How did leftism become associated with intellectualism?

Question

It seems that academians and intellectuals have always gravitated towards leftism. Why? I have heard several explanations including the socialist movement of Herbert Marcuse starting in Columbia University, the "noblese oblige" of the aristocrats (Diego) Rivera & Trotsky; and the struggle for power by names such as Castro & Che; and finally the somewhat "collective culture" of the Jewsh people in general which tend to gravitate towards positions of power and wealth. If these are not correct, what else can it be?

Answer 1

Marketing.



Political ideology and intellectualism are not mutually exclusive. If you're to ascribe the fundamentalists to moderate-rightist ways of thinking, then you're thought is nothing more than a success in the political marketing campaign of the left.



"Leftists" have found a home in our colleges (socialist movement?) and upon graduation, tend to migrate towards staying in academia or close to it where they can live amongst their own and investigate the workings of the "REAL WORLD". They see the world as something it's not -- merely something it should be. In that, the questions they pose are indeed thought provoking but lack a certain spice we like to call VIABLE SOLUTIONS.



Conservatives who make it through college know that's it's merely a stopping point before moving onto the next chapter in life -- free-market exploration, providing for community, raising a family and enhancing the well-being of others. The right has been marketed as "profit-seekers, fundies, absent of emotion, lacking an education, unreasonable, selfish and promoters against the poor." Set side by side, righties can make the same claims about lefties. They don't want to talk about the million dollar mansions, the "in" w/ Fan/Fred, the preferential treatment, the butlers, the special interest money, the inability to deliver any viable solutions for the poor in over 60 years, the talk and no action, the inability to put their money where their mouth is, etc. etc.. It seems the primary concern is staying in power and realistically, you'd expect nothing else from someone trying to protect their CAREER.



The constant bickering in politics has an emotional appeal -- one that people can't seem to get enough of these days. It's a sad state of events as it's the people who will ultimately get the shaft as the Government exploits that weakness to gain more and more power...leveraging their standard of living with each new tax and each new program until there's no more money left to mine.



These are indeed generalized explanations but they seem to fit well in my personal experience.



If you can't see past the marketing schemes, you can't see at all.

Answer 2

I believe it found it's voice in the halls of our universities. Young people , fresh out on their own for the first time, in a LEARNING enviroment . Their minds are wide open to suggestion and new knowledge. Along come radical proffesors that use their forum as a stage to spew their own left wing propaganda and hatred of America, INSTEAD of teaching these young people history, and the basics of how our government runs. The young naturally take their bias as fact, after all they are teachers right, wrong, they are recruiters and they have been allowed to do a unbelievable disservice to our young through the years. Parents should be outraged that this sort of communist propaganda has been allowed to florish unchecked in our schools. It is a free country, I understand that, and I am by no means advocating censorship. I simply think you should call a spade a spade. If you are going to be teaching a radical left view, do it in a class designed for that type of forum. Be up front, tell them that you will be teaching a class on a different view point, not on fact. Do not sneak your views into, regular English, Social Science or History etc. Why this type of propaganda begins here, your quess is as good as mine, but think, where else could it get a constant forum and such an impressionable audience? As far as your Jewish connection. The Jewish people have been through enormous suffering, having everything stripped from them as in the holocaust, and survived. I have heard it said that their elders that came through that nightmare passed on these words of wisdom to their children: They can take everything from you , but they cannot take away your education. The Jews place a high value on higher leaning so they can, many , be found at Universities. The reason they can be found in positions of "power and wealth" is because they are smart. Smart people are always in demand in top positions and positions of power often are rewarded with wealth. I would like to note that I believe intelligence must be woven in with common sense and humility in order to be most effective, thus I believe a higher education on it's own does not make one intellectually "whole", and without certain attributes may just make one arrogant, wrong and basically ineffective.

Answer 3

This is a trend that we could trace back to Greek philosophers.



Liberalism's primary impetus is a progressive motivation.



The growth and evolution of philosophy, society, politics and economics is encouraged and explored by open minded individuals capable of advanced intellectual abstract reasoning. Individuals ill-equipped with such faculties are limited to only the scope of basic observations available to them.



