Where Are All The Pseudointellectuals?

I have imagined a scene of which I am perhaps inordinately fond.  The year is 1960 or thereabouts and the setting is the Hungarian Pastry Shop on West 111th Street in New York.  A group of six to ten Columbia students are seated around a table.  Some of them are wearing oversize sweaters and scarves, as it is the dead of winter.  The windows are foggy.  While the students are talking animatedly, the proprietor - the original one - is working behind the counter, studiously indifferent to the youths' loud declarations and accompanying gestures.

The students are debating some issue of the day, such as civil rights or the future of the newly independent nations.  Or they are discussing what existentialism is or the merits of a title published by The Grove Press.

For argument's sake, let us suppose that with our hindsight we know that most of what these students are saying is jejune nonsense, because the point here is not that whether these undergraduates possess or lack perspicacity.  What is noteworthy is that they are so engaged by ideas.

Today I'm not sure whether you could recreate this gathering and its intellectual ferment.  I know you might say, first of all, that they might be too distracted by some sort of mobile device to maintain their engagement in a lengthy public discussion.  That is as may be.  What I wonder about far more is whether large ideas would hold anything like the same appeal to today's undergraduate patrons of the Hungarian Pastry Shop.

Of course, the Columbia student of today is most likely a somewhat higher "achiever" than his counterpart of fifty years ago.  His degree of engagement with learning is equal, or at worst, only slightly less.  Specific things - as it happens, very important ones - might inspire him: locally-grown food, alternative energy, penal reform, and so on. 

But does the student of today embody the same amalgam of innocence, reckless intellectual enthusiasm, and lack of self-consciousness?  More tellingly, does the broader culture, even at an elite university, foster far-ranging intellectual inquiry any longer in quite the same way as it might have 50 years ago? You might object and say it does, but I am afraid it does not.

The Spoken American Language

Almost no native of the United States seems to be able to speak more than a few sentences consecutively without committing a glaring error of vocabulary or grammar.  This is without respect to education level.

Some foreigners, and even some Americans, would gleefully attribute this to our "vulgarity", "stupidity" and so forth.

Here one should point out that a high proportion of the cleverest and most accomplished people in the world are actually American.  Our profound sense of practicality which, blended with a prodigious confidence and yes, intelligence, has resulted in many successful Americans becoming noteworthy well beyond our borders.  Other countries are lucky to have a bare handful of celebrities with international recognition.  We have hundreds, if not more, and their fame is wholly justified.

Whatever else we may be, we are not dull-witted. Yet when our countrymen are called upon to speak, whatever the occasion, the result is sometimes an appalling disaster. Americans seem consciously to avoid any vocabulary choice which might aid them in lending added force to their argument.  They are unable to conjugate verbs that are separated from their subjects by more than a few words.  They are drawn to wrong words or even malapropisms like a moth to candle flame.  Quite often they begin a sentence seemingly having no more idea about how it should end than you or I would.

I have been puzzled by this.  However, I now realize that it is owing to a peculiarity of our culture, and not to a fault in our national character.  Yes, public speaking is no longer taught in school.  But at bottom, I think we are afraid that if we were to speak with greater care, we would seem too arch.  An American can only be so dry before his thirst overwhelms him.  An American has a horror of appearing to be "inaccessible".  By rounding the angles of his speech until his meaning must be guessed; by insisting on being colloquial, however unsuitable the circumstances; by unconsciously insisting that his interlocutor is always his equal by choosing simple words that only approximate his intended meaning -- these are the almost intentional errors Americans feel compelled to use in their speech to mollify their listeners.

What an American almost never seems to want to do, however, is bend his audience with the power of rhetoric, supported by conviction.  We are uncomfortable with the arresting phrase, with the poetic juxtaposition of words.  We do not wish to stir, to artfully provoke, to paint a word-picture of demanding originality.

So while on the one hand it is considerate of us, I suppose, never to challenge one another with speech possessing unanswerable logic and poetic forcefulness, we are also being cowardly for avoiding the slight mental discipline it would take to speak, at the least, correctly.  Once we regained some comfort with the correct spoken language (we would have to lose the fear of seeming snobbish), we could move to improve our public discourse. Our politicians could give speeches that, on occasion, ennoble (we currently lack so much as one first-rate speaker in our political class, including our president*).  We could inject much-needed refinement into our private discourse.  In developing the art of conversation we could actually exalt ourselves.

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We are inundated with language.  But it is of mediocre quality.  Just as perniciously, we are no longer encouraged to treat certain texts with reverence.  For example, the King James Bible is a very important artifact, but it is no longer sacred both as a literary text and as a religious authority. The authority of language, as language, has all but disappeared.

