‘Intelligencia’ deserve political criticism

The author of the March 7 letter, “Elite counterbalance political extremes,” finds disturbing the tendency by political figures to “disparage the elite.” He wonders why the “best or most skilled members” of certain social groups should be unfairly selected for criticism.

I partly agree but feel he paints with too broad a brush. Thomas Sowell's recent book, “Intellectuals and Society,” takes this issue head-on. Sowell distinguishes highly trained specialists - doctors, engineers, business administrators, pilots, etc., whose work is empirically verifiable and accountable - from “intellectuals,” whose work begins and ends with ideas, and whose claims are judged subjectively, primarily in their acceptance among like-minded peers.

Surrounding this core is a so-called “penumbra” of others: teachers, social activists, commentators, etc., who disseminate ideas. These individuals, together with the intellectuals, form the “intelligentsia,” a group self-identified as specially anointed to mold public opinion, influence governmental and economic policy, promote social engineering, and so forth.

Sowell identifies a crucial misconception, namely that highly educated elites become unduly impressed with their own concentrated, special knowledge, forgetting that the population, taken as a whole, possesses far more dispersed, practical knowledge than the elites could ever hope to possess themselves. From this they leap to the conclusion that they are superior guides in deciding the affairs of people living their lives than the people themselves.

It is these elite “busybodies,” not bona fide technical experts, I think, that political figures justifiably criticize.

Dale Fitzgibbons

Cedar Rapids