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Intellectuals, by Paul Johnson
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Do the private practices of intellectuals match the standard of their public principles? How great is their respect for truth? What is their attitude to money? How do they treat their spouses and children - legitimate and illegitimate? How loyal are they to their friends? Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer, Kenneth Tynan and many others are put under the spotlight. With wit and brilliance, Paul Johnson exposes these intellectuals, and questions whether ideas should ever be valued more than individuals.
- Sales Rank: #411922 in Books
- Brand: Harpercollins
- Published on: 1989-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 385 pages
Features
Amazon.com Review
Conservative historian Paul Johnson wears his ideology proudly on his sleeve in this often ruthless dissection of the thinkers and artists who (in his view) have shaped modern Western culture, having replaced some 200 years ago "the old clerisy as the guides and mentors of mankind." Taking on the likes of Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Lillian Hellman, and Noam Chomsky in turn, Johnson examines one idol after another and finds them all to have feet of clay. In his account, for instance, Ernest Hemingway emerges as an artistic hero who labored endlessly to forge a literary style unmistakably his own, but also as a deeply flawed man whose concern for the perfect phrase did not carry over to a concern for the women who loved him. Gossipy and sharply opinionated, Johnson's essay in cultural history spares no one.
Does it really matter that Henrik Ibsen was vain and arrogant, that Jean-Paul Sartre was incontinent? In Johnson's view, it does: these all-too-human foibles disqualify them, and other thinkers, from presuming to criticize the shortcomings of society. "Beware intellectuals," he concludes (though, given the subjects of his book, it seems he means intellectuals only of the left). "Not only should they be kept well away from the levers of power, they should also be objects of particular suspicion when they seek to offer collective advice." Whether one agrees or not, Johnson's profiles are frequently amusing and illuminating, as when he suggests that the only proletarian Karl Marx ever knew in person was the poor maid who worked for him for decades and was never paid, except in room and board, for her labors. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Written from a conservative standpoint, these pummeling profiles of illustrious intellectuals are caustic, skewed, thought-provoking and thoroughly engaging. The author of A History of the World skeptically weighs each pundit's moral and judgmental credentials to give advice to humanity. He plays up the personal shortcomings of Marx, a failed academic given to pseudoscientific jargon, habitual anger and dictatorial habits; Sartre, a spoiled only child, existentialist philosopher of action who did nothing of consequence for the French Resistance and never lifted a finger to save the Jews; pacifist Bertrand Russell, who repeatedly advocated "preventative" nuclear war against Stalinist Russia between 1945 and 1949; Hemingway, whose adolescent rejection of his parents' religion is said to have triggered his secular ethic of action and violence. This rogues' gallery includes "notorious liar" Lillian Hellman; self-publicists Norman Mailer and Bertolt Brecht; leftist publisher Victor Gollancz, "a monster of self-deception"; Shelley, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Ibsen, others.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The central theme of Johnson's new book is "Beware intellectuals!" Johnson examines the rise of the intellectual as a sort of secular seer and moral arbiter, a role once filled by the priest or soothsayer. These intellectuals, starting with Rousseau, promote themselves as possessing the moral authority to transform society, a claim that Johnson disputes. He approaches his subject through a selective series of ad hominem case studies, including Shelley, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Marx, Hemingway, Brecht, Sartre, Hellman, and others. The focus is more on what Johnson takes to be the moral contradictions of these individuals than on their ideas. As such, it is more interesting as literary gossip than intellectual history.
- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll . , Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
68 of 74 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating Read, But Flawed Argument (Maybe)
By David Spor
Paul Johnson's Intellectuals is a must read for anyone who loves history, philosophy, biography, or just plain juicy gossip. It's style is wonderful - fast paced with clear prose that makes you feel like you are being told a good, gripping story. There are enough details, backed by extensive notes, to keep you well informed, but not so much that the non-history buff will find his eyes glazing over. There is also some solid factual ammunition for conservatives in Johnson's account of Marx's utter lack of scholarship.
