"What the intellectual craves above all is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes than in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored."
--Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change, 1963

Nice quote. My anti-elitist/populist side agrees with this view, at least if it is read as mocking the vanity of the intellectual.

But the quote also could be read as touching on an important issue; the problem of historical agency. Are ideas motivating forces in history or not, or at least to what extent are they causative in history? If ideas are causative of action then that would be the underlying reason for an intellectual's desire to be taken seriously. (If I think ideas "rule" the world, then why not try to have MY ideas do so?). This is where a discussion of ideology would need to be engaged in as well.

Are ideas motivating forces in history or not? Is this a controversial question? Surely not. It is completely obvious that ideas are historical causes, and significant ones at that.

Even if the hoi poloi are oblivious, they are affected by ideas nonetheless. Persuasive ideas eventually become cultural posits, and as a result, their effects are ubiquitous.

It is a controversial point for Marxist historians and other believers in some form of a materialist historical dialectic.

Another way to see how it is controversial is to look at the question not in terms of whether ideas are causative in history but whether they are causative for the individual. So by just looking at it as a question of philosophical anthropology you have to note how many different reductivist arguments are made (Freudianism is one that still lingers, for example) which deny human rationality as causing, or explaining, human action.

I do agree with you Ralph that ideas are historical causes (although explaining there mode of effect is not so easy) and that would seem to mean we should defend intellectuals against the criticism Hoffer makes in this quote. Yet, American conservatives for the most part claim to be wary of intellectuals and "abstract thinking" in favor of "experience" and "prudence." So I think there is a rub there worth exploring.

It seems to me (though I'll happily defer to Skeptic on this point) that opposing prudence to abstract thinking is a confusion. As the Philosophers says: "prudence is not limited to what is universal but must know also the particulars...." (NE 1141b15) That is, while prudence involves experience, it also involves universal knowledge. And while experience without knowledge is preferable to knowledge without experience, the prudent man is knowledgeable and experienced. Thus, the "American conservatives" seem to have learned only half the lesson.

I am not an intellectual historian (nod in your direction) by any stretch, but it also seems to me that the substance of the political beliefs of many individuals (e.g., Americans) can be ultimately traced to their intellectual sources. Take the common belief that among Americans that we have various rights, be it a right to liberty, to speech, etc. It is a fact of American culture that most Americans believe such rights to be inherent. That is, if the civil government deprived an American of such a right (even through an amendment to the Constitution), he would believe an injustice had occured, an injustice that transcends any positive law. Where did that belief originate? I would argue that it originated in the minds of "intellectuals."

Here is an example, then, of an idea that significantly influences actions.

I agree Ralph. I first wrote "pragmatism" instead of "prudence" in my post above and then decided to switch so as to allow for the interpretation of prudence (and therefore conservatism) that you give, and that seems correct to me. I think that conservatives like a Michael Novak, e.g., speak of "prudence" or "practical thought" as if it is wholly disengaged from theory/speculative thought.

Above I just wanted to point out the two interpretations of that quote that struck me as possible, one which appeals to a kind of populist anti-intellectual conservatism, and one that is not at all dismissive of ideas, and hence "intellectuals" of some form.

My problem with "intellectuals" like Hoffer may have in mind is the *ideas* they hold, not that they value intellect.

Well, since I was called out...

I'm not sure what I think on the issue. Are ideas major players in history-- well, of course, practically everything in human life and interaction will involve ideas at some level. But NB Hoffer doesn't make fun of the role of ideas in history, but of intellectuals... Big difference, I think. I think Ralph is fundamentally wrong to claim that the determinative ideas that shape normal Joe Schmoes' reactions about rights, e.g., "originated" in the minds of intellectuals. In fact, any intellectual you are likely to name here (e.g., Locke) probably got his ideas a great deal from the assumptions of the Joe Schmoes of his day. To what extent are the ideas *of intellectuals* really influential in history? My hunch: not as much as they wish or think, but some.

One last thing... Don't you all think "intellectual" here means a certain personal type, not just all smart people? (E.g., like CSLewis's "men without chests"? Lewis was not anti-thinker...) When I read Hoffers's quote I think not of "thinkers" or smart people in general, but of those thinkers who deem their ideas worthy of great influence over normal people (because, presumably, the normal people can't continue to get along without them).

