The Tea Party vs. the Intellectuals

Hoover Institution ^ | June/July 2010 | Lee Harris

[loveliberty2]

This article is based on a false premise. The so-called "intellectual" of academia and the Far Left is only a pseudointellectual.

Most have not studied the history of civilization, the writings of the great thinkers of history, or the philosophy and ideas underlying their nation's own Declaration of Independence and Constitution. How can they be labeled "intellectuals"?

On the other hand, a substantial number of the so-called TEA Partiers have been reading the now-available-online writings of America's Founders and early historians, and they are basing their protests on IDEAS--ideas which were articulated clearly and concisely in THE FEDERALIST, in the words of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, the Adamses, and ordinary farmers and newspaper columnists of the founding period.

This is much ado about nothing. America's Founders and the TEA Partiers of today have much in common--they share a passion for their liberty, which they feel is threatened in the same manner as that of the colonists in 1776.

"The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the people." - John Adams

Clearly, the "passion" in the minds of America's Founders was liberty. New generations, faced with tyranny by an overgrown government power, are acquiring that passion also--and it is based on ideas.

[snowrip]

I think that describing liberals as “intellectuals” is lunacy, considering their entire philosophical belief system flies in the face of anything even remotely resembling rational thought or even reality itself. The label is entirely self-derived by liberals themselves, hence the apt descriptions “contrived” and “self-congratulatory”.

Liberals are as far removed from true intellectual thought and discourse as one can possibly get.

[Sudetenland]

Total crap. I stopped at the tea-party movement isn't about ideas, it's about attitude.

Just another arrogant "intellectual" pontificating on his own superiority.

If there is one truth about the tea-party movement, it is that it is fundamentally about ideas, and more important (and also missed by this clueless jerk) it's about ideals. To be precise, it's about the ideals of our Founding Fathers and those things which are absolutely fundamental for liberty, freedom, prosperity, and security.

What a putz.

[Le Chien Rouge]

The Tea Party movement has an Idea,the Idea is not new and the Idea deeply attacks the so called intellectuals core beliefs.

That Idea is called the US Constitution and the message of less government equaling more individual liberty.

The so called intellectuals are collectivists and the concept of the ‘individual’ is foreign to them.

[outpostinmass2]

I almost stopped reading it but the article actually ends well. This wasn’t meant for Tea Party people this was meant for the “elite” to read.

[DaveyB]

Is a new bad idea better than a old proven idea?

As Rudyard Kipling wrote in the poem copybook headings...
BTW- if you are unaware the copybook was the method of education where students would practice by writing down such thing as "A- in Adam's fall we sinned all." This accomplished the passing on of knowledge while learning to read and write.

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Rudyard Kipling

[Borges]

Well your comment was without that context so I thought you meant there is no such thing.

[RedMDer]

It stopped me for a moment as well.

[Sic Parvis Magna]

In my dealings with the TEA Party on a local level (want to stress that), it wasn't the ideas they had; it was that they had no ideas. They purported to be opposed to tax increases, spending, etc., but ended up supporting a guy who as a school board members voted to raise property taxes on several occassions (to go along with the increase in appraisals). There was also a lot of talk and no action in terms of working for candidates, building a real grassroots organization, etc. It was nothing more than a clique. And I say again, that was one group at a very local level.

[longtermmemmory]

I reject the premise of the headline.

The snobs are saying:

tea party = stupid

intelectuals = not tea party = smart.

very orwellian.

[KarlInOhio]

The premise behind "intellectuals" can be generalized as "I have read the works of Sartre in their original French, therefore I am not merely fit to rule you, I have an actual duty to do it."

There seems to be a lot of BS (especially calling Brooks and Frum conservatives), but this last paragraph is worth the dig through it.

The lesson of history is stark and simple. People who are easy to govern lose their freedom. People who are difficult to govern retain theirs. What makes the difference is not an ideology, but an attitude. Those people who embody the “Don’t tread on me!” attitude have kept their liberties simply because they are prepared to stand up against those who threaten to tread on them. To the pragmatist, it makes little difference what ideas free people use to justify and rationalize their rebellious attitude. The most important thing is simply to preserve this attitude among a sufficiently large number of people to make it a genuine deterrent against the power hungry. If the Tea Party can succeed in this all-important mission, then the pragmatist can forgive the movement for a host of silly ideas and absurd policy suggestions, because he knows what is really at stake. Once the “Don’t tread on me!” attitude has vanished from a people, it never returns. It is lost and gone forever — along with the liberty and freedom for which, ultimately, it is the only effective defense.

[DakotaRed]

Tea Partiers needn’t be “intellectuals,” but they should be “intelligent” enough to not split the vote in a three-way race between a conservative who has raised nearly $200,000, Military Veteran and who served in sub-cabinet positions at eh Department of veterans Affairs and Department of Homeland Security and a brash in your face candidate who is vague on his Military service and has raised only $8,000 and hand the race to a young RINO establishment candidate, claiming to be conservative, but supports and votes for a bill that favors the SEIU.

