Posted on 04/06/2010 3:50:49 PM PDT by Shellybenoit
George Orwell wrote prophetically in 1943:
“In the last twenty years Western civilization has given the intellectual security without responsibility….It has educated him in skepticism while anchoring him almost immovably in the privileged class. He has been in the position of a young man living on an allowance from father whom he hates. The result is a deep feeling of guilt and resentment, not combined with any genuine desire to escape. But some psychological escape, some form of self-justification there must be....These creeds have the advantage that they aim at the impossible and therefore in effect demand very little….The life of an English gentleman and the moral attitudes of a saint can be enjoyed simultaneously…
(Excerpt) Read more at yidwithlid.blogspot.com ...
btt
April 19th-20th, 2002
Chicago Illini Union
828 S. Wolcott
This conference is part of the Center's mission of helping to create a more engaged civil society, working towards social change, fostering coalitions between theorists and activists, and combating anti-intellectualism in contemporary culture. It will be both a celebration of ideas and a rigorous examination of the roles and responsibilities that intellectuals play in society.
I. Why Do Ideas Matter? (a keynote panel)
We introduce the “meta” theme of the conference by hearing “success stories” from diverse voices discussing their experiences intervening intellectually.
Timuel Black, Chicago activist; Prof. Emeritus, City Colleges of Chicago
Lonnie Bunch, President, Chicago Historical Society
Bernardine Dohrn, Northwestern University Law School, Children and Family Justice Center
Gerald Graff, UIC, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Richard Rorty, Stanford University, Philosophy
III. Lunch and Public Encounters
Alternative breakout tours led by Chicago activists. Tours of Bronzeville and other communities, and visits to organizations that are working on partnering theorists with activists.
IV. Intellectuals in Times of Crisis
Experiences and applications of intellectual work in urgent situations.
William Ayers, UIC, College of Education; author of Fugitive Days
Douglass Cassel, Northwestern University, Center for International Human Rights
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago, Political Science
Salim Muwakkil, Chicago Tribune; In These Times
Barack Obama, Illinois State Senator
Barbara Ransby, UIC, African-American Studies (moderator)
The Center for Public Intellectuals
University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC):
http://www.uic.edu/classes/las/las400/conferencealt.htm
_____________________________________________________
"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
-Weather Underground leader and wife of Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn ("intellectual"), referring to the Manson murders
Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09
_____________________________________________________
"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at"
--Bill Ayers ("intellectual") (1970), quoted in New York Times, September 11, 2001:
Article: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
_____________________________________________________
"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that ["intellectual"] Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==
for later
Because they’re dumb.
bfl
Only initially. Lenin lead the government for a while, but then Stalin came along. I don’t think Stalin was an academic.
I don’t think the term “intellectual” applies to these people outside of their own megalomanical fantasies.
Hitler was a war hero, Stalin was a bank robber, Mao was a soldier in the army that brought down the Quin Dynasty. Lenin was radicalised by the execution of his elder brother for plotting to kill the Tsar.
Not trying to suggest that these guys were admirable, but they weren’t quite in the same league as the effete intellectual ‘radicals’ Orwell was refering to, who strut and preen as self-imagined revolutionaries whilst living in a privileged bubble that makes their ‘rebel without a clue’ attitude seem so ridiculous...
Great definition. Especially true for Hollywood.
1. Those who TALK ABOUT DOING THINGS (Intellectuals included).
2. Those who DO THINGS.
They start in on kids, give them a hard time over rooting for sports teams from their home regions, put down anybody who is proud of or attached to the land of their own birth. They call them “homers,” with the obvious inference being a drooling, clueless Homer Simpson.
By the time the more vulnerable kids get to college, they’re quite ready to join the citizen-of-the-world club. It’s so smart, so cool, and met with so much approval.
We’ve got a whole generation of Obamas coming up, who have no love for their own land or their own people. Far from it, they’re actually hostile.
“I am not Strelnikov. (But I played him in the movies.)”
Usually the most leftist and marxist people come from priveleged homes. Thsy never had to work a day in their life, but can sit around and feel guilty and tell everyone else how to live.
I do not think it is guilt and resentment as Orwell says. I believe the present day population needs stimulation, hence the media, to survive economically, provides stimuli in ever increasing frequency and intensity. People are bombarded with thesis and counter thesis on a daily basis. The resentment arises from spiritual fatigue and the wish to get away yet being unable to “get away.”
Good post, thanks.
“I don’t think the term “intellectual” applies to these people outside of their own megalomanical fantasies.”
Our priest called them “intellectual idiots.”
Part of it is based on the assumption that certain values held by the "common" man must be transcended merely for the fact that they are held by the common man; if they are that accessible, the argument goes, they must be mistaken. Patriotism, for example, is very rightfully examined, but anti-patriotism is accepted as a sort of reflexive article of faith, at least for the second-rate intellect concerned about its status. Most "public" intellectuals are, in reality, celebrities desperately insecure about that status. Someone who feels compelled to tell other people that he or she is smart, isn't. That isn't a universal law but it's the way to bet.
:)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.