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justify their existence, to help them believe they are in the right and
what they do is good. Those values are in the hands of the intellectuals.
Most intellectuals want to multiply and fill the streets, spread their
wares in the marketplace. They want to invade other people's books if
only in a footnote; they want to be referred to, referred to more than
their rivals. They know the value of sacrifice, having become slaves to
competititve examinations and quantitative hierarchies early in life. They
work long, hard hours, subordinating the emotional to the professional.
If
all goes well, they produce copious articles, attract disciples, found
schools of thought. They sacrifice their lives for a name, the pettiest form
of survival.
But our times call for knowledge that goes beyond these intellec–
tuals' technical expertise; our times call for the knowledge of the initi–
ate. Initiates care about nothing but the issue at hand. There is no dis–
covery without passion, and these madmen are committed to what they
do for its own sake, not for the fame it may bring. Careers are irrelevant
to understanding. (A career does no harm, but it must not become a
goal in itself.)
Intellectuals of the initiate type -
fme
intellectuals we might call
them - are few in number. Perhaps they needn't be numerous. Teams of
several dozen in major cities have sufficed to create all the short-lived in–
tellectual golden ages the world has known .
Moreover, there is such a thing as an international intellectual elite,
though its composition and contributions are not always apparent until
after the fact. And because words influence people, there is such a thing
as intellectual power - priest, prophet, and poet power - the power of
individuals considered wise and therefore vested with authority. The bur–
den of confidence weighs heavy on such individuals - on doctors, for in–
stance. Their perspicacity is their debt to the world, their duty; under–
standing is their profession. Sometimes it takes a naive soul to notice
things others miss, and these people tend to be visionaries, too busy to
worry about the prevailing course of events or their own skins. One way
intellectuals communicate with one another is by referring to the great
names of the mythologies of their trade, the not-quite-of-this-world
freaks of the spirit.
Where does the university come in? Well, teachers breed teachers,
and if things go well, that means mature adults who can stand up to the
jokes of fate, who do not renounce under pressure what they hold dear.