In school, this abdication of authority regarding language takes different forms: grammar has ceased to be taught as a discrete subject; in written exercises, expression and form are accorded equal weight; reading assignments must, seemingly, never be in a language that might be unfamiliar to students.

One can decry this as one wishes.  But the insidious effects of no longer having any supreme guides for how we speak and write are much more widespread than just our school curricula.  Our culture practically forces us to speak to one another in a language but also in a tone that is familiar. While this may be relaxing to some, it is impoverishing and in the end, exhausting and dispiriting if one happens to pay any attention to how words are used.  There could be no harm in once again recognizing that we all occupy a discrete personal sphere which, if properly respected (as circumstances will permit), could result in our daily interactions being a great deal more fruitful, to say nothing of more enjoyable.  Moreover, if we were only slightly more correct in our bearing and speech, we would actually raise ourselves in the estimation of others- that is, if being raised in another's estimation is seen as an important value.  The pitfall to avoid, of course, is appearing stiff, which will never happen if one just uses some common sense.

I would never advise anyone to be more conscious of his speech if I hadn't seen countless encounters needlessly spoiled by a lack of regard on the part of the person initiating the conversation for the condition of the person being addressed.  This is the American vice.  I am convinced that it is our poverty in oral language, every bit as much as it is our famous "rudeness", that makes conversational exchanges frequently so excruciating in this country.

*The famous phrases of our president, at least some of which seem to have been concocted by speech writers, seem to me to be on the level of greeting-card mottoes.

A Loss

The pluperfect subjunctive has effectively disappeared from spoken English, and is all but gone from the written language as well.  I have taken on the task of convincing you that this is a loss worth noting.

"If I had known, I would never have come" has steadily been replaced by "If I would have known, I wouldn't have come," even among the well educated.

I will not decry this from the point of view of a grammarian, however much one might be tempted.  Instead, mourn with me a loss to the English-speaking mind and spirit.

Though the subjunctive is often not noticeable as a distinct verb tense, as it is in many other languages, it has always been very much present in the spirit of English - until relatively recently. 

The past subjunctive, if you don't know, often expresses a non-existent condition in the dependent clause ("If I had...), followed by the impact of this condition on the speaker's action, were it to come to pass, in the independent clause ("...then I would...").  In my opinion, it is one of the most elegant constructions in any of the many languages in which it is used, for it shows the speaker's possession of absolute clear-sightedness in the moment of speaking, contrasting poetically with his or her lack of it at some point in the all-too-recent past.

The contemporary bowdlerization of the pluperfect subjunctive removes the speaker from the exposed midpoint of the action; indeed, the declaration is no longer even the subjunctive.  His chronological placement in the events referred to, both theoretical and real, has been hopelessly muddled; his degree of responsibility is no longer clear.  The power of speech is now the lesser for it.

Changing a Nation

It is not possible for a person to question completely the foundation upon which rests his sense of self.  No matter how wrong-headed, for for that matter cruel and pointless one's way of being, one must justify to oneself why one has the character one has.

In many cases, people will resist attempting even slight alterations in their own attitudes and comportment. They are in the main satisfied with, or at least reconciled to who they are and how they got that way; they can revisit the fundamental parts of their character, but success is never assured.

There are some truths about oneself that one can never fully face, and in this way nations are like people.  If we bear this in mind it might be easier to understand why a country as great as the United States does not have the proportionate ability to change itself.

All countries, like all people, are limited in their capacity for self-reflection.  They are as proud as any person; they always see themselves as virtuous.

The United States has been favored by fortune, but also by talent and yes, virtue - even now.  We have justly enjoyed the fruits of our disciplined labor.  We have created a haven and the conditions for the majority of us to enjoy it.  We demand a lot of others and use more than our share of resources, but to ask us to be less demanding and more mindful of what we use would be to punish us for our success as a national enterprise.

We do not have the culture of our southern neighbor or the kindliness of our northern one, but we have always tried to do so much more than they; our ambitions have been heroic.  So, for us to act as if we were an ordinary country is psychically absurd.  No one, not even ourselves, has the right to demand from us a fundamental change.  Indeed, we have only changed when circumstances have forced change upon us.

Inconveniently, however, other great countries have transformed themselves, often with our help.  They have become almost the opposite of what they were, and the world has then been able to enjoy peace.  We must become the opposite of what we are for the world to survive, while preserving that which is great about us. This is the challenge of a great nation.

Diary: A Hell of Screens

At a restaurant we were recently met by a dispiriting sight: almost without exception, the guests were looking at electronic screens of various kinds, not at one another.