I can't recall where I've heard this, it's probably a hodge-podge of the writings of various Saints, and so forth...

But I seem to remember that the worst thing that you can do to Satan is to laugh at him. Of course, all of us are guilty of such vanity at some point (at least, I am, anyway). But to not call this out to someone does them a terrible disservice. And as we see with the so-called "Intellectual", to allow it to continue (and to even FAN the flames of their vanity), allows them to become almost a tyrant -- believing theirs to be the only worthy opinion in a world of mediocre minds.

"In fact, any intellectual you are likely to name here (e.g., Locke) probably got his ideas a great deal from the assumptions of the Joe Schmoes of his day."

Perhaps you're right about Locke and other modern thinkers, but the ideas about inherent rights do not reach back indefinitely. They weren't commonly held in the 12th century B.C. And the central idea that something is proper to me by nature doesn't predate 6th century Greek thought (I would think). It seems to me that the idea of natural rights is the result of a complex and lengthy intellectual development (in the minds of relatively few men) that has gradually and in stages worked its way into our culture. The idea of natural rights, for example, depends on the idea of nature. That idea is a product of the philosophical thought of a few.

I do agree that Hoffers' comment concerns "intellectuals" in the (rightly) pejorative sense of the word. My concern (as always) is that it might overshoot its mark and hit theory as a whole.

I forgot to add that I think that first essay in the Abolition of Man is brilliant. It is a perfect description of current "intellectuals."

Buckley once remarked that while he was an intellectual conservative, he was not of the conservative "breed," i.e., he hadn't been reared as a conservative. I like Buckley a great deal, but I wondered whether this made him without a chest.

It would be interesting to compare experience (as a condition of prudence) in Aristotle and spirit in Plato.

Ralph, the idea here would be more like this: the ideas get dressed up and pushed along by intellectuals, but that doesn't mean they invent them. For example, you say the idea of natural rights relies on the idea of nature. Well, first, I actually there is is a ntural core to the idea of nature that isn't just invented by, say, some preSocratic. Likewise, there is also a natural core to the idea of a "natural right"--i.e., somethings are really wrong to do to someone else--and this gets dressed up, but that doesn't seem to me to "originate" in the minds of an intellectual or relatively few intellectuals.

I think only an intellectual (in the pejoritive sense) would automatically think that to attack intellectuals is to attack ideas, and that concepts like natural rights have their origin with the smarties, without having already largely becoming, in some prior but similar formation, a part of their mileau. Not only does this view of things strike me as self-flattery on the part of intellectuals, it also seems naive historically, as well as implicitly nominalistic (i.e., concepts originate in heads, not because the world is a certain way... If the latter then of course non-intellectuals will naturally have lots of these ideas before the intellectuals dress them up).

Skeptic,

What about the issue of the role "ideas" play in the functioning and actions of a people/tribe/polis over time? Not as "dressed up" by intellectuals per se but just as cause of behavior on the individual and the group level.

A Burke likes to defend the "prejudices" of a people, the traditional norms of behavior, mores, politics as something with almost a life of their own that deserves respect and excepts them to a degree from criticism. To that end he is fighting the good fight of the conservative against the abstract "reforming" spirit of the modern conceited intellectual. But where do a people's traditions come from? Is it a matter of geography, diet, economic structure, "will to power," etc. as some form of materialist might say? Or as you want to suggest, since all true ideas must conform to reality are they just there for the individual to discover on their own?

I think that is what makes me (and maybe Ralph) look to ideas as propounded by "intellectuals," in a broad sense, as efficacious in history. Most likely these intellectuals are cultural/religious leaders but political as well. Chieftains, medicine men, elders, etc.

Maybe a difference between the "man with a chest" intellectual vs. the one w/o is that the former recognize their own limitations (invincible error, discursive rationality) and are in awe not of their own minds but of nature and God as source of truth, while the latter think of themselves as "discoverers" of truths that everyone must accept for progress to occur.

Or maybe as Paul Johnson might say "intellectual" is always only a pejorative. Then we should contrast intellectuals to "men of ideas" or something, like the old contrary of "philosopher" vs. "sophist."

