Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, Revised Edition,

Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, Revised Edition, by Paul Johnson, Harper Perennial, 2007.

In G.K. Chesterton’s mystery “The Scandal of Father Brown,” Father Brown comments on the wasted life and potential of a prominent writer, declaring that, “You don’t need any intellect to be an intellectual.”  This quote could be the tagline for Paul Johnson’s book Intellectuals.  This book is a collection of essays on various literary figures and self-described intellectuals, many of whom have been elevated to the status of demigods in the popular critical pantheon.  About two-dozen such personages are addressed in this book, most notably Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Percy Shelley, Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Bertolt Brecht, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Edmund Wilson, Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, and Lillian Hellman.  One of Johnson’s chief aims is to demythologize these figures, illuminating not just the flaws in their thinking, but also the disastrous personal lives of the intellectuals, their hypocrisies, and the ways that their work and personal lives hurt both those closest to them and the rest of the world.

It is important to be precise when understanding Johnson’s definitions.  Johnson is definitely not attacking people who are smart or traditionally educated.  Indeed, Johnson’s own intelligence and extensive literary knowledge is evident with every page he writes.  Johnson’s target is not the brainy, or academia, or even those who belong to a specific political group (although most of his subjects are hard left-wingers).  Johnson takes aim against individuals who put ideas over people.  Johnson defines “intellectuals” as a relatively recent phenomenon.  Since the rise of intellectual secularism in the eighteenth century, many men of aptitude and literary skill have argued that the use of “reason” and new philosophies of life and behavior can solve the ills of the world.  Unfortunately for the world, as Johnson never tires of noting, intellectuals have tended to leave a trail of devastation in their wake, even as they toil to promote their own glory.

This is not an angry book.  It is an indignant book, at times even righteously indignant.  Johnson could conceivably have filled this book with rants and furious denunciations, but his tone is always calm, measured, and he frequently tries to be fair.  In some instances, he even professes to be an admirer of some of these intellectuals, such as when he declares himself to be a fan of Ibsen’s plays.  A fierce, furious book could conceivably have been great fun to read, but it would have been all the easier for critics to dismiss.  As it is, by asserting that the acclaim that many intellectuals have received has been largely undeserved, Johnson has opened himself up to a flood of criticism.  The most recent edition of Intellectuals includes a selection of negative criticism regarding this book, mainly by people who believe that the figures in this book ought to be above reproach, or who believe that personal behavior should not be a factor in ranking the legacy of an intellectual figure.

The essays in this book attempt to demythologize the targeted intellectuals, exposing some as frauds and fools, others as brazen liars, still more as utterly toxic to those closest to them, and most as unworthy of veneration or even serious respect.  Johnson is holding a barbeque, and the main course is sacred cows.  Of course, these intellectuals have never been revered by everybody, and Johnson takes pains to illustrate exactly which types of people contributed to the making of the intellectuals’ reputations. 

These essays are not hatchet pieces.  Johnson’s theses are not centered around arguing that the intellectuals described here were horrible, self-absorbed jerks with no regard whatsoever for the happiness or wellbeing of other human beings, although several of the figures in this book certainly appear to fit that description.  Johnson seems to have some respect for some of subjects, even some affection for one or two, and thinly veiled disgust for many more.  The intellectuals in this book are not portrayed as evil incarnate, but as deeply flawed individuals whose theories about the world and society hurt a lot of people.  This is revisionist history, seeking to reveal disturbing facts about major figures that are too often ignored, or worse, defended.

Is Johnson being unfairly harsh towards his subjects?  It is certainly possible.  The purpose of biography is to describe what figures from the past were actually like and how they affected the world around them.  Perhaps what Johnson does here is not demonize these figures so much as humanize them.  Then again, there is much to be said about being charitable towards those one disagrees with, and never speaking ill of the dead is a sound policy.   And yet…  The characters in this book, and their ideas, have hurt a lot of people, and historians have a responsibility to speak the truth, even when expressing such opinions is unpopular.   The author’s bias aside, there is one definite aspect of the book that could have used improvement: Intellectuals does have a thorough collection of citations, but Johnson uses a lot of obscure anecdotes and references in order to make his points, and a few of them are not cited.  In order to keep the level of discourse above reproach, thorough presentation of evidence is essential.

Can you separate a major figure’s life from his work?  Johnson argues that one cannot.  If a prominent intellectual engaged in morally dubious behavior or treated towards those closest to him like dirt, how can one respect their prose?  In his essay “The Heartless Lovers of Humankind,” a summary of the main points expressed in Intellectuals, Johnson writes, 

“I believe the reflective portion of mankind is divided into two groups:  those who are interested in people and care about them; and those who are interested in ideas.  The first group forms the pragmatists and tends to make the best statesmen.  The second is the intellectuals; and if their attachment to ideas is passionate, and not only passionate but programmatic, they are almost certain to abuse whatever power they acquire.  For, instead of allowing their ideas of government to emerge from people, shaped by observation of how people actually behave and what they really desire, intellectuals reverse the process, deducing their ideas first from principle and then seeking to impose them on living men and women.”

