This morning's paper has a provocative column by famed economist Thomas Sowell. (See here for text of the column.)Active contributors to our Blog are mainly intellectuals. Most of us have advanced degrees and have been professors at the college level. We would all agree with Sowell that: "There has probably never been an era in history when intellectuals have played a larger role in society. ... journalists, teachers, staffers to legislators or clerks to judges — the influence of intellectuals on the way a society evolves can be huge."
I think, on balance, intellectual contributions to society have been for the good. Sowell thinks othewise: "...certainly, for the 20th century, it is hard to escape the conclusion that intellectuals have on net balance made the world a worse and more dangerous place.
He gives, as his first example, the extreme Islamic terrorists "consumed with a set of ideas". Yes, it is ideas that drive them to suicide attacks against innocent civilians, but I do not consider Islam (or any fundamentalist religious-driven ideology) to be primarily intellectual. A better example (not mentioned by Sowell) might be the Global Warming alarmists, but, that too, may be classified as a fundamentalist "religion" :^)
Sowell's best examples are the mass-murdering dictators of the 20th century. It is understandable that leading intellectuals in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia would become apologists or even admirers for the sake of their family's survival. But, how to explain leading intellectuals living in western democracies and therefore free to express their opinions who, never-the-less gave the dictators cover? Sowell writes "Some of the most distinguished intellectuals in the Western world in the 1930s gave ringing praise to the Soviet Union, while millions of people there were literally starved to death and vast numbers of others were being shipped off to slave labor camps. ... Many of those same distinguished intellectuals of the 1930s were urging their own countries to disarm while Hitler was rapidly arming Germany for wars of conquest that would have, among other things, put many of those intellectuals in concentration camps -- slated for extermination -- if he had succeeded." (The column is based on his recently published book Intellectuals and Society.)One of my favorite stories (not from Sowell) is of the 1930's American intellectual attracted by the idea of Communism who decided to move his family to Russia. Of course, he was was aware of the possibility conditions in the "worker's paradise" were not as good as his fellow intellectuals claimed, so he told his wife he would write a letter from Russia. "If it is written in red ink," he told her, "That means conditions are bad and there is censorship, so you should not come." Well, a couple months later she received a letter in black ink! "Conditions in Russia are wonderful! You can buy anything in the markets, except red ink!"
Intellectuals are so smart they can construct misconceptions so ingenious that even they themselves are taken in by them. Some ideas are so foolish that it takes an intellectual to believe them. (Like the Omnipotent God who can create something so heavy that even He, Himself, cannot lift it :^)
Ira Glickstein
Ira said:
ReplyDeleteHe (Sowell) gives, as his first example, the extreme Islamic terrorists "consumed with a set of ideas". Yes, it is ideas that drive them to suicide attacks against innocent civilians, but I do not consider Islam (or any fundamentalist religious-driven ideology) to be primarily intellectual.
Joel responds: It depends on what you mean by "primarily intellectual." The expression "the pen is mightier than the sword" needs to be understood as "the pen inspires the sword." Marx, for example, would have had no impact on the world without the people he inspired to revolt. Similarly, a philosopher-academic was the one who inspired fundamentalist Muslims to revolt against westernized Muslims. Here's an short quote from Wikipedia that summarizes the influence of the Egyptian academic and Koranic authority Sayyid Qutb. Interestingly, his radical philosophy had its roots in a sabbatical he spent in the United States. He found the physicality he saw in wrestling, dancing and female exhibitionism so disturbing that he had an epiphany concerning the importance of Islam's dominance of the world.
Wikipedia: "Qutbism (also Kotebism, Qutbiyya, or Qutbiyyah) is a strain of Islamist ideology and activism, based on the thought and writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist and former leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed in 1966. It has been described as advancing the concept of "offensive jihad," - waging jihad in conquest[1] - or "armed jihad in the advance of Islam". Qutbism has gained notoriety from what many believe is his strong influence on jihadi extremists such as Osama bin Laden. According to observers, jihadi extremists “cite Sayyid Qutb repeatedly and consider themselves his intellectual descendants.”
