Why are Deep Thinkers Shallow about Tyranny?

NY Times ^ | November 10, 2001 | Mark Lilla

[Benrand]

Nonsense, I just picked the book up after watching "The Hanoi Hilton" to get an idea of what the War Tribunal organized by Russel was...Johnson laid it out and didn't mention any personal peccadillos of Russell's. He gave a description of it, and some interesting facts to go along with it.

There are ugly warts talked about in that book, but they fit. Marx was a madman, a foul madman...I;v emet smelly intellectuals just like him...it's good to know the personalities behind the ideas. After all, the Personal is the Political, as they say.

[poet]

They have "their two feet firmly planted in the air". That is the best description of these airheads. Someone once used that to describe liberals.

While the rest of us go on living and trying to raise a family, these people engage in empty philosophical discussions and add nothing to the quality of our lives.
One question always begets another question with them.
They epitomize the adage "those who can, do, those who can't, teach. They need a "mental enema" to get the crap out of their minds.
But, what do I know, I'm one of their masses.

[wcbtinman]

These people think too much.

[Anamensis]

Johnson laid it out and didn't mention any personal peccadillos of Russell's.

It's been some years since I read it, but I am quite sure I remember Johnson going on at length about Russell's sex life, his halitosis, all this other stuff that is, while interesting at the gossipy level, not really an engagement of his ideas.

[AndrewSshi]

One other thing that must be noted. Not only would academics love to be important, love to be the movers and shakers, but then there's also this, which Stefan mentioned obliquely. Conservatism is not very sexy and doesn't have much place for intellectuals. Compare, say, Communism or Naziism with a capitalistic democracy. In one, you have the government's pet intellectuals micromanaging, designing, and organizing every aspect of society. Designing societies is a great program if you're a thinker. I myself confess that I enjoy as a hobby designing what I think the "perfect society" would be (I don't, though, even begin to think that I'd try to force this on people).

Contrast the centrally planned system with a capitalistic democracy. All the intellectual gets to say is, "Leave things alone, the people can generally take care of themselves." That's it. No central planning, no grand schemes to remake the world, just a simple, "let it be." And whereas an intellectual can spend decades trying to mold his ideal society, free-market democracy can be summed up in a few paragraphs. Not at all sexy.

Of course, then you've got rank idiots who talk about the cleansing effects of violence, and speak with glee about the actions of, say, Sandanista executioners. These would-be Genghis Khan's are just a collection of pathetic Walter Mittys who vicariously imagine themselves toting AK-47's and gunning down capitalists because they're pale, skinny men who in an actual fight would get their a**es kicked. Indeed, the impulse that applauds the Vietcong carrying out massacres is the same that causes an alienated teenager to play games in which he imagines himself a barbarian warrior. Okay, done rambling.