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American Intellectuals
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12380 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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Date : |
1 / 1987 |
5,145 Words |
| Author
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Stanley Rothman
Stanley Rothman is Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of
Government and director of the Center for the Study of Social
and Political Change at Smith College. |
Intellectuals in General
Despite the rise of neoconservatism and the resurgence of traditional conservatism, the available evidence suggests that the majority of productive intellectuals in the humanities and the social sciences in the United States today are liberal and cosmopolitan or on the Left. The 1984 Carnegie study of university faculty reveals that the self-identification of academics in these fields has changed only marginally since the Ladd-Lipset survey of the late 1960s. Indeed, the Carnegie study probably underestimates the continuing Left tilt of intellectuals, for the political spectrum itself has shifted to the Left in the intervening period. In the 1960s, for example, most liberals still argued that the constitution is color-blind. Today, such a position is considered conservative. Liberals of the 1960s fought for merit and equality of opportunity. Today the standard liberal position has moved toward equality of results imposed, if necessary, by quotas. One could multiply such examples endlessly.
Those writing about intellectuals generally assume that they gravitate naturally to the Left. Historically, however, this has not always been the case. In most traditional literate societies intellectuals worked to bolster the existing order and were a significant segment of the establishment, whether as religious figures or mandarins.
In Europe the most illustrious political philosophers down through the middle of the eighteenth century were conservative in outlook. They considered human beings fallible and potentially violent, and the social order a fragile creation. With some exceptions they most certainly did not believe in
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