Johnson has declared that, “people must always come before ideas and not the other way around.”  That, in his eyes, is the great crime of the intellectuals who are featured here.  He does not deny their intelligence, only the ways that they applied their intelligence.  By subjecting their lives to critical scrutiny, it appears that Johnson intends to place their ideas and writings under a more analytical light as well.  By stripping away the moral foundations of the men, he questions their ideas. 

One has to be careful when reviewing a book like this.  I personally am no fan of most of the intellectuals featured in his book, with the major exceptions of Tolstoy and Hemingway.  Having an active dislike for the writings– and philosophy– of most of the intellectuals featured here, I have to say that a certain part of me enjoyed seeing Shelley, Marx, Russell, and Sartre depicted as womanizers who refused to take responsibility in their lives, or learning that the author of The Second Sex spent her life as the manager of her paramour’s ever-expanding harem, or discovering the extent to which Sartre served to inspire and inflame genocidal regimes in Southeast Asia.  Nearly every intellectual presented here comes across as being morally bankrupt.

But is this wholly fair or wise?  I never cease to be disgusted by pundits who airily dismiss the work G.K. Chesterton or Hilaire Belloc because they claim that they were anti-Semitic or that they engaged in extramarital affairs, charges that are patently false.  I can thoroughly understand how some fans of these figures might deem Intellectuals to be mere character assassination, but as Johnson illustrates in his coverage of Lillian Hellman and other figures, the popular media, academic, and political establishment often deliberately covered up the details about several intellectual figures. As Johnson observes, from the late eighteenth century onwards, self-styled intellectuals attempted to give themselves moral authority by smearing the cultural and scholarly life of Western civilization, which for centuries had been led by the Church.  Many of the figures in Intellectuals have attacked the character of several popes and the behavior of the Church, using utterly spurious allegations.  Perhaps turnabout is fair play, especially if Johnson’s analysis of the intellectuals is more accurate than that of the intellectual’s critique of the Church. 

Johnson writes with such confidence and verve that he propels his historical narrative forward with surprising power.  Intellectuals illustrates a side of history that has often been glossed over in the textbooks.  We need to understand how ideas originate and how they affect society.  Intellectuals illustrates just how little we know about the recent past, and emphasizes the importance of being highly critical towards those who think they know better about everything than the average person.

–Chris Chan

God Has Not Changed.  By Alice Thomas Ellis, Continuum, 2004.

Alice Thomas Ellis, who also published under her birth name of Anna Haycraft, was raised by atheistic parents who were members of the Church of Humanity, a godless organization originated by Auguste Comte.  In her late teens, she rebelled and converted to Catholicism.  She initially intended to enter a convent, but her poor health prevented her from pursuing this vocation. She eventually married and had seven children, though the deaths of two of them would deeply affect her and her work.  Starting in 1977 and continuing for over two decades, she would produce a series of wonderful novels of manners that frequently addressed themes of faith, love, and family.  Due to her acerbic wit, Ellis might very justifiably be thought of as, “Jane Austen after a few fast shots of whiskey.”

Besides her novels, Ellis also wrote a popular column on the joys and trials of domestic life, as well as numerous essays on religious themes. It is this latter group of writings that has been anthologized into “God Has Not Changed.” All of these essays were originally published in a newspaper, and therefore most of them are quite short, being only about two pages long.  Despite their brevity, each essay contains Ellis’s piercing insights into the state of the Faith in England.

Ellis was a staunch Catholic for her entire adult life, but she was an outspoken critic of the secularization of society, particularly what she viewed as the watering down of theology and traditional religious practices in the wake of Vatican II, which she frequently alleged led to the breakdown of a sense of wonder and beauty in favor of modern fads and political correctness.  Her outspoken disgust at contemporary trends in worship was very controversial, sparking a wide variety of reactions from all people of all backgrounds.  In one of her essays, Ellis wrote that:

