Frames
One of the things that can make discussion so dull and claustrophobic is limiting it to just one set of frames: left and right. Not everything is about that. Not absolutely everything is political, and then even what is political doesn’t necessarily divide neatly into left and right.
One different frame, one that arranges and sorts things in a way quite different from the left-right docket, is anti-intellectualism. There is plenty of anti-intellectualism on the left as well as the right – and on the right as well as the left. Often they seem to compete with each other over who can raise the lip farthest to sneer at learning or rationality or critical thought.
For me this division often supersedes that between the right and the left. There are times, or situations, or issues on which I prefer a pro-intellectual conservative to an anti-intellectual lefty. The pro- or anti-intellectual frame trumps the left-right frame. I noticed this shift several years ago, and I think it was then that I began to realize that my leftish outlook was full of fissures and cracks. The more the left insists on being anti-rationalism and anti-Enlightenment, the broader and deeper those fissures become. And I don’t think that’s inevitable. I don’t think anti-intellectualism is an inherently leftist position.
Worries about anti-intellectualism are often taken to be elitist and so right-wing (except the right uses the ‘elitist’ epithet at least as much as the left does, so I’m never clear on the logic of that), but I don’t think that’s accurate, not if you define the elite in a sensible way. Not if by the elite you mean people with money and power. Intellectuals aren’t the elite in that sense, and the elite certainly aren’t intellectuals. Rich people don’t have time to mess with books and ideas, they’re too busy making money. Intellectualism is a minority taste, yes, but elite doesn’t mean minority, so that’s beside the point.
And in any case, intellectualism is more of a minority taste than it has to be, because we make it that way. Every time we snigger at nerds and geeks, every time we conflate ignorance with sincerity and being ‘down to earth,’ we train each other to think of mental life as something odd, peculiar, and probably sinister. Every time people who ought to know better endorse this view, they do their bit to keep the joys of intellectual exploration and discovery away from the non-elite, and that is very far from being a kindness.
Ophelia,
Let me recommend Wole Soyinka’s prison writings (‘The Man Died’) for a superb discussion of what being an intellectual really is. Not a dour book at all.
Note that some conservatives complain about ‘the intellectual elite’ by which they mean Academe – I never use such constructs as I don’t equate Academe with intellectuality. Especially in this age of advanced Academic corruption (moral, intellectual and political).
Note that sometimes the complaint is of ‘the opinion making elite’, by which they mean the non-conservative media.
I think referring to the ‘elite’ is rather silly, given that nothing is specified.
I think this is a peculiarity of Anglo-American culture however. There has always been a suspicion of intelligent people in English culture and this was transferred to America. The insult “too damn clever by half” is quintessentially Anglo-American. You rarely find this attitude in continental Europe where, in France, philosophers are often revered with the same fervour that pop idols receive in the UK. This is quite amusing given that the use of the word intellectual as a term of abuse comes from France during the Dreyfus affair.
Hear hear. Excellent points all.
And you’re right, Chris, about the sales of popular science books. That is one of the cultural indicators I think of to cheer myself up when I get exasperated with the other kind. We’re having a Golden Age of popular science writing right now, and that is something to rejoice at. There is a certain amount of good popular writing on philosphy, too, also an excellent sign. Sign and also instrument; symptom and also cause. The general public can and does read such books, and the situation can and will improve.