Why Does Our Culture Resemble a Loony Bin?

“For as bats’ eyes are to daylight so is our intellectual eye to those truths which are, in their own nature, the Most obvious of all.” Aristotle

The above question is not hard to answer. If you came across a house that was built in such a way that nothing worked right and it was put together in an insane way, you would simply conclude it was put together by a madman who did not know what he was doing. However, what would happen if you had taken a course at the university prior to seeing the house and your professor had told you the builder of the house was creative and a genius? Would that affect your opinion of the house? What if everyone you know at school told you the same thing?  Might you not begin to believe that you were the lunatic?

Let me share a personal example. When I was younger, I believed that to be thought well of in intellectual circles, I should read about and have a working knowledge of Plato. Well, I got a copy of some of his works and began to read. In a short time, I decided that the man was somewhat of a sophist, and I was wasting a lot time panning for gold in a creek that had very little gold. However, because of the so-called knowers, I never aired my views, at least not around them. Then not long ago I was reading the letters of Jefferson and Adams and to my great joy found that they shared the same opinion of Plato. I was sane; the rest of the world was crazy. The emperor was naked.

Based on my experience, I would make the bold statement that our culture is crazy because we humans have a tendency to believe crazy things promoted by crazy men, who we call intellectuals.  We continue to do this, even though  history bears out that these intellectuals are more often wrong than right.[1]

Why are the intellectual and highly educated so often wrong[2]? One reason is that they tend to create fantasy worlds in their minds, which do not exist, worlds which are abstract with abstract people living in them[3]. It is in these abstract worlds that intellectuals create their systems of thoughts, which they then impose on the real world. It is little wonder why they so often fail e.g. Karl Marx and his system of communism.

After creating their systems the intellectuals begin to network, promoting themselves and their ideas somewhat like politicians or salesmen do in order to sell their ideas. The intellectual’s chief platforms are  universities and colleges where other lesser intellectuals eat up their teaching like children eating candy.  In most case their message is one of salvation from the human condition.

Furthermore, many intellectuals are easily deceived because they have no frame of reference other than themselves and the spirit of the age. Their ego blocks the awareness of the limits of their cultural understanding and the views of others who are their equals[4]. This is also true of many of their disciples, who without reservation accept their teachings.   In this, they are deceived by the master and their own egos into believing that his truth is the Truth. A great example of this is the large number of highly educated people, who around the turn of the 20th century, fell headlong under the spell of Karl Marx. Two examples of this are Charles Baldwin, the founder of ACLU, and John Dewey, the father of the American educational system. Both of these intellectuals failed to discern the problems with Communism. They only turned from it after Stalin revealed his true colors. Their level of discernment was no better than the common man’s, and yet we hold them up as two of our greatest intellectuals.

The intellectuals who have helped shape Western culture are Freud, Darwin, and Marx. All were reductionist who reduced the understanding of history and existence to  sexuality, economics, and evolution. In other words, they reduced everything to their system. All these men looked at the whole of existence through a single lens of their system or ideology, which narrowed their worldview. Many of their ideas have reaped havoc in Western culture and have brought it to the edge of the abyss. However, they are continuing to influence the so-called enlightened in our universities, and we have foolishly turned our children over to them. Our universities seem to be a nesting ground for men whose chief end is to debunk every virtue in our culture. Their favorite targets are morality, religion, and faith, all of which are needed to have a healthy culture. Nevertheless, we keep on listening to them and even worst; we keep on trying to implement their theories. Then we wonder why our world is so crazy. If we are looking for an answer, we might begin at our universities, which continue to give these intellectuals a platform to poison the minds of our young people[5].

[1] “Intellectuals” by Paul Johnson.

[2] My critique of intellectuals is not a putdown of education or knowledge. It is a critique of a certain kind of knower- the kind who goes beyond or even denies the cosmic order of common sense.

[3] Thomas Sowell expands on this in his book “Intellectuals and Society”.

[4] Paul Johnson gives a good critique of some Western intellectuals in his book, Intellectuals.

[5]  All this is done under the banner of academic freedom, which of course is a part of the rhetoric of the intellectuals.  They want to sell their ideas and influence the world yet have no accountability.