[EN] Frank Furedi: “Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?” —☆

[English] Frank Furedi: Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? Translated by Dai Congrong, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, September 2005

Page 1
A number of unforeseen circumstances prompted me to write this book. In May 2001, I wrote an article for the Sunday Times titled “What Are Universities For Nowadays?” in which I aired some of my concerns about the direction in which British universities were developing. The article focused on the relative lack of academic stimulation and challenge on today’s campuses. I recounted some of the stories students had told me about how deeply bored they were with their university careers; I pointed out that all too often students could spend a year at university without reading a single book in its entirety.
The day after the article was published, I received an angry email from a senior university administrator. After reading the first few furious lines, I assumed he would accuse me of fabricating the claim that university students could spend a year without reading a book—yet that was not the point he took issue with. He had no objection to students drifting away from the world of books; on the contrary, what angered him was that I had so arrogantly assumed that books ought to occupy a privileged position in higher education. He complained: “The tone of the article suggests that if students do not read the ‘whole book’ in any course, you think that course is not rigorous enough.” In his view, books had become an optional extra resource that today’s university students may read or may not read.////——That is indeed the case, and the severity of the problem lies not only in the fact that students can loaf through university without reading a single book, but more importantly in the fact that this is no longer regarded as shameful. This book is suitable for those who still retain a bit of self-respect as “intellectuals”; for a modern person who has completely converted to kitsch culture, however, its views will surely be dismissed with derision as elitist arrogance, detached from reality, and self-righteous.

Page 3
Of course, a philistine attitude toward education, art, and culture is nothing particularly new. Some great nineteenth-century thinkers—Matthew Arnold, Nietzsche, Goethe, Marx—had already sensed how the objective force of the market was shaping the development of art and literature. However, today the influence of philistinism does not come from the pragmatism demanded by economic society. The influence of philistinism is not directed at education and culture solely from outside; it is also institutionalized at the highest level of policymaking. Emerging now are university managers, museum and gallery managers, and “knowledge” entrepreneurs who are indifferent to cultural and intellectual content. What they care about is using culture to achieve goals wholly unrelated to its content.

Page 4
……In modern history, it was precisely this fanatical pursuit of truth that inspired generation after generation of thinkers.
Unfortunately, contemporary culture believes that truth is fit to appear only in fiction, not as an object of intellectual pursuit. It continually claims that there is no such thing as truth. In place of truth, people are urged to accept different viewpoints, on the grounds that they represent different truths.

Page 5~6
Throughout human history, cultural authorities have claimed to represent truth, and that is their raison d’être. Today, this view is often treated with suspicion. Indeed, such claims are repeatedly attacked as elitist rhetoric, while the desire for excellence and higher standards is dismissed as a foolish lament for a golden age. Elitism once meant justifying a monopoly on economic, cultural, and political rights by consciously denigrating the masses; now it is redefined as placing certain aspects of culture above others. Astonishingly, this view often ends up influencing almost every idea. It is not only the so-called cultural left that rejects objective truth—cultural elites themselves are also unwilling to affirm any transcendent cultural values or truths. Rather than defending their own authority, cultural elites seem more willing to appear down-to-earth, accessible, and in touch with popular opinion.

////——The author points out that contempt for the traditional belief that “scholars seek truth” reflects the temper of our age, and that relativism’s disdain for truth has led to the collapse of the distinction between high and low culture, as well as to the loss of intellectuals’ distinctive status and dignity. This is to some extent reasonable. It is precisely the important reason why I wish to draw a line between myself and extreme relativism. However, unlike the author, I believe that one can still uphold the nobility of scholars while insisting on pluralism—the nobility of scholars lies not in their possession of knowledge, but in their pursuit of knowledge and pursuit of truth. No one can monopolize the interpretation of truth, but this in no way means that everyone has an equally deep understanding of truth. Scholars ought to stand “above” others—on certain questions, scholars have read more, thought more, endured more debate and reflection, and formed systematic, mature, and settled views; how can their understanding of these questions be placed on the same level as that of people who have never seriously thought about these questions and have only vague, emotional opinions? Humility toward human cognitive ability is necessary; no one can grasp ultimate truth, but this absolutely does not mean that intellectuals should give up the search for truth. On the contrary, the humble attitude—“knowing one’s own ignorance”—ought precisely to inspire intellectuals’ yearning for and pursuit of truth. It is precisely because absolute truth can never be reached that it becomes an incomparably lofty goal—any goal within easy reach is a worldly, utilitarian goal. Scholars and artists are noble precisely because what they pursue is something never attainable—eternity, the truest truth, the highest good, the utmost beauty…… Pluralism’s denial that truth has universal standards that transcend any perspective or standpoint is precisely an affirmation of truth as a transcendent pursuit. In my view, cultural elites need not defend their “authority” at all, but what must be defended is their dignity—scholars should never pander to the masses and to fashion. This does not mean that scholars should be detached from the real world; in fact, scholars ought to engage the real world most intensely. Such engagement should be reflected above all in scholars’ role as those who always pause, reflect, and criticize under the tide of the times, rather than flatter and praise it.

