The New 'Treason Of The Intellectuals'.....

The Iconoclast ^ | March 03, 2003 | Stepehn Rittenberg

[BurkesLaw]

March 3, 2003: Why is there so often an alliance between wordsmith intellectuals -- poets, novelists, playwrights, literary critics, journalists -- and anti-democratic, anti-capitalist totalitarians? Not a day passes without a Harold Pinter, Gore Vidal, Amiri Baraka, Susan Sontag or Norman Mailer denouncing America.

None of these luminaries uttered a peep of protest when the Taliban systematically destroyed centuries old cultural artifacts. Nor did they cheer the liberation of Afghanistan by force of American arms. Even when one of their own, Salman Rushdie, was threatened with death by the forces of Islamofacism, there was barely a murmur of protest against the Islamo-Nazis and their fatwas. More critical passion has been expended by these cultural luminaries against Donald Rumsfeld's bursts of straight talk, than against the rantings of Middle Eastern sheiks calling for death to all infidels.

What accounts for the depth of resentment these beneficiaries of democratic freedoms express toward the nations that have cosseted them? Remarkably, the failure of socialism and the collapse of the Soviet Union has not altered their hostility to our capitalist society, and in that regard they are very much allied with Islamo-totalitarians around the world who denounce our decadent Western capitalist culture.

In a superb essay (1998), the late Harvard Professor of Philosophy, Robert Nozick, pointed out that "Wordsmith intellectuals fare well in capitalist society; there they have great freedom to formulate, encounter, and propagate new ideas, to read and discuss them." Yet ironically, these same individuals tend disproportionately to oppose capitalism.

"Intellectuals" Nozick suggested, "feel they are the most valuable people, the ones with the highest merit, and that society should reward people in accordance with their value and merit. But a capitalist society does not adhere to the principle of distribution 'to each according to his merit or value.'" Apart from the gifts, inheritances and gambling winnings that occur in a free-market society, the market rewards those who satisfy the perceived market-expressed demands of others. And how much the market distributes, according to Nozick, "depends on how much is demanded and how great the alternative supply is."

Unfortunately, in most capitalist democracies, the rarified literary product of most wordsmith intellectuals isn't in much demand. Therefore, within a free-market economy, monetary and other valued rewards (for example, mass acclaim) are usually limited for the intellectual class. In a free market, Stephen King out-trumps Susan Sontag.

Regardless, according to Nozick, "unsuccessful businessmen and workers do not have the same animus against the capitalist system as do the wordsmith intellectuals. Only the intellectuals' sense of unrecognized superiority, of entitlement betrayed, produces that animus."

Where does this sense of aggrieved entitlement and superiority, on the part of intellectuals, come from? Nozick points to the schools. This is the most important and powerful institution that children enter into outside the family. It is a place that gives the greatest reward to the verbally skilled. There, the future wordsmith intellectuals "... were praised and rewarded, the teacher's favorites".

As Nozick describes this unintended socialization process,

How could they [the wordsmith intellectuals] fail to see themselves as superior? Daily, they experienced differences in facility with ideas, in quick-wittedness. The schools told them, and showed them, they were better....To the intellectually meritorious went the praise, the teacher's smiles, and the highest grades. In the currency the schools had to offer, the smartest constituted the upper class. Though not part of the official curricula, in the schools the intellectuals learned the lessons of their own greater value in comparison with the others, and of how this greater value entitled them to greater rewards.

The wider market society, however, taught a different lesson. There the greatest rewards did not go to the verbally brightest. There the intellectual skills were not most highly valued. Schooled in the lesson that they were most valuable, the most deserving of reward, the most entitled to reward, how could the intellectuals, by and large, fail to resent the capitalist society which deprived them of the just deserts to which their superiority 'entitled' them? Is it surprising that what the schooled intellectuals felt for capitalist society was a deep and sullen animus that, although clothed with various publicly appropriate reasons, continued even when those particular reasons were shown to be inadequate?

Nozick further observes that the schoolroom successes of the verbally skilled take place in the framework of a centrally organized social structure. Rewards are distributed by the central authority of the teacher. In the schoolyard and the hallways, there is a less formal social system. It's more freewheeling and rewards a variety of talents. There, as in the post-school world, the verbally skilled do less well. One senses in so many of our writer-critics of America a yearning for a maximum leader (the Ultimate Teacher) who could restore them to their schoolroom glory. Their past infatuations with Hitler, Stalin and Mao -- their continuing affection for Castro and their idealizing of brutal thugs like Arafat -- speaks to a yearning to surrender to a powerful authority who will praise and reward them, as happened in the schoolrooms of their childhood....

[BurkesLaw]

Makes sense to me. Resentful egotistical traitors.

[fporretto]

As a grace note to Mr. Rittenberg's analysis, I'd like to contribute the following: In many cases, these verbally-talented "intellectuals" are not very intellectual at all. That is, they possess less actual power of ratiocination than they're presumed to have. They neither analyze nor synthesize; they merely comment. Thus, what matters most about them is their unusual facility with words.

"I shall say it a hundred times if I must... We really ought to free ourselves from the seductions of words!" -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[Poseidon]

While I applaud your efforts to direct the casual reader to the full article, I find it somewhat humorous that you excerpted the article in its entirelty with the exception of the final paragraph...not exactly what I'd call keeping in the spirit of excerpting. However, a good read nonetheless.

[Revolting cat!]

