December 18, 2005

Intellectual Insanity in American Life

THE ALWAYS ASTUTE NEO @ neo-neocon has just published her reflections on the political ramblings of that old war horse "intellectual" Harold Bloom. He comes out of the experience looking rode hard and put away wet.

The essence of Bloom's attack on George Bush is that the President is... wait for it... stupid and doesn't read books. There's a fresh assertion from a clod sharp and tenured academic mind. It doesn't take Neo many words to dissolve Bloom's clod into thin mud since Bloom ignores the facts about Bush's real reading habits before bloviating. As usual no fact ever penetrates Bush hate for reasons explained below. I won't comment upon Bloom's assertion about Bush's intelligence and reading habits. That's done ably by Neo. What struck me is a remark Neo highlighted :

"Bloom doesn't think much of Americans, either:

"All of this is extraordinarily blatant, yet the American people seem benumbed, unable to read, think, or remember, and thus fit subjects for a president who shares their limitations."

The assertion that "the people" are dolts for electing a dolt is heard more and more often from those who consider themselves as the only class fit to vote, fit to win, and fit to rule; the American "intellectuals." Or, as was once said with aplomb in Blazing Saddles, "You know. Assholes."

Now that the vast majority of what passes for intellectuals in America live in a reality distortion field as substantial as that great gas giant Jupiter, there's no escaping its pull. Over the decades "Professional American Intellectuals" (PAIs) have managed to so secure their sinecures in Academe and the Media that they are impervious to any shock that shake them out of their delusion short of a thermonuclear explosion. And for many that wouldn't do it either -- unless they happened to be in the city at the time. We've already established that the destruction of 911 was not enough to penetrate their shields.

Existence within this reality distortion field is similar to, and overlaps, the effect that sudden wealth has had on young entrepreneurs in our time. It's not a new phenomenon, but the endless fast and immense wealth for little effort that our fat system throws off allows it to happen with greater rapidity and intensity today. I think of it as "The Bubble."

When a person gets a very large hit from the money machine these days -- hundreds of millions or perhaps billions -- he receives a kind of life security much like academic tenure, and exceeded only by a job at the Post Office. Then a slow but almost inescapable change begins to take place.

The ability to command any material object or mortal pleasure becomes a soul-warping force stronger than the inability to command any material object or mortal pleasure. Slowly at first, but with ever increasing speed, the individual is sucked away from all those who knew him or her as a normal human. Decent friends become distant to avoid being seen as spongers even though money and favors are dispensed with the best will in the world. Real hustlers, spongers, and perveyors of blandishments come into the Bubble Boy's realm on wings of subtle but unremitting flattery.

In time, most of the old friends have either melted away, walked away, or been driven out by the hordes on the con. The afflicted is left surrounded by people who assure him they are his friends because real friends always stand by a pal --- as long as the gravy train rolls. Since he no longer has any real yardstick against which to measure his drift from normality, the drift continues until he is surrounded only by sycophants of all sizes and shapes. He is then in The Bubble and will stay there until death, tragedy, or the end of the money.

So it is with the PAI "Professional American Intellectual." Indeed, many of them have wheedled their way into The Bubble of the Suddenly Wealthy since he always needs affirmation and they always need a grant. One of the first thing a PAI learns in school is how to mirror money. And money loves to be mirrored as much as the witch in "Sleeping Beauty." PAIs proliferate next to and within effortless money and the vast dark towers of American philanthropy. As Exhibits A to D I give you Senator and Mrs. Heinz-Kerry, the Hollywood Clintons, the George Soros Brigade, and the Huffington Huff of 2004 if you can bear to recall their antics. There are others and they are legion. This is, as I said, a fat country. We can afford a lot of them. We even let them jet about the nation to instruct us on how to live and think and believe and be. All the old snake oil of "the betters" who always know better and love to butt in to people's lives. Sometimes, since they are parasites on the body politic, we even allow them to run for office.

