Posted on 11/11/2008 12:38:39 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending "the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life."
He cited Adlai Stevenson, the suave and debonair governor of Illinois, who twice ran for president against Eisenhower in the 1950s, as an example of an intellectual in politics.
Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are "interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity," people who "read the classics."
It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture.
Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson "could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book." But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual -- the form, rather than the substance.
What is more telling, form was enough to impress the intellectuals, not only then but even now, years after the facts have been revealed, though apparently not to Mr. Kristof.
That is one of many reasons why intellectuals are not taken as seriously by others as they take themselves.
As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.
Yet intellectuals tended to think of the unpretentious and plain-spoken Truman as little more than a country bumpkin.
Similarly, no one ever thought of President Calvin Coolidge as an intellectual. Yet Coolidge also read the classics in the White House. He read both Latin and Greek, and read Dante in the original Italian, since he spoke several languages. It was said that the taciturn Coolidge could be silent in five different languages.
The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.
During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model-- all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.
New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear-- that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.
After British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reported from the Ukraine on the massive deaths from starvation there, he was ostracized after returning to England and unable to find a job.
More than half a century later, when the archives of the Soviet Union were finally opened up under Mikhail Gorbachev, it turned out that about six million people had died in that famine-- about the same number as the people killed in Hitler's Holocaust.
In the 1930s, it was the intellectuals who pooh-poohed the dangers from the rise of Hitler and urged Western disarmament.
It would be no feat to fill a big book with all the things on which intellectuals were grossly mistaken, just in the 20th century-- far more so than ordinary people.
History fully vindicates the late William F. Buckley's view that he would rather be ruled by people represented by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.
How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable-- or even expert-- within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.
But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.
Hits it dead on.....
Sowell bump.
Not so, though I do think the anti-intellectualism in some Republican corners is a bad thing.
Americans have long been anti-LEFTIST intellectual.
JFK wasn’t real fond of Adlai and was shocked when Adlai stood his ground in the UN during the Cuban missle crisis. Also, Truman was a mere high school graduate. And, I know I have already picked up the coded language saying that “helping those less fortunate” is not a good thing for the incoming crowd and they are frowing on them with no intention of allowing the less fortunate much mobility since anyone who is not an “intellectual” is a dumb a$$ and therefore, can’t know any better or do any better. So, let’s just give the dumba$$ more of the pie so they won’t think about it.
Yep a new type of cultural war is coming. I know people who voted for Obama based on the Harvard thing alone and pointed to Palin going to five different schools as a reason not to vote for McCain. They said they expected more from a President to have the proper elite education. Of course, these people who said to me this were from the New England region. They were dismayed when I pointed out Truman’s background.
This is the kind of discrmination you get from the European mindset and drove our ancestors out of Europe. I have been abroad enough, even alot to Africa and to Rwanda and that region to know when you start talking about the “intellectuals” as a seperate group that it is a form of harsh discrimination on those who are less fortunate and to look out.
Yep, good point. The reason why our ancestors came to the USA and made us seperate from England is at stake again.
Thank you Mr. Sowell. This is an analysis that I particularly needed to hear this morning. Enlightening, comforting and reassuring. I’ve been dealing with a couple intellectuals the past few days, and this gives me insight into their otherwise confusing ramblings.
There you go.
What Kristof is REALLY talking about is the American distrust of intellectuals because Americans can smell a phony, even if we can't quite figure out WHY we're smelling one.
The "intellectuals" he's talking about are phonies like John Kerry--people who "grap complexity" by agreeing with Democrat think tanks and "planners" like Howard Dean, or leftists like the late Said and the confused Chomsky. These are people who work in ideas the way some people work in paint--but there are fine artists, and then there are fingerpainters. Most Democrats can't tell the difference, but pretend they do--they read The New Yorker and BOOM! they're in the club.
Democrat intellectuals remind me of a long article on postmodernist theory published some years ago. After reading praise on their work for months in some intellectual rag where they published, they revealed they'd pulled a scam--the authors consciously wrote a MEANINGLESS article, full of illogic and lies, then sat back and watched the readers of the magazine praise their BS, exposing the fake intellectualism of the readers. This was written about in a book the writers later published.
Democrats think that because they walk into a library and sit down that that's the same as someone who lives in that library day and night, studying. The Dems are the ones flipping through magazines who think that sitting in the library makes them intellectuals.
“During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model— all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.”
On Mike Douglas’ program, Tommy was discussing the Soviet Union. He had just made a persnal trip there. I remember him speaking of rail cars lined up by the mile, filled with rotting, spoiling fertilizer that was supposed to go to the wheat fields, but never made it. That was at a time when Russians were starving and trying to cut new deals for American wheat.
Tommy Smothers was somewhat of an expert in Russian political affairs, so the program emphasized, and widely read. The interview, without Dickey present, exposed very deep knowledge and common sense.
I don’t know if Tommy Smothers is still living. Anyone know?
Yeah, the Smothers Brothers are both still alive. Tommy, now 71, was given an award at the Emmys the award he was denied 40 years ago for writing for their show at the time, the only problem is that he decided to give a tired old anti-war diatribe on the stage as if it actually was still 1968.
The author was Alan Sokal, the book was The Sokal Hoax. Slings and Arrows sez check it out.
Well, sorry to hear about his positions, then.
Over the years I've known a good number of people that were walking encyclopedias but could not apply that knowledge much less come up with a new solution to a new problem.
To date I've seen no meaningful application of knowledge from Obama that has accomplished anything useful. And if you take it step further, what new idea has Obama ever proposed? That answers all I need to know about his "intellect" that I keep hearing about.
Thanks so much for that—I’ve been trying to remember the book ever since I lost the scrap of paper I’d written the title on! Much obliged.
Freakin’ nails it. “Anti-intellectual” is a code phrase for “rejects European socialism”.
He sure packs a lot of punch in a short column.
No wasted words.
This guy is the gold standard for this niche, like Prager.
That’s amazing, though. The person you described sounded quite a bit different than the umpteenth Bush-basher up on the stage. You almost wanted to smack him upside the head and say, “Tommy, this ain’t 1968. The surge is working... and, hey, had you liberal Hollywood pukes not been deliberately undermining the effort in Vietnam back then, who knows how many millions of lives could’ve been spared and living in freedom instead of under Communist tyranny.” But, hey, being a Conservative in Hollywood is frowned upon... mustn’t be for freedom and all that stuff. Our heroes are Che and Fidel, Mao and Ho. Power to the people, doncha know ?
De nada.
I was asking all through the campaign, as writers or posters mentioned how intelligent Obama is, “How do you know? How has he demonstrated this?” Still waiting for an answer ...
I’m glad to see a new Sowell column. I was concerned that he might have expired from rage after the election.
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