Where do the traditions of a people come from? Not usually from intellectuals, and even when intellectuals do invent such traditions (e.g., our presidency or Senate or something) they do so in such cultural embeddedness that to attribute "invention" seems to me to be an overstatement.

You seem to unnecessarily oversimplify my position by suggesting that the "ideas" "are just there to be grasped by the individual." Take the example of natural rights-- in what sense do you think this idea "come from" intellectuals? OK, in its fully developed from it comes from intellectuals... but don't you think there is clearly a simple, natural basis for this idea (and I would say, that natural basis provides the partial truth in the concept)? That doesn't mean that the full-fledged concept of natural rights is just picked up by cave men, but it does mean that cave men can have a true concept that somethings are wrong to do to others, and this gets articulated, and made more sophisticated and worked up, in our cultural history, eventually into the idea of natural rights. If that historical account is right, then why attribute the causality, invention, origin, etc., of these ideas (qua historically efficacious) to intellectuals? (Answer: vanity).

To be clear, I'm strongly rejecting the materialist view. I believe that ideas are the major force of change in human life and history, and that these are not simply determined by material conditions. But what I don't get _at all_ is why you and Ralph want to say that ideas have to come from intellectuals. Some do, some don't, but all ideas (even the bad ones) ultimately come from reality, and reality appears to the poloi as well to Ralph... right?

Skeptic,

I think the difference between "inventing" and "dressing up" is insignificant. Philosophers never (or rarely) invent ideas ex nihilo. When the philosophers got hold of "nature," for example, the word had an established common usage. They developed the common idea into something new. The new idea is genetically related to the old, but that is the only sense in which the philosophical is present in the common idea (it seems to me). Thus, we can talk of "dressing up" common ideas, but a better metaphor would be "extremely making over" common ideas (e.g., facelift, tummy-tuck, $10,000 worth of new clothes, etc.).

Of course the true philosophical ideas do not "originate" in the minds of philosophers, i.e., philosophers are not constituting reality through thought. Nevertheless, reality can be discovered. Not all facts are plainly open to view. And even a false philosophical idea can be persuasive, and therefore, can cause human actions (e.g., Marxism).

So yes, reality appears to the poloi, but often through a glass darkly, though sometimes not at all.

Ralph: I don't disagree with any of the sentences in your most recent post, read shorn of implied attitudes.

"So yes, reality appears to the poloi, but often through a glass darkly, though sometimes not at all." True. But I don't see why you say 'poloi' here, since it is clearly at least as true of intellectuals.

Your original question was whether ideas [of intellectuals] are a motivating force in history. Think of it this way: when the "oblivious" poloi allow "ideas" [from intellectuals] to affect their views of the world, are these ideas in the philosophically dressed-up form, or in a much more vulgarized form? I think clearly the latter. (I think you must grant this, given your attitude toward the extent of the gap between the intellectuals and the many. If the many's ideas are really so far from the intellectualized versions as you have implied, doesn't that imply that the many--when they get their dirty little workman's hands on the intellectualized versions--seriously tarnish what they get?) Now, what we have then is kind of a dialectic from vulgar to fancy back to vulgar. And it is generally only once it gets back in a vulgar form to the "oblivious" poloi that they have force in history, right? And if you want to claim that dressing up is really so radical as to be invention (which I think is just vanity on your part), then how about the dressing down? That would also be a type of reinvention. Certainly the ideas that affect the many have been significantly transformed once again by them.

Do ideas have force in history? ...one again, absolutely. Do the ideas that have major force in history come from intellectuals? ...some do some don't; further, those ideas from intellectual that do have real historical force both (a) don't do so directly, but mostly by being vulgarly reinvented, and (b) are mostly intellectualized reinventions of vulgar ideas.

Now, why then should you claim for intellectuals such incredible historical inventiveness and force? Ideas at their level have little to no direct effect, and it is likely that the vulgar ideas affect them in _at least_ a similar degree as they affect the vulgar ideas.

Skeptic,

I agree with most of what you say. In particular, I like the "dialectic from vulgar to fancy back to vulgar."

That dialectic concerning natural rights seems to be "vulgar nature" and "vulgar morality" (distinct vulgarities) to "philosophical nature underwriting philosophical ethics" (the distinct vulgarities are developed and combined) to "vulgar natural rights."