Page 6
Paradoxically, skepticism toward objective knowledge coexists with a widely circulated view that we live in a knowledge society, a society in which it is often said that “knowledge is power.”////——Indeed, once the value and standards of knowledge itself have been lost, “knowledge is power” actually becomes “power is knowledge”; power becomes the value and standard of knowledge.

Page 7
Turning knowledge into a product strips it of all intrinsic value and meaning; and the street-vendor-like chanting of the knowledge economy is in fact a vulgar caricature of knowledge. Why say this? Because once its link to truth is lacking, knowledge also loses its inner meaning. It becomes an abstract opinion, something more likely to be disseminated than cherished, and can be recycled in its most vulgarized form.
When knowledge is treated as a product, its connection with its own cultural and intellectual roots becomes blurred. Knowledge is increasingly seen as the product of technical operations rather than as the achievement of human wisdom.////——This reminds me of the reversal of the value and price of commodities that I discussed some time ago: under capitalism, the intrinsic value of the commodity itself is stripped away, and price in turn determines value, while price is only related to consumers’ tastes and has nothing to do with labor. Similarly, in the knowledge economy, knowledge is stripped of all intrinsic value and is measured only by its effect on society. Thus modern people seem to value knowledge more than ever, but what they actually value is no longer knowledge itself, only the power that knowledge brings. Without power, knowledge is “worthless.”

Page 8
It is not only the customary philistine distrust of the ignorant masses that is skeptical of the role of intellectuals; many intellectuals insist that they are nothing special.////——Indeed, it is obvious that around me there are more and more university students and even university professors who insist that they are nothing special, fearing above all that others will regard them as “elites.” The word “elite” has almost become an insulting term of abuse. Should a university student, a scholar, or a professor really feel justified in being proud of “being nothing special”? Are not the reading, study, and thinking that a university student is supposed to do enough to make us stand out? An identity of spiritual aristocracy does not imply contempt for other trades and professions; in fact, which profession is not “special”? Which person who devotes a lifetime of passion to their profession is not noble? Soldiers, workers, farmers, doctors…… every profession is special, irreplaceable, and worthy of pride. Why, then, should intellectuals alone be so guarded about their “specialness”? Perhaps because even intellectuals themselves have begun to think of themselves as dispensable. Modern society needs knowledge (knowledge in textbooks, in databases, in the lives of the masses), but no longer needs intellectuals. Perhaps the world cannot do without farmers for a single day, but without intellectuals it seems not to be such a big deal—intellectuals not only deny their own uniqueness, but also deny the value of their own existence.

Page 11
The reason the metaphor of imbecilization so accurately captures the pulse of our age has little to do with the current level of culture, art, and education. Imbecilization is driven by a number of powerful forces that treat knowledge and culture merely as means to achieve larger, higher ends. This is a dogmatic faith in instrumentalism. This orientation is by no means new—there has always been tension between market demand, economic calculation, and pursuits that take thought or art itself as their end,……////——The tension between non-utilitarian scholarship and the utilitarian orientation of society has existed since ancient times; without the worldly there is no transcendent. The masses always tend toward utility, and this is one of the major reasons why elite culture has always maintained its distinction from mass culture. But the problem now is that mass culture has taken over, while the elite has lost its discursive power and influence. Non-utilitarian idealism is no longer respected either—in the past, a person driven by utility might still acknowledge those who stood above worldly desires as noble; but in modern times, even a little ceremonial respect has vanished, and those who stand above worldly desires are more likely to be seen as childish, foolish, ignorant, out of step with the times, self-righteous, mentally abnormal……

Page 13~14
The inability of contemporary society to endow academic and artistic works with meaning has also accelerated the triumph of this instrumentalist orientation. Thus, although we are still producing excellent works of art and books, we find it difficult to evaluate them on their own terms.
Why does the triumph of instrumentalism lead to imbecilization? If we cannot value art and culture for their own sake, it becomes difficult to distinguish between their merits and demerits. Claiming to be excellent, even if it does not seem false, can appear to be the pursuit of personal gain, and is often dismissed as a despicable attempt by elites to protect their own privileges. This is why the word “standard” has acquired privileged and elitist connotations—so much so that in many cases insisting on defending special standards is regarded as an institutionalized form of discrimination.