In other words - such reason is built upon a basic ideology, the ideology however encourages the expansion, which further fuels the ideology.



I phrase my response this way rather than try and assert specific philosophers or authors to have popularized this relationship.



To rephrase, its the difference between people who fear change and people who fear stasis.



Each different category of person motivated by the differences in these two basic psychological fears.



A requirement of being successful at initiating social progress is intellectual appreciation.

What comes first though? The ideology or the intellectualism? Most certainly such a question is a chicken or egg paradox. Open to consideration.

Answer 4

Just read some of the posts for this question and you see that "smart" is equated with going to a university or college and having a PhD in something, anything. Then you can parade around and say that you are a Doctor! Intellectualism leads to free-thinking, and the concept that things ought to evolve from what they are now to something better in lthe future. Thus liberalism came into play as the concept of things needing to be updated, replaced, "out with the obsolete, in with the new." Liberals can tend to want to change how things are done simply for the sake of change and "progress." They will change even those things that are working really well (like education) only to be forced to point fingers at others when their grandiose plans fall flat on their faces.

Answer 5

Well yours is an interesting post. Why do you omit the intellectuals of Georgetown and Berkeley, Harvard, and Ayers's University of Illinois at Chicago? Marcuse wasn't the first socialist, and people have studied the faith-based initiatives of Thomas Aquinas for a long time.



How exactly do the conceptions of "collective culture" you propagate as being somehow inherent to a particular group of people differ from proposals for government-mandated "charity," "common good," and "social justice?"

Answer 6

The American voter has come to be anti-intellectualism in the event that they feel both social gathering isn't at the equal time table. Wake up Americans..your liberty is disappearing earlier than your very eyes..Kick them ALL out and begin once more with an person from the precise ranks of the American humans. Will that occur? Hell to the no!!

Answer 7

There will always be those who think for themselves, intellectuals. And there will be those who just blindly follow the herd. The terms right and left have had different meanings at different times in history. In Germany around 1935 a leftist was a traitor but in retrospect we see they were good people who opposed nazi tyranny. This example is what most of us think of when trying to define right and left, and that's probably the answer to your question.

Answer 8

Honestly, I believe you are over thinking this point.



It is not necessarily that the current "left" became associated with intellectualism but that the conservative right has chosen not to disassociate itself from anti-intellectualism and science against their economic and electoral interests.



It is part of what they got when they adopted the Southern Strategy.

Answer 9

Given the polarizing nature of politics, it's amazing that anyone who would call themself an objective intellectual would willingly engage in politics of any kind, left or right.

Answer 10

Go spend some time in a trailer community and then ask yourself this question again.



It really doesn't take much to figure it out. The standard is so low that a High school diploma pretty much makes you a lib by default.

Answer 11

Many things we now know to be nonsense - racism, eugenics, communism - were associated with intellectualism in the past. Goes to show that everyone can be mistaken at one point in their individual or collective lives.

Answer 12

"leftism" is really a meaningless label. That people who are more "liberal" in their political opinions is simply a matter of stastics.



The attempt to vilify liberals is of, by and for the consumption of the easily fooled.

Answer 13

Because the left tends to read books without pictures.



Although, I'm sure George Will reads and William F. Buckley read, but they sound(ed) rational from time to time.

Answer 14

In what universe?

Answer 15

Well, My observation is that the left makes far less enemies. It's a community sort of thing where people look after each other instead of urinating on everything below.



Just an observation, though ...

Answer 16

For obvious reasons, academic and scholarly career paths attract people who are not highly invested in getting rich. Also, academicians, depend on government funding, and have relatively little to gain from low taxes and unfettered capitalism.

Answer 17

Because according to some "rightists", a "leftist" is defined as anyone who is



a) a reasonable person

b) someone who engages in critical thought

c) a person who disagrees with a "rightist"

Answer 18

Possibly due to complete ignorance. Have you ever tried to converse with a college professor. They have to be the most intellectually inept group of people ever place among mankind.

Answer 19

Smart people are Leftist.

Answer 20

This is very interesting. Thank you.