"Even when one of their own, Salman Rushdie, was threatened with death by the forces of Islamofacism, there was barely a murmur of protest against the Islamo-Nazis and their fatwas."

False. I stopped there; once you introduce a lie, your remaining evidence and arguments are suspect!

[Lil'freeper]

Excellent find- thanks for posting it.

[daviddennis]

Interesting. My talent makes me a wordsmith intellectual, but I hated the school environment because it didn't seem to be teaching me anything truly useful. Math, for example, would be better done with calculators or computers. Analyzing other people's writing bored me; from the very beginning I wanted to write my own original stuff instead. History consisted of learning the same stuff over again that was already covered in earlier grades.

The hypothesis generated by these folks would indicate that I would most likely become pro-capitalist, since the outside world interested me a great deal more than what I saw as the artificial school environment. And that did in fact become the case.

So the theory looks pretty good.

D

[P.O.E.]

Their egos tell them "I have the answer", and they want to run everyone else's lives. They live in solipsistic loops with other birds of such feather, and can't understand that others don't, and don't want to, speak their language.

[MEG33]

Sounds reasonable.What about the very well paid actors? Academics are another group that seems disdainful of America. I think the Reds aren't dead in America.

[Zeroisanumber]

"Even when one of their own, Salman Rushdie, was threatened with death by the forces of Islamofacism, there was barely a murmur of protest against the Islamo-Nazis and their fatwas."

Not true in the slightest. Gore Vidal, Martin Amis, and assorted company were so outraged that they nearly had a collective stroke.

I've never considered dissent and criticism to be a form of treason, have we become so narrow that anyone who doesn't toe the party line is a traitor to America?

[Egregious Philbin]

Even when one of their own, Salman Rushdie, was threatened with death by the forces of Islamofacism, there was barely a murmur of protest against the Islamo-Nazis and their fatwas.

Not quite true:

`Sontag spoke of Rushdie as "only the most visible individual victim of a worldwide struggle against tolerance," citing other examples of oppressed or threatened authors. Sontag tied Rushdie's situation to the plight of the Bosnians -- she was recently named an honorary citizen of Sarajevo after staging a production of Waiting for Godot in the besieged city.'

'So, my best to you, old man, wherever you are ensconced, and may the muses embrace you.' [Letter from Norman Mailer to Rushdie]

Harold Pinter, along with Susan Sontag, signed his name to a letter in defense of Rushdie in the NY Review of Books.

[Egregious Philbin]

Jinx!

[Carry_Okie]

While I applaud your efforts to direct the casual reader to the full article, I find it somewhat humorous that you excerpted the article in its entirelty with the exception of the final paragraph...not exactly what I'd call keeping in the spirit of excerpting. However, a good read nonetheless.

For which there is clearly a rationale: It is the desire to share ideas as far as possible while still providing hits to the sponsoring source. It's actually a generous approach and an attempt to enlist the casual.

[oyez]

I think the Reds aren't dead in America

Reminds of a sign I once saw in a bar that said, "Those that don't believe in life after death should see this place closing time. " The Red's are back to life and they are finding themselves locked out.

[MEG33]

It's their big bag of burgler tools that worry me!

[Publius6961]

Why is there so often an alliance between wordsmith intellectuals -- poets, novelists, playwrights, literary critics, journalists -- and anti-democratic, anti-capitalist totalitarians?

That's easy.
To these twinkletoes, symbolism always trumps reality.
"Greatness" by association, since so many historical figures were "weird".
They are incapable of understanding that "weirdness" alone is not enough. A certain level of intellectual competence is also essential.

In the real world, the folks with a firm grasp on reality keep things going and makes the existence of these parasites possible.

Darwin explains it rather clearly.

[MEG33]

OOPS! burglar

[appalachian_dweller]

>> Resentful egotistical traitors. <<

That about caps it. I've stopped watching movies and in general TV shows altogether. Knowing how these traitors think, I just can't bring myself to watch them anymore. About all I watch is news and the discovery channel, history channel, and the learning channel.

[A_perfect_lady]

Only the intellectuals' sense of unrecognized superiority, of entitlement betrayed, produces that animus."

I hereby swear and affirm this to be true. In my teens and 20s, my sense of my own superiority stemmed directly from my way with words, and I mightily, mightily resented how little the world valued my one and only gift. It took some real enlightening to bring me face to face with myself and my real motivations... but once you "know thyself" there's no way to look at the Left without profound horror and - for me - shame.

[ecomcon]

Actors are perhaps the most despicable of the lot. They are paid to say the words of the "wordsmith". They then act like, and sooner or later, believe themselves to be actual intellectuals, simply because they said the words they were given on a script, and pretended to believe them in a convincing way. What is acting but make-believe?

Perhaps we have entirely too much liesure time on our hands.

[Phaedrus]

... but once you "know thyself" there's no way to look at the Left without profound horror ...

I was somewhat disappointed with the article insofar as I think the rot goes much deeper; i.e. into psychological dysfunction.

Most of us are "products" of the public school and university system. We grow up and we "get over it". I believe that those who remain within the "educational" system or who find their way into the media as a result of their talents also find themselves there as a consequence of their insecurity. Those institutions are one step removed from the real world of self-sufficiency and the individuals represented depend upon and are beholden to others for their sustenance. I think that they very deeply resent this. They are exceedingly immature.

The antidote might simply be to challenge them to grow up by calling their bluff. Robert Bork, a former Marine, is an example of an intellectual who grew up.