Intellectual Tyrants Beget True Believers

In the following four-minute excerpt, Hoffer asserts that, more than any other group, intellectuals have a tendency toward corrupt megalomania. Though spoken 56 years ago, his words apply in 2023 to the corrosive illiberalism in America’s rotting universities—and in the broad range of institutions influenced by those universities. In the lead-up to this clip, Hoffer describes a shift in the American psyche, leaving behind an admiration for quotidien business and gravitating toward a devotion to intellectuals. In other words, abandoning doers for thinkers. …

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And this month, October 2023, the figurative raping of which Hoffer spoke spews forth from America’s universities in frenzied devotion to literal raping—along with torture, murder, beheading, kidnapping, and livestreaming the whole affair. October’s Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll asked Americans whether they side with Israel or Hamas in the ongoing conflict. (Israel versus Hamas, not Israel versus Palestinians.) According to the poll, 84% favor Israel and only 16% side with Hamas. However, among 18-to-24-year-olds the split is 52% for Israel and 48% for Hamas. In other words, if your child is in college and you want to guess his or her stance on Hamas, simply toss a coin; you’ll have close to a 50-50 chance of getting the correct answer. At Harvard, 30 student groups declared Israel “entirely responsible” for the attacks.

[It’s a great read, so check it out. I think it may be more deliberate than just a reversion to a megalomaniacal nature of intellectuals. Academia chose to indoctrinate and form students into chanting ideological zombies rather than learn and think for themselves. — Ed]

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