Looking at these intersecting bubble palaces wafting about America today, one can only feel irritated and saddened the inhabitants are compelled, en masse it seems, to move from hating Bush to hating The People as well. When this happens the murmured subtext is always thus: Oh, pity and fear the poor " Little People" who did not go to the right schools, read the right books, wear the right clothes, summer in the right places, speak the right French phrases, and have all the right friends. At parties, summer houses, and lunches in New York City for over 30 years I heard this nattering as a constant theme. I am ashamed now to say that I nattered right along with the rest. After all, once you've got a seat at the round table you've gotta walk the walk and talk the talk. That person standing behind your chair isn't the waiter and can't wait to sit down.

The darker level below the whispered subtext is that if "The Little People" cannot be trusted to vote correctly, than perhaps the running of America cannot be left to such losers. Yes, perhaps it would be best not for America, but for "the future of the planet" if only the PAIs and all their pals had the vote and had their way, now and forever, Bubble without end, always. This oozing attitude of self-righteous smarm harks back to that time when only the racial and intellectual and financial American elite had the vote; that four-score and seven year period before the Civil War.

Within The Bubble of the PAIs the standard issue view that Bush is stupid is, of course, neither new nor illuminating. It has been the First Commandment of "Real and Really Smart Citizens" of the US since well before the election of 2000. It reads, "Thou shalt always believe and constantly assert that George W. Bush is dumb."

Within the Bubble the questioning of these secular commandments is not permitted. Other ages called it heresy and burned the offenders at the stake. This Brave New Bubble calls it politically incorrect, and casts any heretics into the outer darkness of the vast prehistoric wastes between the Upper West Side, Georgetown, San Francisco and Beverly Hills. The question of how this man, or any man, becomes President (the most arduous job interview in history) without being intelligent cannot even be thought, much less asked. It can't be asked since the answer is "He can't. He has to be smart." That single admission brings down the whole house of cards they have now piled up halfway to their empty but highly evolved heaven.

Bloom and the millions with him in The Bubble have now entered so deeply into their distortion field they cannot extricate themselves. To admit to even a smidgen of the truth is to admit that their entire shared "reality" is a mass delusion, an intellectual insanity of their crowd, the Smart Set. But still there has to be some explanation of how an "obvious moron" can become President. Twice. More and more that reason is now being given as "The People are stupid."

This is shameful on the face of it. Worse, this is from a party and an intellectual tradition that gave us such native geniuses as Wood Guthrie for whom this land was made for you and me, and Carl Sandberg for whom "The People, Yes," and the towering poet Frost for whom:

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

American intellectuals, with few exceptions, have never managed to match the majesty, the faith, and the vision of our songwriters and our poets; all of whom knew that the true soul and destiny of these states was never to be found in the elitist enclaves or the petrified forests of academe, but always out there in "the land vaguely realizing westward" among "The People."

The unreasoning anger at Bush has now begun to spread out like a pool of unrestrained bile into a widening anger at "The People." It will only intensify since one of the chief ways of identifying those who are suffering from a state of severe and unremitting high anxiety is through their expressions of irrational anger which quickly escalate into spuming and sputtering rage.

It might well be a case of "Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make intellectually insane." In a way, it is probably good that those PAIs among us remain in The Bubble. We have enough psychotics loose on our streets already. It's winter in America and all the heating grates on our city sidewalks are already taken.

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Posted by Vanderleun at December 18, 2005 10:55 PM | TrackBack
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

How old is Bloom? In respect to "the people are stupid", is that really any different from what assorted academics and so forth have been saying since, well, the founding of the USA? (Although I will observe it seems to have got worse since the end of WWI).

Posted by: Eric Blair at December 19, 2005 5:47 AM

Human nature is like a carrosel. On this ride, you do not know how you managed to get on or when you will get off. One thing is certain, the nature never changes, it just continues to go around and around. Some people will ride the horses but most will sit on the bench wanting to ride one of the horses.

Posted by: jeffersonranch at December 19, 2005 7:35 AM

The obvious run-along to both neo's post and your remarks needs analysis also. As the intellectualoids, secure among themselves, heap increasing scorn on the great unwashed, more of us will push back. Thus do they hurry along their own comeuppance, bless their parchment wrapped hearts.

