THE INTELLIGENTSIA
269
books and art galleries there is embodied the objective knowledge of
a way of living which we shall only put into practice in decades or
centuries. In everyday life we all behave like creatures in a period
piece, anachronic;tic caricatures of ourselves. The distance between
the library and the bedroom is astronomical. However, the body of
theoretical knowledge and independent thought is there, only wait–
ing to be picked up, as the
J
acobins picked up the Encyclopaedists.
This picking up, however, is the function of a special type of
people; the liaison agents between the way we live and the way
we
could
live according to the contemporary level of objective knowl–
edge. Those who are snugly tucked into the social hierachy have
obviously no strong impulse towards independent thought. Where
should it come from? They have no reason to destroy their accepted
values nor any desires to build new ones. The thirst for knowledge
is mainly confined to situations where the unknown is disquieting; the
happy are rarely curious. On the other hand the great majority of
the oppressed , the underdogs, lack the opportunity or the objectivity
or both, for the pursuit of independent thought. They accept or reject
the existing values; both attitudes are inarticulate and unobjective.
Thus the function of co-ordination between the two concepts Homo
and Sapiens falls to those sandwiched in between two layers, and
exposed to- the pressure of both. The intelligentsia is a kind of sen–
sitive, porous membrane stretched between media of different prop–
erties.
One should not however confound them with the middle classes
as such. Sensitivity, searching and groping are attitudes which presup–
pose
a certain amount of frustration- not too much and not too little;
a kind of moderate unhappiness, a harmonious disequilibrium. The
upper strata which accept the traditional values, lack this frustration;
the bottom strata have too much of it- to the degree of being either
paralysed or discharging it in convulsive fits. Further, it must be a
specific
frustration-the discontent of the professional man, writer,
artist, who rebel not because society has deprived them of every
chance, crushed and buried them in pit or workshop, but because
they have been given a margin large enough to develop their gifts,
but too narrow to make them feel smug and accept the given order
of things. For the smug, thinking is a luxury, for the frustrated a
necessity. And as long as the chasm between thought and tradition,
theoretical insight and practical routine prevails, thinking must neces–
sarily
be
directed by the two poles of debunking and Utopianism.
All
this
does not apply any more to the bulk of the middle class.
It
did as long as their climate was 'Commonwealth' and
J
acobinism.