Perhaps the one serious drawback about the book is that Johnson does not really draw out the argument which it was written to make. Johnson wants to call into question the authority of intellectuals who lead immoral lives to give the average man advice about life, but other than raising the question, he does little to draw the argument to a logical conclusion. Reciting the numerous vices of the intellectuals in question is not an argument. It must be connected with some other proposition, such as that those who are immoral are intellectualy unreliable, or that bad ideas come from bad people, in order to make a case. In the end, Johnson fails to do that, and the book ends up more like a circumstantial ad hominem (at its best) or an extended gossip column (at its worst).
I would recommend the book as a delightful, informative read, but if you are looking for logical argumentation, you will have to supply your own. Intellectuals supplies the conservative with a great deal of material from which to create a premise, but the logical form and the conclusion will have to come from some other source.
107 of 128 people found the following review helpful.
An attack on delusional arrogance
By Guillermo Maynez
This is a funny and truly provocative book. By "intellectual", Johnson means scientists or artists who go well beyond their abilities and try to design new codes of behavior, new systems of government and new moral rules for the humankind. That is, people who, just because they are good at doing something, think they get the moral right (and duty) to tell the rest of the world how to conduct their affairs.
Through several biographic essays, Johnson shows just how dangerous some intellectuals can become, and at the same time he shows us the low level of their ethical record. Undoubtedly, he exaggerates at some points, and in some other his gossipy is too much, but beyond that, his thesis is valid and solidly grounded. I agree with the central idea: that being a good poet, playwright or mathematician doesn't mean that one is qualified to give opinions about every possible subject, the more politicized, the better. Johnson correctly rejects utopianisms and Messiah-like behaviors. Of course, the bad moral credentials of these people does not diminish the quality of their work in the least, but the book rightly states that arrogant intellectuals are also capable of saying and doing stupid things. Don't buy it? Check out newspapers and magazines and see European and American "intellectual celebrities" talk about complex conflicts in other parts of the world, of which they know nothing but nonetheless give radical -and frequently imbecile- opinions.
93 of 114 people found the following review helpful.
Beware Intellectuals!
By Nottingham
Paul Johnson takes on a line-up of first class intellectuals spanning three centuries, and declares: Beware Intellectuals.
By shining a bright light on the dark side of these very public figures - on their greed, their lust and promiscuity, their deceit and arrogance, and especially the despicable way they treated those around them, including and especially their spouse and children while proclaiming selfless love for humanity, Johnson made a strong case on how only human these luminaries truly were. And posed the question as to how fit intellectuals really were in preaching to others how they should manage their affairs.
You will find an idol or two of yours deflated as you read Johnson's well-researched book. Some would argue that the merits of a man's ideas are independent of the man himself. This is certainly true with scientific ideas (or theories), which can be empirically validated. Albert Einstein, Edward Teller, or even James Watson were not necessarily what one wants for close friends, but one would not reject the theories of relativity, thermonuclear reaction and the double-helical structure of DNA for the personal failings of these scientists. On the other hand, one must wonder aloud the value of the social theories proclaimed by the intellectuals who somehow saw their theories fit for the masses but not for themselves!
Perhaps this book is one-sided. It mostly picked on the leftists. I am afraid the raw statistics are also quite one-sided. It is the vision of the left to see themselves as an anointed group who are destined to "run things" to make a better world. Regardless, I am inclined to think that the intellectuals on the right are just as hypocritical, if fewer in number.
One key point well argued in this book is that the talent of people in one area, which renders them famous, does not give them license to mentor mankind in all affairs. One sees this folly everyday with many Hollywood and other media celebrities.
"Intellectuals" is a joy to read. While Johnson harshly critiqued the dark side of these intellectuals, he also presented them in the proper historical context and gave due to the epochal importance of their work where it was appropriate. Johnson's writing style was graceful and engaging. Like a good historian, he was meticulous with facts and data, which, though selected to support his thesis, were factual nonetheless. This book, besides being informative, has given me quite a refreshed perspective on intellectuals. It is one of those books that you read and think about again and again because it is rightly provocative.
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