(version 1.02, changes will come)
In 1949, the exiled German writer Klaus Mann, one of my favourite
authors, wrote a piece on the
state of the intellectuals in Europe
after the second world war (I do not endorse the other contents of that site). In it, he
describes how he criss-crosses Europe and meets intellectuals in
varying states of despair, clinging ideologically to communism,
or fundamentalist catholicism, or some other extreme view. This is now more than fifty years ago, but the pattern remains.
That set me thinking, or rather it lent another piece to the puzzle
I've had in my head for quite some time: Why do so many European
intellectuals scorn liberalism, market economy, freedom of the
individual? Why do they kiss up to any dictator in the world? I believe
now I have an answer to that question. In order to discern a good
intellectual from the apparently bad ones I am going to describe, I
will describe the latter ones as being pre-liberal intellectuals.
Since i am only going to write about them, you can safely assume that
is
what I mean even if I write just intellectual. For any US readers, let
me point out that liberal in this context does not necessarily align
with the usage of the word "liberal" in the US. Liberal here means
open, tolerant, believing in rational reasoning and personal freedom
for all.
The stage, and the stage machinery
In the bad old days, when the church ruled our minds, there was a
discrepancy between
the stage, and the stage machinery. The stage contained heaven and the saints and the
angels and the clergy, and the
stage machinery,
the people and customs that
actually produced something, on the other side. So stage here refers to
the context that intellectuals had to work in, whether that be art,
literature or something else. People accepted there
were two
worlds, and they were wholly separate. Any culture produced, in church or out of it, was controlled by
the church and also by powerful rulers. So, what culture of any calibre
people could consume was controlled. Some people felt very much at home
on the stage. It gave
attention to these pre-liberal intellectuals, and the elaborate stories
about the
human
condition that were performed on the stage over hundreds of years,
provided an ever richer
foundation for new variations on it. You could not
criticize that much the powers that be, so the culture became emotional
and inward looking, dealing with psychological phenomena, although they
probably weren't aware of this. They pondered the eternal questions of
man, instead of taking care of the non-eternal ones and be done with
it. Eternal questions are essentially harmless. Bondage was woven into
the fabric of intellectual expression.
This presents a huge problem for any budding intellectual today. For
just like a programmer, an intellectual is building on the work of
others, and when the existing "class libraries" (to lend a term from
computing) look the way they do, what is an intellectual to do? Start
over?
Communism
When communism came, it took over the stage-stage machinery dichotomy.
Pre-liberal intellectuals could easily be lured into this new world,
because communism is totalitarian which means it has much greater power
than ever the church, so the stage can be exquisitly tailored to the
intellectuals wettest dreams, and the stage machinery so powerful that
any connection with reality can be suppressed emphatically. Communism kept building on the old "class libraries".
With communism, a strong intellectual tradition started losing all
connections with reality, but it remained powerful in the way it could
emotionally reach out and touch people. It had a firm grasp on
the psychology of the inner world, but none on reality, the outer world.
Indeed it was designed with this result in mind. Also intellectuals in
more democratic (or should I say liberal)
countries in Europe fell under the sway of the stage - stage machinery
construct, and communism. It gave them something they were yearning for - being
elite
(or 1337 in hacker's parlance). The people who rule media in Sweden
today, largely reads as a who's who in revolutionary communism in the
60s and 70s (though age is now starting to take it's toll on them).
In his book
Immortality,
Milan Kundera writes about Homo Sentimentalis, European man, whose
feelings are larger than life. The first example being Don Quixote, who
professes his love for Dulcinea by doing somersaults in front of a
bemused Sancho Panza. The manifestation of emotion is more important
than the emotion itself, or it's motive. Europeans are people with
emotions larger than life.
Fear of knowledge
Since the stage tradition deals with a world essentially separated
from the real one, it seemed convenient to ditch empirical observation
and logic. These methods of reaching the truth were seen as competitors
to the intellectual's emotive
imagery, recurring patterns and psychological drama. And they could be
dangerous to the powers that be. By ditching them the pre-liberal
intellectual has ever since needed to go deeper and deeper into a
stranger and stranger world of subjective phenomena. He can't turn
back, because embracing some of the liberal constructs demand
significant cognitive work especially if you are going to play catch-up
after your formative years. And how could you stay elite then? Nah,
beter diss it from the beginning. Two concepts that seem especially
difficult
are the concept of the market, and the concept of personally held
universal moral values. Both these concepts are underpinnings for a
very dynamic and pluralistic world, a world that confuses the
pre-liberal
intellectual. Some years ago in Sweden a debate raged over a perceived
divide
between humanists (communists and socialists largely) and technocrats
(anyone with a degree in anything empirical or logical). Interestingly
enough, being humanist was defined as not being "tainted" by that other
cold world.
To sum it up
The Swedish Academy, that awards the Nobel Prize in literature, is an elite if there ever was one.
An elite that has real influence over - nothing. They can only stay
elite, they think, if they occasionally take as a contradictory
position as possible
to liberal democracy. The Swedish Academy has no training in logic or
empirical knowledge. For then they can venture as far out into mysticism, as they whish.