"How the Intellectuals Took Over"

A very worthwhile essay by David Gerlernter at Commentary, Mar. 1997:

... Let us say there was a coup at the top: that, after the war, intellectuals took the helm at the prestige colleges; that a new breed of intellectualized graduates duly emerged to claim (as these graduates always had) a large share of the nation's elite positions; that the character of the elite changed radically in consequence. Today's elite is intellectualized, the old elite was not. Why should that matter? What differences does it make?

The difference is this: the old elite used to get on fairly well with the country it was set over. Members of the old social upper-crust elite were richer and better educated than the public at large, but approached life on basically the same terms. The public went to church and so did they. The public went into the army and so did they. The public staged simpler weddings and the elite put on fancier ones, but they mostly all used the same dignified words and no one self-expressed. They agreed (this being America) that art was a waste, scientists were questionable, engineering and machines and progress and nature were good. Some of the old-time attitudes made sense, some did not; but the staff and their bosses basically concurred. (George Bush was elected in part, Brookhiser suggests, because of public interest in restoring these arrangements.)

Relations between the elite and the nation are very different today. The enmity between Intellectual and Bourgeois is sheepman against cattleman, farm against city, Army versus Navy: a cliche but real. Ever since there was a middle class, intellectuals have despised it. When intellectuals were outsiders, their loves and hates never mattered much. Today they are the bosses and their tastes matter greatly.

The essay in The New Class? that went deepest into basic cultural questions was Norman Podhoretz's; he expanded on Lionel Trilling's idea of the intellectuals as an "adversary culture." During the 1960's and early 70's, the intelligentsia's hatred for middle-class society was something fierce. The ferocity could partly be explained, Podhoretz wrote, by the fact that "despite all the concessions" the middle class had made, "it still refused to be ruled by the intellectuals." Today the intelligentsia runs the show, and its hatred for class enemies has been toned down — exactly as Podhoretz would have predicted. But the hatred is still there, and comes through loud and clear on special occasions. Moreover, it has undergone a portentous change of focus. It used to be aimed at least partly upward, at the "establishment." Now that intellectuals are the establishment, it is aimed entirely downward, at the public at large.

Today's elite loathes the nation it rules. Nothing personal, just a fundamental difference in world view, but the feeling is unmistakable. Occasionally it escapes in a scorching geyser. Michael Lewis reports in the New Republic on the fall '96 Dole presidential campaign: "The crowds flip the finger at the busloads of journalists and chant rude things at them as they enter each arena. The journalists, for their part, wear buttons that say 'Yeah, I'm the Media. Screw You.'" The crowd hates the reporters, the reporters hate the crowd — an even match-up, except that the reporters wield power and the crowd (in effect) wields none. ...

(Thanks, John.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 08:42:32 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.