Posted by: AskMom at December 19, 2005 8:54 AM

Gerard: once again, you've nailed it. I am quite familiar with these people especially the so-called academic types. They are a bunch of self-absorbed, self-righteous snobs who presume to know what's best for everyone. And, no deviation from the rigid line will be tolerated. I've already ostracized myself at work as I have no compunctions about telling these twerps where to get off. Their heros Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, and their myrmidons are the subject of my total contempt. As yu stated, they do often live off of grants to do useless "social" research. I can tell you that every dollar that goes into this long-running pseudointellectual scam is wasted. In all my working years I cannot point to a single piece of publically funded social research that has either resulted in a product, an activity, or a body of knowledge that bettered anyone's life. If these grants did not exist they'd all be, as Mickey said, "pumpin' gas in Joisey City."

Posted by: Chet at December 20, 2005 6:41 AM

Gerard:

Excellent essay! By way of exposing a few cracks in the bubble's surface the unremitting persecution of Dr. Jean Cobbs at Virginia State University by its thuggish President, Eddie Moore (primarily because she, a black social scientist, had the gall to ride in the Republican parade), will soon result in a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the school, and has already resulted in official censure from American Association of University Professionals (not exactly the most conservative organization on the planet). For a quick backgrounder check my blog here, and also check the FIRE website here. And don't miss the ongoing discussion of these and related issues at the National Association of Scholars.

So, not knowing how to self-correct, Eddie and his pals then went after some of Jean's supporters in the VSU faculty, most notably a tenured physics prof named Carey Stronach (currently the President and Board Chairman of the Virginia Association of Scholars). Moore started by firing several untenured physicists on Carey's staff who were critical to a large research grant awarded to VSU by the US Navy. The Navy then cancelled the contract, resulting not only in the loss of a great deal of money to the university, but cheating several physics students out of the fellowships they desperately needed to obtain their education. And that too could result in a lawsuit, as well as some sort of reaction from the Virginia legislature, which isn't terribly happy with the way Eddie's administration of VSU is hemorrhaging money.

Developing...

Posted by: Demosophist at December 22, 2005 9:31 AM

Why was my previous comment banned by the blacklist software?

Posted by: Demosophist at December 22, 2005 9:36 AM

OK, I'll try this again, and then I really have to go pick up the hooch for Christmas.

Gerard:

Excellent essay! By way of exposing a few cracks in the bubble's surface the unremitting persecution of Dr. Jean Cobbs at Virginia State University by its thuggish President, Eddie Moore (primarily because she, a black social scientist, had the gall to ride in the Republican parade), will soon result in a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the school, and has already resulted in official censure from American Association of University Professionals (not exactly the most conservative organization on the planet). For a quick backgrounder check my blog here, and also check the FIRE website here. And don't miss the ongoing discussion of these and related issues at the National Association of Scholars.

So, not knowing how to self-correct, Eddie and his pals then went after some of Jean's supporters in the VSU faculty, most notably a tenured physics prof named Carey Stronach (currently the President and Board Chairman of the Virginia Association of Scholars). Moore started by firing several untenured physicists on Carey's staff who were critical to a large research grant awarded to VSU by the US Navy. The Navy then cancelled the contract, resulting not only in the loss of a great deal of money to the university, but cheating several physics students out of the fellowships they desperately needed to obtain their education. And that too could result in a lawsuit, as well as some sort of reaction from the Virginia legislature, which isn't terribly happy with the way Eddie's administration of VSU is hemorrhaging money.

Developing...


Posted by: Demosophist at December 22, 2005 9:38 AM

Still can't get the comment past your blaclist software, so I'm posting it to my own blog. You be the judge of whether the blacklist software works appropriately.

Posted by: Demosophist at December 22, 2005 10:01 AM

Gerard,

I think the line is "You know, MORONS."

It goes something like "These people are the salt of the earth, the common clay of the new west... you know, morons."

Posted by: ace at January 1, 2006 9:29 PM
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