DMB:
>There is a hierarchy
> of ideologies so that one moves from fascism to the more intellectual
> system as development proceeds. There's a strong correlation between civil
> libertarianism and high I.Q., for example. Different ideologies appeal to
a
> wide range of value systems and the one you wear says tons about where
> you're at.
Platt;
If this means the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to be
a libertarian, a recent book entitled "The Reckless Mind-Intellectuals in
Politics" contradicts the assertion. From the New York Review of Books:
DMB; There's a correlation between ideologies and cognitive development, but
its not a law of nature or anything. Its not even about being smart. Its
about the values you hold. But on to the book review....
Mark Kingwell;
"'The Reckless Mind' is a study of how a number of important twentieth-
century European intellectuals came to support tyrannical regimes and
totalitarian political ideas. In profiles of Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt,
Walter Benjamin, Alexandre Kojeve, Michel Foucault, and Jacques
Derrida, the author demonstrates how the convulsions of the twentieth-
century shaped the political sensibilities of important thinkers who
were so deluded by the ideologies of the time that they closed their
eyes to brutality, coercion and state terror."
Heidegger, Schmitt and Kojeve were NAZIs who had become disenchanted with
both philosohpy and liberal democracy. And the NAZIs used intellectuals just
as they used scientists, they put them to work in the war machine or killed
them. RECKLESS MIND is taught at Rice University in their religious studies
department and Mark Lilla is a professor at the notoriously conservative
University of Chicago. Take a guess what sort of political views the author
has based on the book review anyway...
"He writes with some admiration...of Carl Schmitt, the conservative
political theorist whose antiliberalism has been adopted by both ends of the
political spectrum."
Interesting that this reviewer calls Schmitt a conservative. For the details
of the NAZI party membership of Schmitt and the others see POLICY REVIEW
online. Steve Menashi writes an intelligent review called "Charmed by
Tyranny".There he describes how Heidegger joined in 1933 and then recruited
Schmitt, whose "venal and pathological anti-senmitism" suited the NAZI party
well. Its odd that the author would write about such people "with some
admiration". In any case, its wrong to construe questions about such strange
and specific creatures as NAZI intellectuals as some kind of indictment of
intellectuals or intelligence in general.
Plattt;
I haven't read the book, but my guess would be that some of these
guys were attracted to the intellectual siren song of communism which,
as shown by the disastrous Russian experiment, led to the most brutal
totalitarian regime in history.
DMB;
You should read the book. Apparently, its about philosophers who became
disenchanted with the moral uncertainty of liberalism and intellectual
principles. Instead they embraced tyranny and old-fashioned moral
certainties. You really shoud.
Plattt;
As Pirsig points out, intellectuals (defined as high IQ types) are ill-
equipped to run society.
DMB
There you go again. SOM is ill-equipped to run society, not the intellect
per se. How many times do I have to?.... Oh, nevermind.
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