“I get lots of letters.  In one of them a Reverend writes: ‘You may be a fine novelist but I really do wonder why your theological opinions should be of the slightest interest to anybody, let alone worthy of inclusion in The Guardian.  Since you are not a professional theologian they are your private opinions…’  I had written a few words on the liberal approach to God, or as the Reverend would put it ‘God,’ for on the reverse side of the letter is an ad for a work by the Reverend himself entitled On Doing Without ‘God.’… Part of the ad reads: ‘In a global village, the God of religion should not be modeled in the metaphysical terms of a more parochial age. New ways of doing this must be developed.’ New ways of doing what? However, the gratifying part of it is that I had written, in the article to which the Reverend takes such exception, about the intolerance of the liberal stance, the baffled outrage of the liberal whose views are questioned, the refusal to consider any other point of view. It is sweetly ironic that the modernists, the reformers, the liberals, say things like ‘we are church,’ meaning presumably, the people the laity.  They wish to democratize the faith and give everyone a say except, of course, for the orthodox.  The only voices the bien pensant can tolerate are those that sing in agreement with the current vogue, and the most noted ‘professional theologians’ of our time seem to be either feminists or atheists or both. The simple believer cannot get a word in.” (11).

Ellis was not in the habit of mincing words, and her acerbic style turned off a lot of people.  Ellis was singularly disinclined to be charitable towards people who disagreed with her, though it would be unfair to regard her as mean-spirited.  A more just evaluation of her character would be to describe her as saying that she was always “snapping to keep from crying.”  At the heart of all of Ellis’s work is a deep sadness, often revolving around something that no longer exists, but that was once very deeply loved.  In God Has Not Changed, the loss in question often revolves around what Ellis saw as a much wiser and purer past.  Anger is commonly regarded as a stage of grief, and behind the disgusted complaining lies some very real mourning.  In another essay, Ellis mourns the generational gap in religious knowledge, writing:

“I have given up trying to explain to the younger generation that we are not mere passive spectators at the Tridentine Mass but deeply involved in the mystery, the holiness, the sense of awe, the awareness of a Presence which you sure as hell don’t feel in the kindergarten atmosphere that too often prevails now.  With all the endless talk of ‘empowering the laity,’ of giving us a ‘role in church affairs,’ we have ended up being treated like witless kiddies, too stupid, too immature to grasp anything smacking of theological complexity: everything must be sweetened, diluted, simplified and made as bland as infants’ pap.  No guilt and certainly no humility and nothing that might appear to tax our intelligence.  The attitude of the ‘reformers’ is profoundly insulting, patronizing in the worst possible way, and if we complain they take offence, protesting crossly that it’s all for our own good and how can we be so ungrateful?  The changes in the Church increasingly look less like alteration than total destruction, an act of iconoclasm, vandalism previously unsurpassed.” (20).

Many people might disagree with Ellis’s assessment of the post-Vatican II Church, but any serious study of religious changes have to understand the diversity of opinions that changes provoke.  Ellis’s writings raise the point that somehow complaining has the power to lead to sanctity, if only because venting over everything that bothers you can assist in purging you of anger.  One particularly salient point that she makes is that the attempts to turn religion into a commodity for mass consumption wind up producing something that few people wish to consume at all.  Ellis comments:

“Much of the appeal of the religious life used to lie in the challenge it presented.  It took courage and determination, as well as faith, to abandon what the world perceived as desirable, and the distinctive habit was an outward sign of commitment.  Besides, if one may be permitted to strike a fashion note, the habit suited all women regardless of size, shape or form of countenance, and was a pleasure to gaze upon.  A group of nuns clad in the old style, compared with the new ones in short skirts, anoraks, lisle stockings, sandals and the unbecoming approximation of a veil, are reminiscent of swans adjacent to a bunch of tatty pigeons.  Some new nuns, of course, dress as they please, with make-up, hair-dos and earrings, and God alone knows what message they hope to put across.  I think they might claim that the inner light of the spirit shines through their outer appearance, but it doesn’t.  Many of them are concerned only with feminism, goddesses, and ‘women’s rites’– which is even more tiresome than the eldritch squawking about ‘rights,’ and flesh-creepingly silly.  Not just spirituality, but all common sense disappears in a welter of secular trendiness, hung about with the tawdry baubles of paganism which are intended, I suppose, to add a flavour of other-worldliness, but are in direct contradiction to Christianity.  One of the troubles with the devil is that he has lousy taste he is not the suave gentleman that some would like to think of him as, but a poseur avid to keep up to date with the latest fad.  I sometimes think that perhaps he lives in Islington and reads The Tablet, but I may be doing him an injustice…  (As I wrote those rude words about Satan, the adversary, my pen dried up.  Typical petty spite.)” (27-28).

–Chris Chan

Europe and the Faith

Europe and the Faith.  By Hilaire Belloc, 1920.

Hilaire Belloc loved controversy.  He took pride in his intractable opinions and almost never backed down.  Belloc’s irascible temper led to the loss of friendships and career setbacks, but Belloc never adopted the ability to separate personal disagreements from personal relationships that his friend G.K. Chesterton perfected.  Belloc’s interests included history, religion, culture, and economics, and all of these subjects are present in Europe and the Faith.  