Page 14
At the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Baroness Tessa Blackstone gave her first speech as Britain’s Minister for the Arts, and asked: “Can art be anything other than frivolous, trivial, and impractical?” Her answer was yes, but only when it is used for purposes beyond aesthetics. In Blackstone’s view, art matters because it evidently improves employability, reduces inequality, and helps prevent crime. She added: “I do not doubt that art helps improve health.”

Page 18~19
One major reason for opposing the insistence on standards of excellence is that it is an elitist practice that will exclude the vast majority of people from cultural institutions. This pessimistic conclusion is based on the premise that the public lacks the conditions necessary to benefit from demanding cultural and educational experiences, and thus that standards and requirements must be changed to facilitate broad participation. This suspicion of the public’s capabilities encourages hostility toward the ideal of selecting the best.

Page 19~20
Of course, the ideal of elite education is rarely realized in practice. Academic and cultural life are full of discrimination and inequality. Although many forms of overt discrimination have disappeared, we are still far from a utopia in which everyone can compete on the same starting line. Luck at birth still plays a decisive role in determining people’s life chances, but does the failure to realize the ideal of elite education mean that we should oppose it? Or does it, as I believe, mean that we should demand a reflection on what has gone wrong, so that policies can be formulated to remove the obstacles that prevent people from making use of their abilities? Those who criticize elite education in academic and cultural life have not seriously considered this question. Their main concern is to prevent people from seeing themselves as failures,……

/////——On educational issues, my feelings are similar to the author’s. Earlier I too have repeatedly expressed my dislike of the current trend in educational reform. The logic of today’s educational reformers is to achieve “equality” by lowering standards and flattening differences. Children all seem to have become glass dolls that shatter at the slightest touch, and because people fear that students whose abilities are not outstanding might be “stimulated,” it is necessary to abolish advanced classes and key schools. People detest elite education with passion and substitute instead a mediocrity education.

Page 22
This book aims to question both the anti-democratic roots and the paternalistic roots of contemporary educational and cultural politics. Here politics not only suppresses the creativity of academic and cultural life, but also treats the public as children and lowers the demands placed on them. I would warmly welcome any attempt that gives the masses an opportunity to participate in intellectual exploration. But I strongly oppose paternalistic practices that feed the masses easily digestible knowledge and culture. Making inclusion and participation ends in themselves makes no sense at all. Catering to the masses—whether they are primary and secondary school students, university students, or museum audiences—serves only the needs of social engineering. The view of this book is that the precondition for genuinely expanding public participation is to provide the public with the highest standards society can offer.

Page 30
To feel and act like an intellectual, one must at least maintain some spiritual distance from the routines and pressures of everyday affairs. Earman noted that “the more one’s mental labor is controlled by external forces, laws, conventions, and censors, the less one feels oneself to be an intellectual.” The desire for freedom of will arises precisely because one understands that thought cannot develop according to a timetable or the commands of a particular institution. It is generally believed that a certain degree of detachment is essential for insight and creativity.

Page 68~69
In the United States, the level of political discourse is indeed designed for adults only in the sense that they are regarded as having only the mental capacity of children. A disturbing study of presidential campaigns published in the Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of several campaigns: the Gore-Bush campaign, the 1992 Clinton-Bush-Perot campaign, the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign, and the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas campaign. It examined these transcripts in detail using standard vocabulary tests to show the minimum level of education required for a reader to understand each text. According to the analysis, in the 2000 campaign Bush’s vocabulary was at the 6th-grade level (6.7), and Gore’s was on the high side of the 7th-grade level (7.9). In 1992, Clinton reached the 7th-grade level (7.6), Bush barely reached 6th grade (6.8), and Perot did likewise (6.3). Their scores look pitiful when compared with the Kennedy-Nixon contest, in which both candidates’ language was equivalent to the 10th grade. By contrast, if compared with Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, they look downright imbecilic: the two men’s scores were 11.2 and 12.0 respectively. Doubtless, some cultural elites today would interpret the decline in the level of speech since the nineteenth century as, on the whole, a positive advance. In today’s political language, George Bush’s 6th-grade speech is obviously more “inclusive” and less “elitist” than Abraham Lincoln’s. But this inclusive language reveals a general tendency toward treating the public as if they were incapable of understanding arguments that could be used to test the mental capacity of a precocious ten-year-old.////——Obviously, such “valuing” of the masses is by no means “respect.” True democracy is certainly not merely “valuing” the masses; merely allowing more of the masses to participate in politics in name only does not make democracy. Democracy demands respect for the masses, not treating them as if one were coaxing children.