One should have known this might happen, yet I was brought up short.  The possibility of attention from someone or something not present prevailed over an interaction, perhaps satisfying, perhaps not - who knows? - with the person opposite.

It is my own vanity that makes me object to all this. I want to be tolerated in spite of my own dullness; I don't want anyone to prefer something over me.

Will that even remain possible in time?

Teacher Waiting For a Suitor

We have chafed at the low regard with which we are viewed by the public.  We have offered ourselves every rationalization one could think of about the importance of our work, lauding ourselves for our doggedness in continuing to carry it out in the face of every kind of discouragement.  Still, the hoped-for vindication has not arrived.  Our illusions have finally cracked; we must take matters more into our own hands.  We realize that, before it is truly too late, we must begin to court those who we thought should be our suitors.

You must appreciate the bitterness of this realization.  We had thought that our role as the transmitters of knowledge might have sufficed to draw our society to us.  We realize that it is we all along who ought to have been doing the courting, and we recognize our vanity and foolishness for ever having thought otherwise.

We will offer ourselves, then, up for rigorous evaluation.  But if you will allow one last impertinence, allow us to suggest the means by which it will be carried out.  We sadly accept that the lexicon of commerce has permanently entered education, and we know that we are henceforth to be measured by "quantifiable" data.  So, rigorously assess our work at least once yearly - we would actually invite it. However only 20% of our overall "score" should consist of test results.  We are cleverer than you think: you will excoriate us for hiding behind tenure protection, for thinking of our jobs more than of "results" for the children.  Then we will, to your astonishment, suddenly compromise and offer 30%, and ask whether it ever occurred to you that while we are obliged to impart knowledge and skills to students, it might be incumbent on those students to take an active part in learning them, or on their parents to provide a suitable environment for their children's educational advancement.

We will take advantage of your momentary silence to suggest a formula for the other 70% of our evaluation.  Fully 10% should depend on our command of the spoken language.  The misuse of grammar and vocabulary, even by our best-educated countrymen, is a constant source of consternation for me and, I would expect, the other members of our profession; as there are few people better placed than we to remedy this, we should be judged on our ability to speak in grammatical paragraphs, using the full richness of our language, with a train of thought that moves clearly forward.  At least 40% should depend on the heart of what we do: our lessons.  We hope you will see a high level of  "energy", along with student oral responses reflecting engagement with and understanding of the material. When the lesson finishes, we would like to show you written "formative" assessments that reflect our students' further understanding of the topic.  We would only ask that adherence to the latest in a long line of educational "philosophies" not be considered as part of our lesson evaluation.  These philosophies come, are replaced, and replaced again many times in the course of one career, so please understand our (uncharacteristic) cynicism regarding them.  We would like the remaining 20% to come from a somewhat intangible, but still essential measure: the "feeling" one gets when entering our room.  This high percentage represents, we feel, the importance of classroom climate.  That is, is there a palpable enthusiasm in the classroom? An appropriate sense of humor? An atmosphere of respect at the same time as there is a sense of order?  Are parents generally pleased with what we are doing with the children?

We know that you will want more than just this evaluation.  But your appetite is too ravenous; you must seek to satisfy it elsewhere.  We will gladly discuss making tenure more difficult to obtain, and once obtained, making its continuation dependent in part on a high quality of teacher performance.  But do not bring up the subject of eliminating it altogether.  Ours is, lest we forget, an academic career, and the protections of tenure benefit good teachers as well as mediocre ones. Also, your argument against defined-benefit pensions needs to be settled elsewhere.  We find this argument to be intellectually empty - effectively, you are saying that since only we public employees still get them, then no one should.  Create a society in which all workers have the right to a pension.  You have been told of your brilliance since birth - we can see this has been justified - and we are sure your rise through the meritocracy was hard-won.  Restoring the middle class should not be beyond your prodigious abilities.

If we willingly propose to be more rigorously evaluated, it must be in exchange for greater pay, and almost as importantly, greater acknowledgement from the American public for the service we perform.  Your attitude is full of contradictions: you want us to maintain discipline in our classrooms, but you are ambivalent about the exercising of authority in actual fact, so you have taken away the tools we need to keep order; you want us to impart meaningful knowledge, yet you are in disagreement about what that would constitute; you pay lip service to the importance teachers play in our society while undermining their efforts in myriad ways: starving them of resources, ignoring the discouragements teachers face that prevent them from committing to the profession, and, most damningly, in many cases not considering teaching a suitable long-term commitment for your products of "selective" colleges and universities.

We see that this courtship, even though just starting, is bereft of tender feeling so far.  But if you care about us, you will bear up under this effusion of bitterness and accept us for who we are - this is the lot of any suitor.  Your forbearance might one day be richly rewarded in the form of a uniformly well-educated, economically competitive population; your love, when you begin to feel it, will not have been in vain.