The initial vulgarities cannot support the subsequent vulgarities without the intervening hand of philosophy. That is, it's just not the case that every man back to the stone age has had some idea "it is plain wrong to do X" that is even remotely comparable to the idea of a natural right. And therefore, the initial vulgar idea cannot do the work of the latter vulgar idea.

Consider a common Palestinian and a common American. Are they operating with the same core idea? What about a common ancient Egyptian, or medieval Japanese or Mayan?

Ralph: now you are just emphasizing that the intellectualized rewriting of the vulgar (perhaps we should say, 'naive', 'natural', or 'pretheoretic'?) is often historically forceful... OK. I agree with that 100%. I want you to grant, also, (1) that not all development of ideas--including not all development of ideas into more subtle forms happens--because of the "intervention" of intellectuals, that some of it just happens because normal people are in basic contact with reality and are not retarded and can build on what they are taught by their parents, and (2) that just as the revulgarized ideas rely on the prior dialectical stage (as you said, "The initial vulgarities cannot support the subsequent vulgarities without the intervening hand of philosophy."-- aside, why the shift to 'philosophy' here?), likewise the intellectualized versions rely on the pretheoretic versions. I think you must accept (2) in some form, per the meaning of 'dialectic.'

My justification for accepting (2) in a _very_ strong form: Intellectuals are also, at some point, young, and they also live most of their lives embedded like everyone else in normal life and its assumptions (Hume's "common life", Husserl's "natural attitude"). Thus, they are also for a huge amount of their lives and their thoughts influenced like the rest of us by pretheoretical assmptions.

What happened to Brian?

I accept (1) without reservation, and (2) "in some form," i.e., it's never the case that the intellectual invents ideas ex nihilo. At the very least, he speaks the same language as the common folk, and to that extent, must start from the same place.

I think we'll probably disagree about where to draw the line (on average) for (2). It seems to me that a very strong form of (2) cannot be correct because, at the end of the day, intellectual ideas about whatever subjects depend on metaphysical commitments, metaphysical theories. And however else the intellectual is embedded in normal life, the distance between metaphysical thought and normal life is too great. Even for a save-the-appearances thinker such as Aristotle, wisdom is far above the normal thoughts of common folk.

Ralph: Some very unexpected implications in your last post:

(a) For p to be an 'intellectual' idea it must imply metaphysical commitments.
(b) For p to be imply metaphysical commitments is for it to imply a metaphysical "theory."
(c) A "normal life" idea does not involve metaphysical commitments.
(d) Intellectual=metaphysician.

I think this is very silly. I deny (b) (c) and (d). The vast majority of "intellectuals" don't think much about metaphysics (i.e., they lack metaphysical theories), though I grant their ideas always have metaphysical implications-- but then so do all pretheorical ideas of non-intellectuals (that the world exists, e.g.).

Now, if you really want to accept (a) AND (b), then it will turn out that intellectuals have much much less historical influence than you have been arguing, since you are now excluding the type of intellectuals with the most direct historical influence--i.e., the non-metaphysicians, say, like Kinsey, Darwin, Keynes... In short, the higher you define intellectual, the less direct influence they will have. The lower you define them, the more influence they may have, but the more that influence will be embedded in the pretheoretical assumptions of that intellectual's culture and common life.

Now your only way out, as far as I can see, to still reject the strong form of (2), is to say that we should attribute all the influential but ideas of non-metaphysician (pseudo-)intellectuals (Kinsey, etc.) to the _metaphysical_ ideas of the intellectuals=metaphysicians they sometimes read. Do you really want to say that?

"Do you really want to say that?" Yes. There is a cascade from real thinkers (Aristotle, Locke, Hegel) to various levels of commentators and rehashers, to the commoners.

"...the higher you define intellectual, the less direct influence they will have." I disagree. The highest ideas are the most influential because they support many lesser ideas. They are not directly influential, but why is that significant?

You want to say that all non-metaphysical but influential ideas of people like Keynes are determined by metaphysical views propounded by the few greats?

