Intellectuals, Fools, and Knaves

Intellectuals, that important and well-known group, made their mark in 1898: after the legendary Dreyfus Affair, progressive members of society spoke out against the unjust accusation of treason against French General Staff officer Alfred Dreyfus, criticizing the actions of the government and the judiciary. On this occasion, 1,500 writers, scientists, journalists, and students published a collective petition in the newspaper Aurore in support of the wrongly convicted man, titled “Protest.” This document went down in history as the “Manifesto of the Intellectuals,” giving new life to the term itself.

Thus, a new force entered the political arena—one capable of generating and developing ideas, setting norms, and defining cultural values for the rest of society. But the most amusing part is that, at the same time, along with the “Dreyfusards” (supporters of Dreyfus—these very intellectuals), the “anti-Dreyfusards” (opponents of Dreyfus, who justified the government’s actions) also began to make themselves heard, adopting the methods of their rivals: publishing petitions, giving passionate speeches, running press campaigns, and so on. In short, almost simultaneously with the left-wing intellectuals, right-wing intellectuals emerged. Since then, the division between left and right among progressive, civically engaged members of society—those trying to draw the government’s attention to public opinion—has become a tradition for intellectual elites worldwide. The Dreyfus Affair is long forgotten, but others have taken the stage.

Thus, humanity’s tendency toward binary thinking—“either-or”—became entrenched in the intellectual sphere, where, it would seem, the favorite categories of “black and white,” “good and bad,” “left and right” should have no power, if only because a true intellectual should always be interested in the truth, and as we know, there is only one truth. Jean-Paul Sartre once expressed this idea well:

If you want an example of the general concept of an intellectual, I would say that “intellectuals” are not the scientists who work on splitting the atom to improve weapons for atomic war—they are just scientists, nothing more. But if those same scientists, frightened by the destructive power of the weapons they are creating, come together and write a manifesto warning against the use of the atomic bomb, they become intellectuals. First, they step outside their area of expertise: building a bomb is one thing, condemning its use is quite another. Second, they abuse their fame and authority, influencing the public while hiding the unbridgeable gap between their scientific knowledge and their political (based on entirely different principles) assessment of the weapon they are developing. Third, they condemn the use of the bomb not because of its technical flaws, but in the name of a highly debatable value system, the highest of which is human life.

Perhaps it is this division between left and right intellectuals that eventually led both sides to abandon the ideals of truth and justice, instead serving the ideals of sophistry, rhetorical battles, and fighting dissent—becoming more like those whom Socrates called “philodoxes” (“lovers of opinion”). This trait of the intellectual elite was noted as early as the first third of the 20th century by Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci:

Most such people, when everything is already done, prefer to discuss the collapse of ideals, the final failure of programs, and other equally pleasant things. In this way, they again avoid any responsibility. And not because they don’t understand what’s happening or are unable to sometimes offer excellent solutions to the most urgent problems, or those that, although requiring serious preparation and time, are just as pressing. However, these solutions remain magnificent but fruitless, their contribution to collective life lacking a glimmer of moral light—it is merely a product of intellectual curiosity, not a sharp sense of historical responsibility, which requires everyone to be active in life and does not allow for any kind of agnosticism or indifferent detachment.

What else is there to add? It seems things are only getting worse. If only all this were limited to empty talk and fruitless ideas, for which the more thoughtful have long criticized the chatterboxes among the clever, but the rhetoric of the modern “intellectual” (as every other journalist and every first public figure surely considers themselves) increasingly resembles outright manipulation. It is no longer satisfied with speculative knowledge alone, but tries to draw as many people as possible into the emotional vortex of its ideology.

Wasn’t this exactly what the famous French philosopher, psychiatrist, and intellectual icon of his time, Jacques Lacan, warned about back in the 1950s?

Jacques Lacan: Left and Right Intellectuals

Lacan, a follower of Freud, believed that the modern era had reached a true dead end: ideals are dubious, and the rules, systems, and utopias that fill the field of politics inspire no trust. Reflecting during one of his seminars on “right” and “left” intellectuals, he came to a disappointing conclusion: both are complete fools, and choosing between them and their positions is hardly possible, because “a knave is worth a fool” (he called the left “fools” and the right “knaves”):

As we noted, there have long existed two different phenomena—the left intellectual and the right intellectual. I’d like to offer definitions for both, which may seem harsh at first, but will help clarify the direction we should take.

“Fool,” or, in other words, “simpleton”—a word I’m quite fond of—only roughly describes something for which the English language and literature have developed, in my view, a much more valuable term. A whole tradition, beginning with Chaucer and flourishing in the Elizabethan theater, grew around the term “fool.”

The “fool” is a harmless simpleton, but through his mouth, truths are spoken that are not only tolerated by others but sometimes even put into practice, since the fool is sometimes endowed with the marks of a jester. This blessed shade, this underlying behavior of “foolery”—that’s what gives value to the left intellectual in my eyes.

To this quality, I would oppose what the same tradition offers as its modern counterpart, often paired with it—the term “knave.”

In some cases, “knave” is translated as “servant,” but that hardly exhausts its meaning. A knave is not a cynic, who still has something heroic about him. Rather, he is what Stendhal called a “scoundrel”—essentially, Mr. Anybody, only perhaps a bit bolder than the rest.

Everyone knows that part of the right intellectual’s ideology is to present himself as exactly what he is—a knave, a person who does not stop at the consequences of the so-called “realistic” view of things. In other words, he is ready, when necessary, to admit that he is a knave.

What’s interesting here are the results. In the end, a knave is worth a fool—he is, at the very least, just as amusing. The trouble is that when knaves band together, they inevitably turn into a herd of fools. That’s why right-wing ideology leads to such disastrous results in politics.

Let’s also pay attention to a not-so-obvious thing—the peculiar effect of chiasmus, consisting in the fact that the “foolery” characteristic of the left intellectual ends in collective knavery, group knaves.

Well, you can’t say it any better. You might ask, what’s the point of all this? Just some musings. More than 50 years have passed since Lacan’s lectures, and it seems there are only more knaves and fools now—all of them considering themselves true intellectuals, each participating in the formation of public opinion, left or right—and it seems to matter less and less. Turn on the TV, listen to the buzzing for a couple of minutes, and turn it off forever if collective knavery isn’t your thing.