American Intellects

Margarita Nieto’s excellent column (“The Intelligentsia Is Anti-Intellect,” Commentary, June 30) accurately describes the declining state of intellectual discourse in America, and notes one of its main features. “Intellectuals, like politicians . . . become masters of the commonplace, priding themselves on their mediocre and simplistic self-presentation. . . .” Intellectuals are talking about the world in banal terms, abusing their leadership function. But there’s another dimension to this problem that needs to be added to Nieto’s analysis--the fashion in intellectual talk is undemocratic. Professor Henry Giroux has said in a recent article (Educational Researcher, May 1992) that “the discourse of leadership appears trapped in a vocabulary in which the estimate of a good society is expressed in indices that measure markets, defense systems, and the gross national product. Missing in this discourse is a vocabulary for talking about and creating democratic public cultures and communities. . . .”

From this perspective, Dan Quayle appears to be trapped in the same cul-de-sac of irrelevant “leader-talk” as are his enemies in the “cultural elite.” Discussing the things Giroux proposes might be a good way of transcending the “mediocre and simplistic” intellectualism Nieto complains about.

SAMUEL DAY FASSBINDER

Claremont