[Clioman]

“If you are too ignorant to know who the elite opinion makers are, you will be entirely indifferent to the opinions they hold.”

Why is it unimaginable to the author that there are many people who know the identity of ‘elite opinion makers’ full well, but DON’T CARE what their opinions are?

[fr_freak]

The very term "intellectual" falsely implies a level of true education and understanding that most "intellectuals" don't have. Keep in mind that virtually every university has a degree program along the lines of "ethnic studies" or "women's studies" etc. What level of education about the real world do these degrees impart? Exactly zero, by their very definition. If one were to study history, for example, only through the lense of "African-American" studies, one would have a warped, inaccurate, and very, very limited view of world history. Even more importantly, the very definition of the course program implies a bias - one that suggests that all things will be pro-African American, both in the sense of favoring them and in the sense of focusing on their part whether such focus is warranted or not. In essence, we have degree programs which are not designed to educate - they are designed to indoctrinate the students with a particular world view.

However, the implication of indoctrination is not limited to blatantly biased courses like "Women's Studies". When something on the order of 95% of your teaching staff are members of a particular ideology (left-wing Democrats, for example), one cannot expect coursework in even otherwise impartial study programs to remain unbiased. As a recent example, we have two schools of thought among climatologists in the world: one in which man-made global warming is occurring, and one where man-made global warming is not occurring. Since left-wing Democrats, in the political arena, have made the "man-made global warming is occurring" position part of their party platform and have wholly incorporated it into their ideology, we cannot reasonably expect a left-wing Democrat teaching staff in the area of climatology or any other related science to be unbiased in their teachings on that subject. So, if man-made global warming is NOT occurring (or if there is merely no evidence to show that it is) and yet we have university professors across the globe teaching that it IS occurring, then our students are getting a factually incorrect "education", which is worse than no education at all. Teaching that 2+2=4 is good. Teaching that 2+2=5 is not only bad, it is worse than not teaching math at all.

Once you understand that these course programs are designed to indoctrinate rather than educate, and that ideology rather than fact dictates most of the "intellectuals'" positions on matters, the term "intellectual" becomes meaningless. Framing the debate as "intellectuals" vs. common people falsely implies that the "intellectuals" have any greater education in ANYTHING than the "common" people who constitute a grass-roots movement like the Tea Party.

[worst-case scenario]

Perhaps instead of shouting, “NO YOU WILL DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” they should explain why they believe that is what will happen.

Intellectuals, as they’re called in the article, probably want to hear reasons, rather than get shouted at.
But that’s like anybody, really.

[Brouhaha]

“I think that describing liberals as ‘intellectuals’ is lunacy”

This sums up my response, as well. I’m reluctant to even respond to the assertion of “liberal intellectualism” out of concern that my thoughts might be polluted by such a ludicrous concept.

[scory]

As Robert Bork once pointed out, an “intellectual” is someone who works with words and ideas but that doesn’t mean the “intellectual” is smart. I do not believe that Lee Harris necessarily believes “intellectuals” to be actually intelligent or to possess wisdom. I also believe that when he refers to Frum and Brooks as elite intellectuals he is employing the term as more of a title or way they would think of themselves and not as an objective or demonstrable fact.

I found this to be an excellent essay that showed a good deal of insight and understanding of current political conditions. Mr. Harris is a brilliant man. I have read other things he has written and he seems to me to have a pretty good read on things.

[El Gato]

I guess Ambassdor and Justice Clarenc Thomas are not "intellectual" enough and have no ideas.

Here's an idea:

Obey the Constitution or amend it. One possible amendment:

The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied persons at least 17 years of age and under 60 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States. At the time of entry into the militia, Congress shall supply each militia member with a modern small arm and a ready stock of ammunition for it.

Works for the Swiss, except they only include men. I'd include everyone.

[Tribune7]

Perhaps instead of shouting, “NO YOU WILL DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” they should explain why they believe that is what will happen.

IOW, there is a group of people who declare themselves to be thinkers that cannot see that it is self-evident that destroying the meaning of our money and making workers feel it is not in their self-interest to work for a wage, farmers to feel it better to hoard their product for barter, the defense industry to feel it is not worth it to innovate and manufacture etc. is destroying or at best greatly weakening and impoverishing this nation.

It wouldn't be so bad if these people just simply recognized they were clueless and not try to influence policy, but as I noted this group of very stupid people think they are smart.

I mean you understand that it is self-evident that incurring debt that is impossible to pay is a very, very bad and destructive thing, right?

[El Gato]

Intellectuals, as they’re called in the article, probably want to hear reasons, rather than get shouted at.

Been there done that. A two by four works better on most of the "intellectuals".