|
On the Alleged Moral Superiority of Intellectuals
[American Thinker] The ordinary person is constantly being lectured and disparaged by intellectuals rooted in academia where Democrats massively outnumber Republicans. It is useful, lest there be some misunderstanding, to stress that I believe that intellectuals, including professors, can be a good thing. Indeed, they are essential to the development of civilization. I am one myself. There is nothing I love to do more than study the great philosophers, psychologists, social theorists, and literary figures. However, intellectuals have certain inherent limitations. First, they tend to think they know more than they do. More importantly, they tend to believe that their intellectual accomplishments make them morally superior to less educated people, hence the contempt expressed by so many in our "elites" for Hillary’s "basket of deplorable" in "flyover country".Aristotle argues that the aim of studying moral philosophy is not just to become a better thinker but to become a better person. Immanuel Kant makes similar claims in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. In "On Liberty," John Stuart Mill claims that only those who think through the issues rationally, like a philosopher, can know what is morally good. But does being an intellectual, even a "philosopher" (if one can still find one), make one better suited, as Aristotle puts it, to know "the good for man" and thereby become a better person? Leo Tolstoy, the world-famous Russian novelist, was well familiar with the limitations of the intellectual elite. After having been one for a long time, he came to believe that many intellectuals, despite their elaborate programs of self-glorification, were often greedy narcissistic people of bad character. In his Confessions, Tolstoy explains that he came to believe that, ironically, the meaning of life is not understood by the people who write the celebrated books of the year on "the meaning of life" for fame and fortune, but by "the poor, the simple, and the ignorant, the pilgrims, the monks ... and the peasants." Posted by: Besoeker 2022-02-21 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=625601 |