Toxic Ideas: how both the right and left have undermined our national culture and what we can do about it

There is an aspect of the American schism between the "right" and the "left" that has, believe it or not, not received enough attention.  As we know, each side not only can not admit that there might be merit in the other side's arguments, but goes on to hold the other responsable for damaging the very fabric of American life, while seeing itself as more or less blameless.

This is partly understandable. When the right accuses the left of undermining discipline, manners, and the institutions of society, it does so with a great deal of justification.  The weakness of our social fabric has much to do with social forces unleashed by the left wing of American thought. Eating habits, respect for the law, academic standards, personal behavior, family commitments - the standards for maintaining all of these have been weakened or lowered since 1960, and the left is mainly responsible.

This, however, can not excuse the very real damage that ideas from the right have also done to the American conscience.  The left never tires of pointing out the harm caused by certain conservative ideas, mainly those having to do with wealth acquisition - but it would be right to do so. The perversion of capitalism that has done much to harm not only our civic but our personal lives stems from neo-liberal (alternatively known as "conservative") economic ideas.

It may be the right moment, however, to explore further how so-called "right" and "left" ideas have combined to cause much more harm to our society than perhaps we even realize, and certainly than they ever could do separately.

We can begin with the fetishization of free markets by conservative economic thinkers. One can argue over whether deregulation, lower tax rates, and so on have been good policy.  What no one can defend is the social consequences of conservative economic ideas filtering down into the popular consciousness, with the influence on personal behavior that has resulted.  In teaching Americans that the profit motive is always virtuous and that personal economic enrichment is an end in itself, conservatives have damaged our ethical and civic core.  It used to be most important for us to be citizens; now we are consumers foremost.

We are not the first materialistic society obviously.  What we are is the first successful bourgeois society to have removed social constraints from so many facets of life.  We are besotted by material, and now electronic comforts (I am aware there is a class of people in our country that fancies itself untouched by American materialism; they have much more in common than their less glamorous compatriots than they realize.)  There is nothing the matter with this inherently.  However, with no "social inhibitors" to govern our use of our multitude of consumer goods, I am afraid sometimes we are swirling down a kind of cultural drain.  (If you take a moment to read some of my earlier essays, you will see I define culture in a somewhat different way from what you might be thinking). If ever fewer families are eating together around a table, discussing topics at length and taking the trouble to enjoy one another's company, it is because we have given ourselves permission to be excused from dinner, as it were, to pursue interests that are, in large part, narcissistic (I could list what these are, but I trust that you will be able to guess).  If there are ever fewer intact families to begin with, it is because, apart from the things that make living together inherently stressful, there are so few social inhibitors to hold the family structure together, combined with a generalized material longing that robs us of the forbearance that is occasionally necessary in marriage.  In this case, the left is responsible for the former condition, and the right, as I have suggested, is more responsible for the latter one.

It pains me to say that to visit most public places in America is to subject oneself to a visual assault.  At no time in our history has the American people been so uncaring about its physical condition and appearance.  I am even convinced that, in many cases, we take a perverse pride not only in being slovenly, but in offending the strangers in our presence.

I bring this up only because the decline in our public deportment is an excellent example of where pernicious ideas from the whole spectrum of American popular thought have converged and have become magnified in force. From the left has come the notion that our right to personal expression outweighs all other considerations, with the potential revulsion on the part of one´s interlocutor held in particularly low regard. Hence our feeling that we are entitled to wear any clothing, however ill-considered, regardless of the occasion.  We have also given ourself permission to eat any type of foodstuff, again with little regard to the appropriateness of the time or place.   The wretched condition of our bodies, which should be a spur to personal renewal, is instead a perverse badge of honor for a disturbing number of our countrymen.  The right has contributed to the problem also, just as powerfully if more subtly; it is far from blameless here.  Our exaggerated self-confidence, our disinclination to question our own attitudes and conduct, our feeling that whatever we are doing in the moment is perfectly justified are aspects of the American character that have received undue encouragement from the right wing of the national discourse.

I'm sorry to say I don't think I can keep the promise I effectively made in the title to offer a solution. I am realizing that other commentators with more credentials, authority, and potential for reaching an audience have, so far, failed to affect our conduct significantly, whether in the personal domain or elsewhere.  On an individual level, one could attribute this to the natural resistance we all have to suggestion. Or we could ascribe it to our disinclination as a people to engage in introspection, an aspect of our national character which historically has been to our advantage, but now poses a threat, if not to our survival then at the very least to our prosperity.