-
sponsorship
Rachael, I don't guess I know that many people who think of themselves as intellectuals—or would say so out loud, at any rate, no matter how much they love kicking around ideas. (My mom described me that way once, in anger, and it was soooo not a compliment. "Who died and made you Lionel Trilling, missy?'' was the drift, and doubtless with good reason.)
I did work for an intellectual at one point—and I know this because he spoke of it constantly; in fact, he talked so much about his own heapin' helpin' of smarts that one wondered, as he would have said, how wide-ranging his great thoughts really were.
Public intellectuals in recent political life? Obama would be the first in the White House since ... Woodrow Wilson? (Or can a rip-roaring racist ever qualify as such?) Otherwise, we've had Pat Moynihan, by any standard, Al Gore, as a great prophet and popularizer of science and technology he was quick to grasp the significance of, Bill Bradley in his own mind, thanks to John McPhee, and uh ... not Bill Clinton, though he is definitely 10 kinds of smart. I guess no Republicans spring to mind because they've been running against the Ivory Tower crowd for as long as I can remember.
What does it even mean to be living the life of the mind in this moment of the body/age of the Internet/time of the more, faster, ruder, and right now? I had a French boyfriend—yes, this was after the war—who defined an intellectual as anyone compelled to "passer des nuits blanches'' for the sheer pleasure of it, in the grip of a book. But to then brag about it? Pas sexy, even in France. And in this country, our challenge seems to be to find that middle ground—your favorite spot, Rachael—between pride in mediocrity and pointless showing off. Aspiring to know more should be a given and shared goal rather than, as you say, just another way to divide us into haves and (ha-ha, you down there) have-nots.
-
sponsorship
I'm just catching up on the Palin-Bush "I.Q." discussion, and there is just one point (OK, maybe two) I wanted to address. Juliet, I don't know anyone who feels a "nearly blood-thirsty anger against people who read books," and I think it's an unfair characterization. What makes people angry, and blood-thirsty, if we must go there, is when elites and intellectuals condescend to everyone else and belittle their views. (A point that Melinda makes astutely in her latest post.) In this democracy of ours, we all get a vote. It doesn't matter if you have read the complete works of James and Faulkner or if the highlight of your week is the latest issue of People magazine.
I think it also creates an us-vs.-them mentality that is neither accurate nor helpful. Me, I would love to be an "intellectual." I would love to find eight layers of meaning in each novel I read and be able to sit down with studies on topics that interest me and just plow through them. But I'm not. My brain doesn't work like that. But that doesn't mean I'm unthinking or lack curiosity. I think the vast, vast majority of us live somewhere in the middle.
I don't doubt that there are some people who proudly call themselves anti-intellectual (and I honestly don't think that "governing from the gut," as you write of President Bush, is the same thing at all). I think most people who fall into the category, whether they'd call themselves that are not, are too consumed by everyday concerns—working hard, paying the bills, maybe raising kids or taking care of elderly parents, and trying to squeeze it all in before collapsing in a heap at the end of the day—to worry about the same things that elites do. And when they're tired or stressed out, they really don't like being told their views are worth less than someone else's.
You also write that you commend conservatives for leaving the GOP but wish they should have done so earlier. I've shaped—and reshaped—my beliefs and opinions through years and years of life experience, from debating others and even arguing with myself, from listening to viewpoints both similar to mine and different. I would suspect that liberals do the same thing, and I can't imagine having suggested four years ago that people abandon their beliefs or their party just because John Kerry was an inferior candidate. I'm not ashamed of my party affiliation. There are times I've struggled with my support for Republicans (though not always for the reasons you might think). I've got a lot of internal conflict about John McCain and Sarah Palin. But if there's anything that steels my resolve, if there's anything that allows me to stride confidently into the voting booth, it's hearing that Republicans should "leave a sinking ship" or reading comments from people (as I read earlier today) who wish that misfortune would befall John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?