Education: The Siren Song

How much power does the intellectual have in 20th century society? In the Roman Catholic Commonweal, Hungarian-born Thomas Molnar,* an assistant professor in the humanities at the San Francisco College for Women, gives a depressing answer: the power of the intellectual has never been less. Indeed, says Molnar, “Intellectuals have been dismissed by society at the very time they thought their services most needed.”

Once upon a time, as chief advisers to king and church, the intellectuals shared “the ancient power and prestige of the lawgivers who supported them,” Molnar says. But once liberated by the political and industrial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, the masses not only turned upon their former rulers, they also rejected those who had been associated with them. Thus the intellectuals “have become a separate, independent class, unattached to any center of socio-political authority, which itself is constantly changing. The society that intellectuals helped to emancipate has become self-assured, self-sufficient, with values of its own—values with which intellectuals often feel no identification . . . The plight of the intellectual, then, consists in his rootlessness …”

Equal Among Equals. Without authority, Molnar argues, the intellectual can no longer impose his values on others, cannot play his “traditional role of detached analyst, creator and critic of ideas . . . For the intellectual is now considered only one part of society—an equal among equals—and is not thought of as an ambassador from the Land of Truth. He is expected to serve society, not to change it … If he is tolerated at all, it is only when he shifts his allegiance from disinterested truth to community endeavor . . .”

Unless he makes this shift, the intellectual-runs the risk of being completely isolated. In the U.S., says Molnar, this sense of isolation is especially acute. Without the classical education that Europeans have in common, the American intellectuals present no common front; since the American people are well off materially, they do not feel the need of the bold sort of vision the intellectual might offer. Besides, “loneliness today is considered a dreadful disease; it is said to be dangerous for ‘mental health,’ and is feared as an implicit denial of ‘social concern.’ ” The world has all but forgotten that “true leadership . . . demands loneliness.” The intellectual has become “socially integrated.”

Squeezed-Out Hero. “The ‘socially integrated’ intellectual is really not an intellectual at all, but an expert servant,” says Molnar. “For if Western society has suffered a single great loss in the last hundred years, it is the principle of authority, and it is questionable whether the single great gain during the same period, the conquest of science, can make up for it.

“The scientific method has thoroughly and spectacularly impregnated our life and mentality; teamwork has replaced lonely exploration, and the expert laboratory technician has squeezed the ‘hero’ from his place in public esteem. Modern society’s offer of cooperation with the intellectual is, therefore, a sham offer, since it is extended, not to him, but to the social engineer it expects him to become. The intellectual’s salvation, then, is to remember that this siren’s song … is false. Let him stop his ears, and tied to the mast of his destiny, wait for more friendly waters.”

* No kin to the late Playwright Ferenc (The Swan) Molnar. – Molnar believes the U.S. has many who fit his definition of intellectuals, mentions as examples Critic Edmund Wilson, Poet and Historian Peter Viereck, Author Russell (The Conservative Mind) Kirk, Pundit Walter Lippmann, Playwright Thornton Wilder, Pamphleteer-Historian Arthur (The Age of Jackson) Schlesinger Jr.