Joel continues: Also, I think we'll have a hard time with the term "on balance." Quantifying the effects of intellectuals is probably impossible without identifying an appropriate metric. The Founders were intellectuals. How do you measure the good they brought about as compared to Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. who were at the root of the bloody and failed French Revolution? Do you compare by body count? Increase or decrease in Gross National Product? I think that the best we can do is make a long list of intellectually inspired changes in the world and leave it to each person to value the results as fits their own world view. With respect -Joel
I remember the talk you gave about Sayyid Qutb at the Philo Club and he was certainly the intellectual spark for modern jihad. Of course it is (mostly) non-intellectuals, such as the 9/11 hijackers and the underwear bomber and others who carry out the actual terrorism.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could make the same argument regarding the intellectual Marx inspiring Communism while others actually carried out the revolution.
As for "on balance" I agree it is subjective. I certainly benefitted from the American revolution, and probably indirectly from the French revolution, but it was others who were bloodied. For them, perhaps, the balance goes the other way.
Ira Glickstein
"Intellectual" has too many conventionalized referents.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, most intellectuals in present day academia tend to be specialist at which they may be skilled, but generally they have no better judgment about worldly affairs than laborers, probably less.
On the other hand, great leaders who can actually change people's mind must be "intellectual" in some sense. Most important, I think, are the rhetorical skills. Think of persuaders like Demosthenes, Cicero, Jesus, Disraeli, Churchill.
I also agree with Joel: "the best we can do is make a long list of intellectually inspired changes in the world and leave it to each person to value the results as fits their own world view."
Intellectuals are so smart they can construct misconceptions so ingenious that even they themselves are taken in by them. Some ideas are so foolish that it takes an intellectual to believe them.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, most intellectuals in present day academia tend to be specialist at which they may be skilled, but generally they have no better judgment about worldly affairs than laborers, probably less.
I love the two quotes above from Ira and Howard. More seriously, Intellectuals are necessary for mankind and society to advance. Still, as a non academic, as a reader of Sowell, although not his defender, as a viewer of the climate change debate, if debate is a valid term for the semi intellectual exchange of opinions, as an avid listener to the discussions on weekends on cspan2 my view of the academic world is one of intellectuals so immersed in the world of academia that they are unable to bridge the gap between idealism and practicality. The best example I can provide is political correctness, which arose from the mini revolution of the 1970s primarily on the campuses of the universities and continues to be fostered within academia today leading to a virtual censorship of ideas.
Thanks John for your kind words regarding the quotes from Howard and me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read Howard's comment that "... most intellectuals in present day academia ... generally ... have no better judgment about worldly affairs than laborers, probably less" I cheered!
Sadly, many academic-oriented intellectuals look down upon manual workers, most likely because they, themselves, could not rub two sticks together to save their lives. They think that because they have the brainpower (and sitzfleish) to excel at abstract thinking they are above common work.
C-minded intellectuals favor assembly-line mass production such that low-skill, low-pay workers can do the work and yield high profits. L-minded intellectuals treat laborers like children and mother them with expanded government in return for cushy jobs as bureaucrats, and votes for like-minded candidates.
To some extent, both L- and C- intellectuals are afraid of candidates like Gov. Sarah Palin who actually know how to do manual work (commercial fishing up to her elbows in fish guts, hunting and field-dressing moose, preparing moose stew with home-made cookies, ...). They downplay her intelligence because much of it is practical rather than abstractly academic. They misread her appeal to ordinary voters.
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Howard, I agree with your list of great rhetorical persuaders and value their intellectually-inspired historic changes in civilization. Their thoughts were the spark that got others moving!
Sowell's main critique was not of those intellectuals - not even of Marx who was mistaken about the relative value of labor, capital, and entrepreneurship but who "never administered a Gulag."
For Sowell, the intellectuals with bad ideas are those in the west who were so taken in by the idealistic idea of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" that they came up with ingenious excuses for Stalin's Gulag. Or those so blinded by the ideal of "world peace" that they advocated disarmament in the face of Hitler's military build-up.
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John, yes extreme political correctness makes "academic freedom" an oxymoron. Many intellectuals who support free speech, in theory, do their best to stifle it within the halls of academia.
Ira Glickstein
Just don't forget that all the great discoveries that make our current civilization what it is (for better or worse perhaps) came mostly from a small fraction of these unworldly intellectuals.
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