A first class essay on a perceptive writer
"In insulating its victims from reality, the opium of the intellectuals at the
same time insulates them from the rebukes of contradiction. This has allowed for
some peculiar intellectual hybrids. For example, the philosophies of Nietzsche
and Marx are diametrically opposed: one celebrates the lonely genius, the other
the collective, one looks for a new aristocracy of ?bermenschen, the other for
the institution of the classless society. For any unintoxicated person, such
differences are essential.
But for intellectuals under the influence they count for naught. As Aron notes,
the descendants of Marx and Nietzsche (and Hegel and Freud) come together by
many paths. The existentialism of Sartre, the nihilism of Derrida or Foucault,
all exhibit a similar intellectual incontinence. What unites them is not a
coherent doctrine but a spirit of opposition to the established order, "the
occupational disease," Aron notes, "of the intellectuals."
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/may01/opium.htm#back1
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