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LEWIS COSH
of a sense of discrimination and of intellectual standards has nourished
the rampant anti-intellectualism of our schools and is responsible, at
least in part, for much of the hostility
to
ideas which pervades not
only high school but also much of college culture.
Hofstadter's concluding chapter is somewhat surprising. One
expects him to assess the future course of those anti-intellectual tenden–
cies which he has so ably traced in the past; instead, the last chapter
turns
to
a consideration of the present-day role of the intellectual
in
terms of the dialectic play between "alienation and conformity." This
is disappointing because, instead of following the tough line of analysis
pursued up to this point, Hofstadter engages here in a kind of balancing
act which robs the last chapter of some of the sharpness of the rest of the
book. He seems suddenly converted to the liblab on-the-one-hand-but-on–
the-other-hand school of writing. On the one hand, anti-intellectualism
continues to pervade American life--but on the other hand, intellectuals
hardly ever had it so good. On the one hand, there is still much in this
society that justifies a sense of alienation among intellectuals-but on
the other hand, there is so much that's good and healthy in America.
On the one hand, intellectuals are recognized and even embraced
by
the men of power-and this is as novel to them as it is disturbing–
but on the other hand, intellectuals are becoming more self-conscious
about their estrangement ...
I fear that much that Hofstadter sees as an acceptance of intellec–
tuals by the men of power is in fact not an acceptance of intellectuals
as
intellectuals but rather as experts. Yet, as he himself has written, there
is a considerable difference between these two roles.
If
intellectuals are
indeed, as he has said, men who stress the "critical, creative, and
contemplative side of mind," if "the meaning of intellectual life lies not
in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties,"
if
playfulness is one of the major characteristics of intellectual activity,
how then can one conclude from the employment and use of many
experts and mental technicians that there is a growing acceptance of
intellectuals? It is perfectly true that many persons who once laid
claim to intellectual distinctions have in recent years joined the Establish–
ment, but have they not in the process lost certain essential characteristics
which they exhibited earlier? Neither playfulness nor the quest for new
uncertainties seems conspicuously present among the exiles from the
Charles who moved to the Potomac.
No doubt Hofstadter is right to point to the eternal tension which
has beset the relation between the men of power and the men of
intellect: "We are opposed almost by instinct
to
the divorce of know-
