The Treason of the Intellectuals

 

The opportunity that I had to study at Yale College as an undergraduate and later at Harvard University for my Ph.D., the chance I had to wander among the gothic buildings, to imbibe confidence and purpose, and to learn to think, learn how things work, from distinguished scholars, was a point of stubborn pride for me when I started my career as a professor, but that legacy had devolved into a nightmare, into a travesty.

I watched up close how the thoughtful and insightful men and women who were my classmates at Yale and Harvard, who were my colleagues as a professor, responded to the horrific institutional decay of the United States over the past two decades. Sadly, although I remember fondly the moments of deep insight and kind exchanges of those good old days, I observed how they, as intellectuals, as lawyers, doctors, engineers, executives, professors and government officials, how they betrayed their fellow citizens and buried the wisdom they had obtained at those temples of learning deep in the excrement of fraud and hypocrisy.

You see, they forgot that the entire point of that elite education they had received. It was not supposed to be something you boasted about, or that you possessed like a yacht or a racehorse, a special key that got you into the club. No! That sort of thinking is the outgrowth of deep moral decay.

That education was a privilege alright, but one that brought with it an absolute obligation to serve society, to stand up bravely for the interests of the nation, and above all for the interests of those who have not had the opportunity to learn how the system works, to study about science and technology, about foreign lands and ancient things.

That is right, you were given special tools that few had access to. They were given to you so that you could use them, use them to help society, especially in times of need, in times of crisis.

And yes, that moment of crisis inevitably came.  (more...)

The Treason of the Intellectuals