The Treason of the Intellectuals

Abstract

Julien Benda's classic study of 1920s Europe resonates today. The of is a phrase that evokes much but is inherently ambiguous. The book bearing this title is well known but little understood. This edition is introduced by Roger Kimball. From time of pre-Socratics, intellectuals were a breed apart. They were non-materialistic knowledge-seekers who believed in a universal humanism and represented a cornerstone of civilized society. According to Benda, this all began to change in early twentieth century. In Europe in 1920s, intellectuals began abandoning their attachment to traditional philosophical and scholarly ideals, and instead glorified particularisms and moral relativism. The of which Benda writes is betrayal by intellectuals of their unique vocation. He criticizes European intellectuals for allowing political commitment to insinuate itself into their understanding of intellectual vocation, ushering world into the age of intellectual organization of political hatreds. From savage flowering of ethnic and religious hatreds in Middle East and throughout Europe today to mendacious demand for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses everywhere in West, treason of intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama.

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