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Revelation of Hope. And what of the intellectual in a land where privilege has passed to the crowd? The intellectual's true vocation, says Philosopher Sidney Hook, "is critical independence. The intellectual betrays his vocation when he becomes a poet laureate of the status quo. The criterion is neither assent nor conformity . . . My experience has been that most so-called intellectuals are just as conformist to tradition in their immediate circle as the nonintellectuals. Many intellectuals would rather 'die' than agree with the majority, even on the rare occasions when the majority is right." Certainly, says Barzun, the intellectual has little cause to complain: never before has he had quite such a variety of backers—"the museums of modern art, the foundation patronage, the universities eager to be baffled, and the leagues of women armed with print to defend this or that 'ism.' " "There is room in America," adds Philosopher T. V. Smith, "for all kinds of intelligence and for rewards befitting each kind. But those who sit on the Left Bank and howl at the Right neither facilitate the flow of the river nor adorn their own bank as the river flows by. Here, as elsewhere, it is only those who know not what to trust that trust they know not what."
One thing to trust, says Philosopher Mortimer Adler, "is that the most important fact of the 20th century is the industrial revolution in the U.S. It is a most hopeful revolution, even if for the time being, the distraction with production is bad for culture. In the long run, the new industrialization will produce an aristocratic society for the millions. We can produce Rome for the millions, or Athens for the millions. We can make a great intellectual society, or produce circuses if we want to. We have our choice. The intellectual should not be weeping; he should be planning."
But in 1956, it would seem, the intellectual has ceased weeping. He is, in fact, closer than ever before to assuming the role he originally played in America as the critical but sympathetic—and wholly indispensable—bearer of America's message. Scott Fitzgerald, says Jacques Barzun, put that message in an epigram: " 'America is a willingness of the heart.' After his death, a hundred thousand more Europeans, forlorn, fleeing wanderers, found out what he meant. To us who came before them, the meaning is not fainter, though more familiar, and we scarcely need Emerson's gentle reminder and advice: 'The ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are, and if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best.' "
-Other Barzun books: The French Race, Race: A Study in Modern Superstition, Of Human Freedom, Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Romanticism and the Modern Ego, Pleasures of Music.