Subject: Re: eggheads (..and almost Easter)
From: Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Date: Wed Apr 19 2000 - 19:09:03 EDT
It's getting late, and I should be going home, but back-to-back posts from
Scottie and Will have prompted me to pour a dram (sorry Scottie, Rabelaise:
"Quand je pense, je bois, et quand je bois, je pense!") and put fingers to
keys in response to a thread that I unwittingly commenced.
Is it inadvisable to be an intellectual? My fourteen-year-old certainly
thinks so. She's often openly worried that her dad was definitely a 'nerd'
when he was in high school. To her, 'nerd' and 'intellectual' are
synonymous. I still get a stirring in my loins whenever I hear my wife
berate her, and tell her that 'nerds' are by far the most interesting guys
in the world; and the only classification of 'men' that can be considered
almost marriageable. I guess that means she loves me still.... (It also
probably means that I'm still a nerd!)
I certainly wanted to be an intellectual when I first fell in love with
Simone de Beauvoir (who was a froggie)--and through her with Sartre, and
Camus, and Koestler (although that's definitely another story, in another
language almost--despite the fact that, as Will points out, the language in
BOTH instances was English.) Part of me would STILL like to be THAT kind of
'egghead', to use Scottie's seasonal styling. (Happy Pessac, by the way,
everybody.... And sorry about the spelling.)
I get a bit uncomfortable when I remember that a few years before reading
THE MANDARINS (and loving it!), I'd read THE FOUNTAINHEAD (and loved
it!)--and at those respective times in my unenlightened life I thought both
books were "intellectual".... The insights of each seem mutually exclusive.
Maybe such an observation could only be made by an intellectual?
Before this post disappears entirely into the ether, I want to try to
resurrect (lovely seasonal reference, once again.... Before I know it, I'll
be wearing priestly robes!) the original sentiment that inspired it. I
wasn't lamenting the end of intellectualism--because, lord knows, there'll
be section men among us till we're all dead. They'll outlast the goddamned
cockroaches... I was lamenting the demise of "public" intellectuals--people
like Huxley, or Sartre, or Thomas Henry Huxley (great genes, I guess), or
Voltaire (another froggie), or (personal favourite) Denis Diderot.... New
York (amphibious island) was almost literally CRAWLING with public
intellectuals in the '40s and '50s. I'm trying to imagine a cocktail party
on the upper west side where Jerry meets Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell and
Diana Trilling.... Mary McCarthy and "Bunny" are smooching in the corner.
Lillian Hellman is looking for something to drink.... Jerry probably bolted
out the door in self-defence. Jerry was probably right.....
But may I be the first to say that Susan Sontag should abandon all hope of
writing fiction, and get back to essays about topics so abstract that only
intellectuals are interested.... Robert Lowell has been resurrected in
Elizabeth Hardwick--one of the best essayists (and therefore, ipso facto,
intellectuals) in English, today..... The Trillings are always
thrilling--can anyone confirm or deny that Calvin is a relative? Maybe even
son of Lionel?.... One could do worse than spend an hour or two reliving the
century with Edmund Wilson....
In short, there's nothing wrong with 'intellectuals', Scottie. In fact,
methinks the egghead doth protest too much.
Cheers,
Paul
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