The rise of Sarah Palin as a political force in American politics (a rise that this blog heartily endorses) has illustrated an interesting class cleavage in American society. Intellectuals in general, and Republican intellectuals in particular, have illustrated a disturbing tendency to discount the Alaska governor as an intellectual lightweight that represents some type of existential threat to American political society. While the devolution of the party of Jackson from the champions of popular democracy and the idea that government not only of but by average citizens chosen as exceptional by their peers is no surprise in the context of the rise of the elitist and vanguardist New Left. More surprising is the penetration of this fundamentalist elitism into the intellectual class of the Republican party, a party that hither to had been ideologically committed to the idea that all citizens of ambition and ability could aspire to any heights in society. While Palin’s popularity among the popular mass of the Republican party indicates that this idea still retains some power, it is striking how extensive the decline in popular democracy is among the political class as a whole.
Indeed, if we were to follow the logic of a Chris Buckley, a David Brooks, or any number of semi-intellectuals of the left who have criticized governor Palin, who among our Presidents, or who among our people is indeed fit to govern? Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Reagan, who among these were not denounced in the same manner as Governor Palin? None. These men were not intellectuals, but they were leaders. They were not intellectuals, but they were intelligent. They were not intellectuals, but they earned the trust of their fellow citizens. They were not highly educated, but they had wisdom, the type of wisdom that comes only through striving against intellectuals who told them that there were not worthy of respect.
You see, intellectuals are not necessarily intelligent. Some of them are, but the dirty secret of the academic world (from someone on the inside) is that most intellectuals are really not unusually smart. Sure, they tend to display dazzling knowledge of a certain discipline. And, if they have been outside of the workaday world for long enough, they can also develop a superior breadth of knowledge to most people (you can do lots of leisure reading when working 20 hours or less per week). That being said, being an intellectual and being intelligent are two different things.
Let’s taka an example. One man is a mechanic. Has been his whole life. High school education. He knows very little about history. However, he can rebuild an engine of any pre-fuel injection vehicle without a manual, and can usually make improvements that increase fuel efficiency and horsepower on the fly. He can rewire his house to operate partially on solar power. He can calculate load bearing requirements for small buildings using paper and pencil.
Let’s take another man. High school diploma, B.A, M.S., M.A., PhD candidate. Works for the government. College professor. Has been a supervisor, has run a small business. Graduated with honors at every point in his academic career. Fewer than 100 people know his area of specialty as well as he does.
Which man is more intelligent? The first guy is. He’s my stepfather. I’m the other guy. My stepfather can do things with his brain that I can only dream about. I can think about things and figure them out. My stepfather just knows things. His brain operates so quickly that he can barely describe his thoughts. Experience is not the difference. When I was a kid, he would show me how to do everything that he would work on. I still don’t understand half of it. Is that because I’m not smart? My academic background would indicate that this is probably not the truth. I’m more intellectual. But my stepfather is more intelligent.
There are two problems with the anti-intellectual criticism leveled at Sarah Palin. The first is that it is based on the fallacy that there is a wide intellectual discrepancy between the elite and the mass. This is a lie. I’ve met scholars, journalists, elected officials, and Presidential candidates. They are not geniuses. They are not demigods. They are average people, just like you and me.
The second fallacy is that common people are stupid. This is also untrue. In my life, I have met two people who are significantly smarter than me. One is a PhD, and one is a mechanic. I have also met two people who are significantly dumber than me. One is a professor, and one is a farmer.
There is a good reason that people on the left, and elite Republicans, want you to believe the lie that intellectualism is the same as intelligence. It gives them a reason for being, a reason to be important, a reason to be special, and better, than the herd. In the 19th and 20th centuries, elites relied on heredity, race, breeding, and class to serve this purpose. Intellectualism provides the last acceptable means for elites to maintain their cultural dominance in the 21st century. Sarah Palin, representing as she does the idea that any person can achieve whatever they dream in our society, unapologetically challenges this dominance. The idea that any intelligent, skilled person can learn to be President represents the final line of defense in the struggle for hereditary elitism. Is it any wonder, then that the response has been so shrill? The triumph of the Sarah Palins of the world represents the end of their utility, and promises the fulfillment of the promise of the American revolution, that all men are equal, and all of mankind is as fit to govern as to be governed.
In Barack Obama’s case, the gap between intellectualism and intelligence seems jarring. While writers like David Brooks and Chris Buckley are dazzled by Obama’s knowledge of the theology (not philosophy) of Reinhold Niebuhr, Niebuhr’s though is neither as complex nor as interesting as it has been portreyed. Basically, Niebuhr tried to reconcile United Front Marxism and Protestantism. While the results were interesting, including just war theory and possibly the serenity prayer, the theological framework is as defined by ambiguity and contradiction as much as the “subtlety” that Brooks and Buckley are enamored of.
Of course Barack Obama likes Niebuhr: this is his worldview. Of course Obama can speak eloquently about Niebuhr, he is talking about his favorite subject: himself. The problem, of course, is that holding fast to an abstract worldview does not a good president make. Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush are examples of Presidents who, like Obama, had clearly defined abstract principles that they clung fast to.
Rather, the true measure of intelligence is not the ability to understand and adopt abstractions, but the ability to process facts and adjust worldview accordingly. Is there any doubt that Sarah Palin has done this in her political career? For Barack Obama, however, facts are stubborn things, and not soemthing to get in the way of a good theory. Thus the Berlin blockade was ended by “unity,” America failed to do something about the Holocaust, and America’s problems in the world are caused by wrong principles, not structural conflicts of interest. Obama and Palin illustrate the classic dchotomy of wit and wisdom. While Barack Obama is blessed with the gift of wit, it is wisdom that provides strong leadership.
