Conservative historian Paul Johnson wears his ideology proudly on his sleeve in this often ruthless dissection of the thinkers and artists who (in his view) have shaped modern Western culture, having replaced some 200 years ago "the old clerisy as the guides and mentors of mankind." Taking on the likes of Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Lillian Hellman, and Noam Chomsky in turn, Johnson examines one idol after another and finds them all to have feet of clay. In his account, for instance, Ernest Hemingway emerges as an artistic hero who labored endlessly to forge a literary style unmistakably his own, but also as a deeply flawed man whose concern for the perfect phrase did not carry over to a concern for the women who loved him. Gossipy and sharply opinionated, Johnson's essay in cultural history spares no one.
Does it really matter that Henrik Ibsen was vain and arrogant, that Jean-Paul Sartre was incontinent? In Johnson's view, it does: these all-too-human foibles disqualify them, and other thinkers, from presuming to criticize the shortcomings of society. "Beware intellectuals," he concludes (though, given the subjects of his book, it seems he means intellectuals only of the left). "Not only should they be kept well away from the levers of power, they should also be objects of particular suspicion when they seek to offer collective advice." Whether one agrees or not, Johnson's profiles are frequently amusing and illuminating, as when he suggests that the only proletarian Karl Marx ever knew in person was the poor maid who worked for him for decades and was never paid, except in room and board, for her labors.
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出自本书最后一段： 我们的探讨现在要结束了，从世俗的知识分子开始取代旧式的神职人员，成为人类的引路人和导师，至今正好是两百年左右。对于那些力图教导人类的知识分子，我们已经查看了他们当中的许多个案，考察了他们是否具有完成这一任务的道德和判断力的资格。我们特别...
评分 评分想必作者肯定不喜欢尼采的超人思想吧？ 作者所谓的知识分子“抽象”思考的人，是保罗定义为作者本人必须符合其“抽象”思考的人的未来类型。 尼采的超人思想是追求的一种人的类型，是超越现在的未来人，他高屋建瓴的仰望的未来的人的类型，而不是现存的人。保罗真是误导了广大...
评分Somebody once said our eyes do not show a lack of sense of beauty, but a lack of discovery. Apparently, it's an undoubtful guide to Paul Johnson and his controversial book Intellectuals, only what he want to discover is not beauty, but scandals and gossips....
评分出自本书最后一段： 我们的探讨现在要结束了，从世俗的知识分子开始取代旧式的神职人员，成为人类的引路人和导师，至今正好是两百年左右。对于那些力图教导人类的知识分子，我们已经查看了他们当中的许多个案，考察了他们是否具有完成这一任务的道德和判断力的资格。我们特别...
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关于马克思那篇中文版删除。
评分关于马克思那篇中文版删除。
评分以记者的笔法写伟人八卦 有趣 有料 也有偏见
评分以记者的笔法写伟人八卦 有趣 有料 也有偏见
评分以记者的笔法写伟人八卦 有趣 有料 也有偏见
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