Page 82
British commentators have envyingly noted that more young people vote for their favorite figures on the reality show Big Brother than vote in elections. In fact, it is often suggested that politicians could learn important lessons from this program. In a report issued by the Hansard Society discussing this issue, its author, Stephen Coleman, a teacher at Oxford University, asserted that politicians need to find interesting ways of using technology in order to give the public greater control over the way they view the political process. Coleman pointed out that “to liberate political democracy from its current cultural ghetto requires a new conception of two-way accountability, and a creative and appealing use of new forms of man-machine interaction technology.” This technocratic solution implies that human-machine dialogue is, in a certain sense, similar to participation and political engagement. From this point of view, children are the easiest to engage—they always want to voice opinions about their favorite football stars or pop singers. No wonder so many British advocacy groups launched campaigns to lower the minimum voting age to 16.

Page 96
As both Bourdieu and Graham acknowledge, intellectuals and artists ultimately have to create thoughts and works that are valuable to the wider society. But they do not create under the demands of external pressure, nor merely in response to external pressure; rather, they create through the interaction between inner drive and the specific cultural field outside.

Page 107
Now, inside cultural and educational institutions, there is an almost unchallenged consensus: that access and social inclusion are to be the core mission of Britain’s cultural institutions. At conferences, government officials and administrators, as a matter of course, call on universities, libraries, museums, and art galleries to place inclusion at the heart of their activities. Those involved in education or the cultural industries always boast that they have successfully rooted out every obstacle within their institutions that hinders participation. By obstacles, they mean not only the material barriers that affect access for disabled people, or the financial costs that may discourage the poor from buying tickets, but also the intellectual challenges faced by those who take part in educational and cultural activities. A review of interactive activities at the San Francisco Museum remarked: “They used to be called museums; now they are more like amusement parks.”////——The popularization of knowledge for the public is necessary, and a moderate degree of accessibility is desirable, but accessibility must not become vulgarization; the requirement of popularization is to hope that the public can understand, not that the public can ‘like’ it.

Pages 133–134
Such initiatives are often depicted as reflecting a shift toward a more democratic cultural attitude. They are meant to increase “participation,” “expand access,” “empower communities,” “tear down barriers,” and give the public the chance to express their “voice.” Yet this is in no way related to democratization. What those programs that choose a more democratic stance seek is to educate the public so as to improve their ability to understand new and challenging encounters. By contrast, what these measures hope to do is expand participation by eliminating such challenging encounters, trying to prevent the public from being discouraged by them. As Josie Appleton put it, “When the new cultural elites talk about tearing down cultural barriers, in fact what this means is reducing cultural experience to its immediate, emotional aspects.” She added: “Reflection and judgment are seen as self-indulgent, because they cut off connections and keep the public out.”

Page 140
Lacking any affirmation of the authority that elites possess, the elites find it difficult to establish confidence in their own mission. They have no strong faith of any kind, and therefore are willing to compromise when it comes to what should be valued and what should be rejected. By declaring that no faith can claim a monopoly on truth, they try to overcome the predicament brought on by their own crisis of faith. This explains why cultural elites are so easily influenced by cultural relativism. Having drifted away from any sense of mission and lacking a clear grasp of Truth with a capital T, they are encouraged into a fickle attitude toward value and truth. By placing question marks over all past values and institutions, the elites evade the need to answer the question of what beliefs and practices society ought to value and support. Instead of giving answers, they offer recognition and affirmation. Inclusion and affirmative populist policies help the elites avoid answering questions that do not have clear answers.////——Many questions indeed do not have clear answers, but that does not constitute an excuse for scholars to evade holding fast to their own position. Precisely because questions do not have clear answers, scholars’ never-ending thinking and criticism are so important. To take a step back, even if scholars do not presume to be the judges of answers, they should still take as their mission the exposure and sorting-out of “problems.”

Page 142
Flattering the public allows cultural elites to evade playing their traditional role before the public. Since the public clearly possesses enormous creativity, and their ordinary lives offer many important insights, it would be pointless and arrogant for elites to take upon themselves the task of enlightening the masses. The duty of cultural elites is not to cultivate the public’s mind, but to become its approval and praise. Recognition policies enable the ruling group to create points of contact with the public while at the same time avoiding confronting its legitimacy crisis.

Pages 145–146
The trivialization of the public’s cultural potential has important possible implications for the future development of academic thought. Intellectuals need a discerning public; artists need an engaged critical audience. Unfortunately, cultural-pandering politics are seldom able to inspire people to rise to the challenge. As a result, society’s creative energy is squandered on manufacturing and responding to the need for recognition. Those who insist on embarking on a real journey of intellectual discovery run the risk of being labeled elitist and out of touch. Christopher Hitchens wrote: “I am increasingly convinced that in order to be any kind of public intellectual, critic, or agitator, one has to be unafraid of being accused of elitism.”

Page 146 In an age of cultural infantilization, treating the public as adults has become one of the main responsibilities of humanistic intellectuals.

January 28, 2007, 4:48 p.m.

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Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.