” than of stealing from a poor box . . . If the American people suffered for several years a real weakening of morale, so that the Islamo-Fascists judged that they were “decadent” and that it was safe to plunge into war, the intellectual sabotage from the Left was partly responsible.
Pretty incendiary stuff, eh? However, it wasn't written recently.
Nor was it authored by a neo-con -- or any other kind of conservative.
As a matter of fact, it was published 66 years ago, from the pen of socialist George Orwell. I made a few alterations (substituting "American" for "Briton," "Star Spangled Banner" for "God Save the King") to mask the fact that he was actually taking on England's pro-appeasement leftists in the dark days of early 1941, when Great Britain stood alone against Hitler and Stalin -- and not today's Democrats and the Hollywood, media and academic elites.
You can read Orwell's piece here. The parallels between his time and our own are quite striking.
Via Rod Dreher.
Posted by Mike Lief at July 16, 2007 05:46 PM
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