I guess my complaint here, Ralph, is that this is a rather metaphysics-heavy view of human history. For example, within Aristotelian metaphysics or Platonic metaphysics or what have you, there are still many many many vaious positions one can take on every practical issue that comes up-- e.g., premarital sex, income tax, welfare, supply-side or demand-side economics, centralized or spread-out administrative structures of governments, business, and schools, etc. Now, metaphysics in important, but it doesn't just determine these things. In your view of history, there are a few big metaphysicians, their ideas filter down to lesser and more thinkers, and in this way they decide what happens in history. But metaphysical views don't just settle all other questions, even if they are really central.

Secondly, you have, btw, made nonsense of your original claim as a reading of Hoffer's quotation. The intellectuals he and you were talking about at first aren't the few great metaphysicians. And you have made the opposite mistake as you (I think unfairly) put on American conservatives. You pretend that universal knowledge (i.e., beliefs about metaphysics) is the ultimate source of the substance of all historically important ideas in the minds of the many-- and where is prudence in this?

Why don't you just stop exagggerating? In the meantime, your metaphysics-determined view of history is just a little bit unbelievable.

Perhaps I should hedge a little, but don't you agree that ethics is grounded in metaphysics, and that metaphysics constrains ethics. Isn't Aristotle's practical philosophy only tenable given his physics and metaphysics? Can someone be a metaphysical Platonist and a practical Marxist?

It seems to me that many broad cultural movements are ultimately driven by philosophical changes, and therefore, to the extent that culture is a historical cause, so too is philosophy. That, for example, the belief in natural rights is impossible without the Greek cosmologists, i.e., without the philosophical idea of nature.

"You pretend that universal knowledge (i.e., beliefs about metaphysics) is the ultimate source of the substance of all historically important ideas in the minds of the many--and where is prudence in this?"

A great illustration of the prudential relation between experience and knowledge is Buckley's claim that he'd rather be governed by the first 50 (100?) people out of the Boston phone book than the faculty of Harvard. That is, experience without knowledge is preferable to knowledge without experience.

This seems to be too simple an account. I would not expect Buckley to say, for example, that he'd rather be ruled by the first 50 people out of the Riyadh phone book than the faculty of Harvard. Why not? Because the content of their experience is different than that of Bostonians.

There is a complex and lengthy dialectic between experience and knowledge, and knowledge (it seems to me) is ultimately the dominant player.

-There is a difference between saying that metaphysics constrains one's ethics, and that it determines one's ethics. You have, up til now, argued the latter. I think that is false.
-Your metaphysical determinism does not leave room for prudence as an operator in human history-- knowledge of the universal will settle it all, whether it is one's view of premarital sex, welfare, or which house to buy... The question is whether good practical decisions are settled entirely by a type of theoretical knowledge of universals. Were thi true, we could become good by listening to philosophy lectures, no?
-High-level metaphysical theories influence big historical changes really only indirectly (you've granted this), they constrain but don't deterine many other views (you should grant this, and you implied so by hedging in your recent post), and they are often misunderstood by the lesser minds and by the many (you have granted this). All this together seems to extremely undermine any deterministic view starting from Plato's metaphysics or any other metaphysical view.

-Your discussion of experience and knowledge is baffling. First, I am not clear about whether you are critiquing Buckle's claim or not. Also, I'm sure you are NOT interpreting Buckley's claim correctly (he is not attributing relevant knowledge to the faculty of Harvard). Finally, you seem to be assuming that there is a dichotomy (and a dialectic!) between knowledge (by which you mean metaphysics) and experience. I find that very odd. The type of knowledge that is useful in politics, e.g., is not metaphysics, but prudence, and people get that from experience. (Are you denying that prudence is a type of knowledge?) But that is not to say that experience is better than knowledge, or than any type of experience provides prudence. You seem to attribute both these latter beliefs to Buckley, and maybe to me or other "American conservatives." Your comments regarding knowledge and experience are, well, fascinatingly obscure to me.

My interest in this topic has waned, but rather than make a quiet retreat I will concede defeat. As your criticism reveals, I have overstated my case.

Nevertheless, I believe I could retrace my steps and salvage my central claim, viz., that ideas in the minds of a few affect the actions of the many. At this point, however, I am inclined to punt.

"Ideas in the minds of a few affect the actions of the many." -Ralph

Well, when you put it that mildly, of course your position is true! (Though it also is no longer a criticism of Hoffer's quotation...)

Peace out.