No Ideas But In People

Whatever else the re-election of Bush signifies, it was a smack in the face for the intelligentsia. Like a crazed Kappelmeister sitting at a nightmare organ, they pulled out all the stops, from the bourdon in lead to the fiffaro, not excluding the trompeta magna, and what emerged, far from being a thanksgiving gloria in excelsis, was a lugubrious marche fun㨢e. In America they were all at it, from old Chomsky to that movie-maker who looks like a mushy jumbo cheeseburger. In Germany the Heidegger Left were goose-stepping in force. In France the followers of ‘Jumping Jack’ Derrida were at the barricades. Here in England all the usual suspects were on parade, from the Oxford stinks-don to the public-sector playwrights, with the Eumenides-novelists spitting fury. What a caterwauling and trilling!   Paul Johnson, The Spectator

Speaking of manning the barricades, Paul Johnson, author of such conservative classics as Modern Times, Intellectuals, and A History of the American People, is back doing his weekly column at the Spectator.  He caterwauls a bit himself, here, yet how sweet it is!

Here, Johnson reprises his theme of 'intellectuals,' and reminds us of his original assessment of such a self-styled class of people: "When, two decades ago, I wrote my book Intellectuals (1988), I defined one as ‘somebody who thinks ideas matter more than people’." 

How ironic, that.  When a left-leaning (I have no idea how he keeps from keeling over) friend asked about my political sympathies, he seemed surprised that I thought of myself as a conservative.  "But you seem like such a sensitive, caring guy!" he exclaimed.  As fitting as Johnson's aphorism is there is something missing from it, as there must be from all aphorisms.  It's true enough in the case of a Lenin or Chomsky, but for the run of the mill Kerryista, a profound ignorance of human nature, lack of curiosity about history, and an overpowering desire to believe oneself as towering over one's fellows are also sine qua nons.

Another friend lamented the demise of what basically was subsistence farming in Japan.  The argument?  How sad is was that communities didn't come together to help each other, that the skills and traditions were being lost.  How frightening the mechanized future is.  What struck me, was that this same person was chronicling the hard lives and rigid social restrictions of the last generation of Japanese to live such lives of bucolic romance.  As if the rise of technology and the affluence it provided had nothing to do with the freedom women have found in the 20th century!  No doubt, it was all the power of ideas. 

And now, as even the Guardian points out, the basic condition of life for millions upon millions of people is improving.  What's doing it?  The spectre which haunted Europe?  Nope.  The spectre's arch enemy, capitalism, with all its technology, competition, conspicuous consumption by the few and tawdry bourgeoisie values of the many.  Is it flawless and fair?  No way, man.  Does it ensure peace and prosperity for all?  Not necessarily.  But it sure is a hell of a lot better for and more natural to humanity than any system dreamed up in a university library, or a drafty city garret for that matter. But it's often so tacky!  So unromantic!  So, so...plastic.

Perhaps the greatest impetus for the intellectual is that he has nothing to offer the world except his ideas; that is, he has no way to get attention, money, sexual favors and status except by saying and writing remarkable things.  To shove an extremely complex nut into a particularly tiny shell, as prosperity spread and more and more became literate, the competition among those more talented at communication than in practical matters sharpened.  Remarkable  often came to mean remarkably unusual rather than remarkably skillful or appropriate. Furthermore, the notoriety of the successful inspired the imitation of countless others yearning for the same attention. And for those not even skilled at communication, opinions and attitudes would suffice.  I believe it was in the Sixties that society witnessed a kind of tipping point in which ideas and attitudes would actually count for more to most people than safe, boring, conformist abilities.  We are still recovering from the shock; however, I like to think that the slight margin of victory by which Bush was reelected shows that the high tide of 'intellectualism' has been reached, and will gradually recede.

I write this not in stern disapproval of those glib yet ineffectual intellectuals, because for almost the entirety of my adolescent, and for lack of a better word, adult life, I wanted nothing more than to be one of those lauded, elitist, word slingers.  I still do, actually.  Laud me.  Please. 

The difference is, however, that now I no longer believe that the world really revolves around people like me, and if only, if only people like me were in charge, the world would be a much better place.  No, after years of introspection, I think that if I by some bizarre chance I became vice president, I would have somebody follow me around with a loaded .45 just like somebody follows Bin Laden around.  In my case, it would not be to have my shadow shoot me if my capture were imminent, but rather if the president should meet an untimely end.  Then the world would be safe from somebody who was better equipped to festoon the world with words than doughnuts, lug wrenches, a stable political system, and the billion other quotidian things that make the world today safe, clean, comfortable and unbearably discontent.

Comments

[Cliff]

There's nothing I could add, you said it all. Masterful writing.

[Kropotkin Beard]

Still making completely inaccurate comments regarding Chomsky still I see. Are you ever going to read him?