2004-02-01 6:35 pm

Hurricane Lamp

I suppose one of the imagined roles of the intelligentsia is as savant or guide to a culture.

But how far into a culture can the intelligentsia penetrate? Not far, it would seem. Perhaps this is because people are held in a state of stupidity: they are introduced to and bound within a world of ideas that are not their own, ideas which, by and large, are constructed on a rudimentary and often ad hoc basis for ends which have nothing to do with the dissemination of the truth. Once within this world it is almost impossible to be lifted out of it.

In the 1930s the German intelligentsia failed to guide the culture they presided over away from the encroaching horrors of national socialism. This failure was perhaps excusable, given the fact that most of them were forced into exile or murdered. And of course there were other powerful forces acting on the course of events.

Is the notion of intelligentsia as guide idealistic? If an intelligentsia is not a guide then what is it? A sort of discussion group for tortured or bored individuals?

Whatever the answer, it certainly seems to me that the intelligentsia and 'the people' live in two entirely different worlds. And this is dangerous.

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