Video for Intellectuals

Sometimes it appears that we’re reaching a period when our senses and our words will not longer respond to moderate stimulation. We seem to be approaching an age of the gross, persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action. The young (and by this I don’t mean by any stretch of the imagination all the young but I’m talking about those who claim to speak for the young) at the zenith of power and sensitivity overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants. Subtlety is lost and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a predetermined conclusion. Life is visceral rather than intellectual, and the most visceral practitioners of life are those that claim themselves intellectuals. Truth is to them revealed rather than logically proved and the principle infatuations of today revolve around the social sciences, those subjects which can accommodate any opinion about which the most reckless conjecture cannot be discredited. Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the whims of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim rather than to learn. The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in the contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap. A spirit of national masochism prevails encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals. (applause)