Intellectuals and their aborence for their own countries

I saw a reference this morning that made me think of George Orwell's famous essay, England, Your England. He had so many wonderful essays, it is difficult to keep them all fresh in mind.

The whole essay is worth reading, but this passage was the one I recalled and recollected to me the similarities between the betrayal of our lazy intellectual class today, with their Critical Theory/Social Justice obsession and the similar pattern of events among British intellectuals during the run-up up to World War II.

In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British. It is questionable how much effect this had, but it certainly had some. If the English people suffered for several years a real weakening of morale, so that the Fascist nations judged that they were ‘decadent’ and that it was safe to plunge into war, the intellectual sabotage from the Left was partly responsible. Both the New Statesman and the News Chronicle cried out against the Munich settlement, but even they had done something to make it possible. Ten years of systematic Blimp-baiting affected even the Blimps themselves and made it harder than it had been before to get intelligent young men to enter the armed forces. Given the stagnation of the Empire, the military middle class must have decayed in any case, but the spread of a shallow Leftism hastened the process.

There was a very specific instance of what Orwell is describing eight years before the essay and almost certainly being alluded to by him. It was the infamous King and Country Debate held on February 9th, 1933 at The Oxford Union Society. The motion presented, "This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country," passed at 275 votes for the motion and 153 against it. The motion would later be named "the Oxford Oath" or "the Oxford Pledge".

It shocked the establishment that the gilded intellectual youth were so beguiled by the ephemeral promises of Communism and pacifism and the intellectual seductiveness of being bold and transgressive that there were willing to deny their own community or any allegiance to it.

I saw a study many years ago that took note of the debate and mentioned that a large number of the 275 did in fact serve their nation in World War II.

Back to Orwell.

It is clear that the special position of the English intellectuals during the past ten years, as purely negative creatures, mere anti-Blimps, was a by-product of ruling-class stupidity. Society could not use them, and they had not got it in them to see that devotion to one's country implies ‘for better, for worse’. Both Blimps and highbrows took for granted, as though it were a law of nature, the divorce between patriotism and intelligence. If you were a patriot you read Blackwood's Magazine and publicly thanked God that you were ‘not brainy’. If you were an intellectual you sniggered at the Union Jack and regarded physical courage as barbarous. It is obvious that this preposterous convention cannot continue. The Bloomsbury highbrow, with his mechanical snigger, is as out-of-date as the cavalry colonel. A modern nation cannot afford either of them. Patriotism and intelligence will have to come together again. It is the fact that we are fighting a war, and a very peculiar kind of war, that may make this possible.

Intellectuals "as purely negative creatures, mere anti-Blimps, was a by-product of ruling-class stupidity" seems such a close description of today.

Intellectuals as purely negative creatures, mere anti-racists, a by-product of Mandarin Class stupidity - seems a close paraphrase of our current moment.

Now, as then, the most privileged and protected in our society, those at the heart of epistemic exercise who are supposed to be pursuing truth (academia and mainstream media) have instead abandoned their duties and become Orwellian intellectuals, sneering at the nation and the other classes, glorying in holding violent and evil ideas while preening their moral authority. 2020 does feel like 1939.

We have been here before, where the intellectuals of the nation abandon and turn against, seeking to destroy the people and culture which brought them the sinecures they enjoy.

I am eager to see the downfall of the sheltered autocrats, deplatformers, the tautological racists, the coercers. And hopefully without another war.

It was from another of his essays but the quote is pertinent.

There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.