In Europe and the Faith, Belloc presents his history of European society over the centuries, and argues that Catholicism was at the heart of the continent’s cultural and regional identity.  This perspective has an added level of controversy in the present day, when the bureaucrats of the European Union have recently attempted to draw up a history of the continent in their constitution without the slightest mention of Christianity.  In contrast, Belloc posits that Catholicism formed the core of national identity and shaped the mentality of each individual European.  When explaining the centrality of faith to European life and intellectual culture, Belloc writes:

“The Catholic brings to history (when I say "history" in these pages I mean the history of Christendom) self-knowledge. As a man in the confessional accuses himself of what he knows to be true and what other people cannot judge, so a Catholic, talking of the united European civilization, when he blames it, blames it for motives and for acts which are his own. He himself could have done those things in person. He is not relatively right in his blame, he is absolutely right. As a man can testify to his own motive so can the Catholic testify to unjust, irrelevant, or ignorant conceptions of the European story; for he knows why and how it proceeded. Others, not Catholic, look upon the story of Europe externally as strangers. They have to deal with something which presents itself to them partially and disconnectedly, by its phenomena alone: he sees it all from its centre in its essence, and together. 

I say again, renewing the terms, The Church is Europe: and Europe is The Church.”

This famous syllogism
has provoked much ire from Belloc’s critics, especially those who stress that contemporary Europe’s secularism and multiculturalism have utterly and permanently divorced it from its religious past.  These opinions were present a century ago, more towards secularism than multiculturalism, the latter of which has grown more prominent in the post-colonial period.  Belloc was convinced that the Catholic Church traditionally filled the soul and intellect of Europe, and when society was divorced from the faith, innumerable societal and personal problems would follow.  He writes:

“I have now nothing left to set down but the conclusion of this disaster: its spiritual result--an isolation of the soul; its political result--a consequence of the spiritual--the prodigious release of energy, the consequent advance of special knowledge, the domination of the few under a competition left unrestrained, the subjection of the many, the ruin of happiness, the final threat of chaos.”

Belloc’s history of Europe starts with the early days of Christianity in the Roman Empire, moving through the Dark and Middle Ages, through the rise of Protestantism up to contemporary times.  Special attention is paid to the English religious experience.  Belloc does not argue that the past was better than the present because Catholicism was more ubiquitous and better protected by the establishment, but he does suggest that a culture that is thoroughly infused with the morals and societal justice preached by the Church made for a better treated and more united civilization.  A society permeated with the ideologies that Belloc termed the “modernist heresies,” in his view, isolate the soul from the protective truths and codes of conduct that are necessary to keep people balanced, safe, and sane.  Belloc further explains what he means by “the isolation of the soul” when he writes:

“The isolation of the soul means a loss of corporate sustenance; of the sane balance produced by general experience, the weight of security, and the general will. The isolation of the soul is the very definition of its unhappiness. But this solvent applied to society does very much more than merely complete and confirm human misery.”

Belloc wrote this book long before the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, before Communism fell over Eastern Europe, before the looming demographic collapse of Europe, before the rise of terrorism, and before economic turmoil caused widespread societal unrest.  Yet though the modern age saw many technological and medicinal advances, Belloc insisted that with the soul of the continent rotting, no amount of comfort and affluence could protect Europe from slouching toward certain doom.  Indeed, over ninety years have passed since this tome was written, and many of the predictions Belloc made have come true.

“So things have gone. We have reached at last, as the final result of that catastrophe three hundred years ago, a state of society which cannot endure and a dissolution of standards, a melting of the spiritual framework, such that the body politic fails. Men everywhere feel that an attempt to continue down this endless and ever darkening road is like the piling up of debt. We go further and further from a settlement. Our various forms of knowledge diverge more and more. Authority, the very principle of life, loses its meaning, and this awful edifice of civilization which we have inherited, and which is still our trust, trembles and threatens to crash down. It is clearly insecure. It may fall in any moment. We who still live may see the ruin. But ruin when it comes is not only a sudden, it is also a final, thing. 

In such a crux there remains the historical truth: that this our European structure, built upon the noble foundations of classical antiquity, was formed through, exists by, is consonant to, and will stand only in the mold of, the Catholic Church. 

Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish. 

The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.”

No overview of European history is complete without a detailed and thorough understanding of how the Catholic Church shaped every faced of it, but unfortunately all too many history of the region do exactly that.  Will Europe return to its Christian roots, or will it follow one of multiple pathways to destruction?  It is impossible to divine the future, but it must be remembered that with God all things are possible.

Europe and the Faith is in the public domain, and can be downloaded for free for the Amazon Kindle, or from Project Gutenberg as a free e-book in various formats.  It is also published in book form.

–Chris Chan