Required Reading: Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
When reading the text, one can't help but notice the preponderance of the intellectual elite thinking of humanity in the abstract. They also note how much they "love" humanity. Dispite their marked antisocial behavior and, at times, degeneration into complete misanthropy, they maintain the social fiction that they love humanity in general. Language, however, is a tricky thing, and the word they should have used in place of "love" would be "fascination." These antisocial, brilliant individuals, who posessed such fantastic intellectual capabilities that they soared above the masses, could not help but be intrigued by individual man, much like a child watching a fishtank. The intelligentsia, for the most part, has achieved some semblance of enlightenment and note the base, animalistic behavior of humanity. Just as Marx took up the plight of the proletariat and Tolstoy had his serfs, the enlightened individual cannot help but try ease the suffering of the ignorant masses. The intellectuals spoken of, for the most part, are beings escaped from Plato's famous cave, and out of their own will and because of their convictions make the journey back into the darkness to tell the chained ones of the light above. Their inability to understand people on an individual is not a mere symptom of misanthropy but a sign that they have evolved spiritually and mentally beyond the capacity of normal-dare I say mere?-humans. From their quotes they seem more amused at times than anything else ("Look! The primates are mating! How odd."). Basically, the book is flawed in that it mentions the mysticism that most of the subjects exhibited but fails to look into the basic tenets of that mysticism and how it would psychologically effect one with an advanced intellect, especially if the process of enlightment were "stumbled upon" without sufficient conditioning and the destruction of the ego, as found in such prevalent occult and religous groups as the Eleusinian Mysteries to Gnosticism to the recent Golden Dawn.
Another interesting facet of the book is the fact that each of the intellectuals revere Nature even over the traditional "God the Father." Naturally I will contend that to be truly intelligent you have to realize that organized religion is complete bullshit, but I think this goes further. The concepts detailed seem to go a bit further than basic Pantheism, which was common at the times of most of these writers. It seems, however, that they have an almost superstitious faith in the way things are supposed to be, the very fabric of existence working in synchronization to produce the plethora of viable senses available to humanity, as personified by the very Earth. It seems to me that they have touched upon some train of thought that completely escapes me, with my nihilistic philosophical bent. They revere Natural phenomenon in an almost pagan way which is something that I have never been able to understand, considering my complete dependency on modern technology (and my aversion to such nasty things as sunlight and animals).
Note on the background: I think it gives a sciency intelligent look, don't you? |
