Word: barzun
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Ever since World War II, U.S. intellectuals have, as never before, been debating these questions. But in the course of the debate, one note has been struck time and time again, and no one has sounded it more clearly than Historian Jacques Barzun of Columbia University. If there is a traditional distrust of ideas in the U.S., says Barzun, the nation's men of ideas have still "won recognition in tangible ways beyond any previous group of their peers." And more important, many have come at last to realize that they are true and proud participants in the American...
...Thus, Barzun warns, those who continue to grumble at America are merely singing a worn-out tune. "They forget that the true creator's role, even in its bitterest attack, is to make us understand or endure life better. Our intellectuals do neither when they entice us to more self-contempt...
...assent nor conformity . . . My experience has been that most so-called intellectuals are just as conformist to tradition in their immediate circle as the nonintellectuals. Many intellectuals would rather 'die' than agree with the majority, even on the rare occasions when the majority is right." Certainly, says Barzun, the intellectual has little cause to complain: never before has he had quite such a variety of backers-"the museums of modern art, the foundation patronage, the universities eager to be baffled, and the leagues of women armed with print to defend this or that 'ism.' " "There...
...would seem, the intellectual has ceased weeping. He is, in fact, closer than ever before to assuming the role he originally played in America as the critical but sympathetic-and wholly indispensable-bearer of America's message. Scott Fitzgerald, says Jacques Barzun, put that message in an epigram: " 'America is a willingness of the heart.' After his death, a hundred thousand more Europeans, forlorn, fleeing wanderers, found out what he meant. To us who came before them, the meaning is not fainter, though more familiar, and we scarcely need Emerson's gentle reminder and advice...
...Other Barzun books: The French Race, Race: A Study in Modern Superstition, Of Human Freedom, Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Romanticism and the Modern Ego, Pleasures of Music...