In the second half of the book, a more conspiratorial note is struck on intellectuals by one of her supporters writing on "The New Class", described as a "ruling elite that controls, not only by armed force and money, but also by ideas".
A hundred years later, in the 1950's in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, the intellectuals were making one another anxious by not reading one another's books, wrote Alfred Kazin in an essay he published about summer.
The terrorist attack in Paris offers them a teachable moment, an opportunity to open students' eyes to the difference between truth and propaganda; between governing by fiat and governing by persuasion; between intellectual rigidity and intolerance, on one hand, and free and robust debate, on the other.
Great works, whether they be moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, would seem to confer meaning on one's life regardless of whether one will live forever.
Kelefa Sanneh on conservative intellectuals' man-crush on Trump is one of the odder pieces to appear in The New Yorker in some time ("Secret Admirers," January 9th).
Marcella Durand New York City Kelefa Sanneh on conservative intellectuals' man-crush on Trump is one of the odder pieces to appear in The New Yorker in some time ("Secret Admirers," January 9th).
One cannot become a sage purely on the basis on one's own intellectual efforts, nor can one truly understand the nature of reality as an illiterate ascetic reliant solely on mystical intuition.
The abysmal intellectual deficit is summed up, on one hand, by the unremorsefully bellicose figure of Blair, and, on the other, the British government squabbling with the BBC over what to call Isis...
"Respect for truth," O'Brien declared there on one occasion, "intellectual courage in the pursuit of truth; moral courage in the telling of truth: these are the qualities of a real, of a living university".
On one hand, intellectual champions like Buckley offered a worthy opposition and admirable erudition.
